Book info

• Title The Checkout Girl
• Author Tazeen Ahmad
• Year 2009
• Genre Non-fiction

How much do you know about what really goes on at your local supermarket? We see them every week and they are privy to some of our most intimate secrets – those we wouldn't even share with our closest friends. To us they are the anonymous helpers for whom nothing is too much trouble. But for them, every customer has a part in a gripping soap-opera of lovers' tiffs, family feuds and extraordinary innuendos – turning the daily life of a checkout girl into a hilariously entertaining farce. As we began to contend with the recession, Tazeen Ahmad realised that the supermarket checkout was the perfect place to gauge how the nation was coping with increasing job cuts, sky-high food prices and a billion pound hole in our economy. The answer, it turns out, was with white bread, ice cream and lots and lots of potatoes. Sworn at, flirted with and at the receiving end of endless customer rants, The Checkout Girl is the deliciously gossipy memoir of life on the supermarket conveyor belt where each one of us has unwittingly had a walk-on part. Reading her story will change the way you shop forever.

Thoughts

This is a weird one. Part inside scoop, part analysis of the recession, part tales of simply watching the human race pass you buy. Tazeen Ahmad spent six months working in Sainsburys, and kept a diary of her time on the tills.

I really loved this book, despite finding it hard to place. The talk of the recession wasn’t that interesting really, except for how very obvious it was to the checkout girls on the front line of the public and their spending. Seeing how people change their habits, how everyone is shocked when the register rings up the final amount, and how flippin’ obnoxious some people can be was fascinating.

The real surprise came from the inner workings of the supermarket though. I don’t want to give it all away, but the number of observations checkout staff get, how it is drilled into them to smile and chatter to every customer, it’s amazing. I don’t particularly want to chatter when I get to a checkout, but that should be my problem, not the checkout person’s. Apparently Sainsburys pushes really hard for that kind of service though, whereas other supermarkets may not. That could be why I don’t go to Sainsburys! That, or there isn‚’t a handy one nearby.

Anyway, good book, easy reading, recommended.

Rating: 3 / 5