Nine things you can do wrong working at a grocery store

1. Sell 6 bottles of beer as 63 bottles of beer 'cause your fingers slip. Luckily the cotumer said "no, i'm not paying that much" and i fond out.
2. Sell a 6'er of beer (6X1 bottle) as 36 bottles of beer because you do 6X6. This costumer baught it, looked at the receet and got her money back - a lot of money.
3. Ask people for ID when they're buying non-alcoholic drinks (in todays case, a 4-pack of Burn energy drink). I got rather red.
4. Not ask people about my age for ID when they are buying alcoholic drinks. I do this very little, but somtimes my mind slips.
5. Ask somone who could be my father for ID. I've asked a guy aged 32.
6. Mistype when somone i making a whithdrawal of 300 NOK, so that you accidentally withdraw 8000 NOK from their account. That's a bad one! Luckily i had enough money in the register, but if it'd been a less bussy day, i don't even know what i'd do.
7. Yawn loudly. I didn't think any much of it before somone else said i couldn't do that.
8. Throwing away the receet, get asked for it, and ask the costumer if they would like to look trough the trashcan. I didn't intend it rude, didn't undertand that it was, before the manager took me aside the day after and told me that he had got a complaint from a costumer and that he was very angry and that if i did it one more time, i could easily loose my job.
9. Write a note to the manager that i'm gone from 31st of october till 3rd of november, and instead write 3rd of may so the manager goes and hires a new person because he thinks i'll be gone for half a year.

Work takes all my social time

I'm not too sure if it's worth it. Currently my work is eating all my social time. I'm at school full-day, and then i'm at work for 4 hours. Around 9 in the evening i've got time to start doing something for myself, and guess what... I've got no energy for it, there's no time, and it's really too late anyways. Last week i worked all workdays but one, this week i was supposed to do the same. However, though today was supposed to be my free day, and i even had plans for it; Guess what? I get a phonecall that somone is sick and they really need me at work today. Bah! These were the slowest 4 hours at work so far, when i had my mind all set on free time. And this sunday, wich is the universal free day, the store has a ware-counting, so i'm at work sunday too!

Sure, it could be worse. I could be without a job and not getting enough hours, then i would be sereously in trouble. And! Next week i'm going to Ukraine. The week after that is spring vecation. Do you think i'm looking forwards to it? I'm not having a bad time at all right now, i'm just letting out steam because all this work is more than i've bargined for.

Seems i have a job

I've been placing a lot of job applications for next year, so i can defend my car, apartment and schooling. Recently i got a phone call from Coop Mega, a grocery store, who said flat-out that they were interested in me. No talk of interviews or anything, just simply "we're very interested, call us when you know when you can come for initial training." So, scrap anyone that requires a interview unless they are particularly interesting. I've got a job! I'll quite likely be able to go the next year without gravely increasing my loan, and this henceforth is one big step closer to my freedom in living! Training starts 13th of august. 

I've thought about that selling alcohol in stores thing. I've, actually, already done something similar. Though i don't pour alcohol in peoples glass at the restaurant, i've accepted payment for alcohol that guests have already consumed or have requested themselves when i've been tending the register. This is not the active selling part, but more the control-part. This is where i check that they are of age. Though, in the store situation, it also is where the ownership of the alcohol is transferred. But it is not like me not doing this would make a difference to the positive. It could be someone in the register less vigilant about asking for ID. What i would not want to do, and this is a minimal thing that i am sure the store could be able to accept, is to restock the alcohol shelves in the store. That is actively making it more possible to sell alcohol, and something i would not want to do. If the store don't accept this, i'll probably be very displeased.

If to serve alcohol

As a sober person who believes that alcohol is the cause of too many evils for individuals and for the society, and henceforth has chosen to stay away from it myself – how can I justify me serving or selling alcohol? Where do I draw the line as to what I can and cannot do?

I've been working this summer at a hotel with a restaurant and a bar. From the very start I told the proprietors that I did not want to serve alcohol, and to my surprise they accepted it and I have now worked there about a month without even touching alcohol, accept for cleaning it up afterwards. The other people there has accepted it and does not complain about it, accept for one time when I was asked to go bring up a case of wine to the bar. The girl who asked me to do so was tired and overworked and could not do it herself, and I considered it for a while, but finally decided against it. If I had brought it, I would have quite directly been the cause of that wine being served. That not really any better then pouring it in the glass myself.

Is that being too strict? I've also preveously denied people to borrow my lemonade to mix it with spirits, and I would deny to buy wine from the city to mother (In Norway, wine is only sold in dedicated shops in the city.) I'm always saying in Norwegian that “Ska det vær, så ska det vær” - If it is going to be that way, it is going to be that way. I can't do it half-way, that would be rather worthless.

But I have to admit, I have my problems here, and I was lucky that these people accepted me not serving alcohol. When I first heard about this job possibility, I was told that I would have to serve alcohol. This was the only chance I had on getting a job because I had a early vacation and was outside of regular summer job time. So I considered it, and it gave me many restless whiles, weighing for and against. I really needed the money, but I really didn't want to serve alcohol. I finally decided that I would try it if I had to, and quit if it didn't feel right. I think I would have quit after a little while, but I was lucky and the proprietors accepting it.

But now the problem is arising again. Next year I am going to need a job. A supermarket has asked me back for a second interview, and that might force me to sell beer next year. In ways, it is more scary in a supermarket – in the hotel, the alcohol goes to dinner guests or people in bars. In a supermarket, the beer might as well be going to a rapist who is going to use the alcohol to drug down hes next victim, or it might be sold on to thirteen year olds, or maybe it'll be someones first beer? I'll have a big inner discussion before I accept that job. I hope I won't have to, and that I can get a job somewhere else instead.

Me where i don't belong;