[nggallery id=272]

by Hannah Bredar

When standing in a grocery store, the mood can change very fast. It can go from dead silence except elevator music playing over the intercom, the noise of squeaky wheels on grocery carts moving around, the sound of electric doors opening and closing as someone walks by, and with nobody in line. To customers coming out of nowhere, hearing the constant beeping of price tags and crinkling of plastic bags, the sight of lines getting longer by the minute and the common phrase that you hear from baggers asking, “Paper or Plastic?” in under ten seconds. That tells you how busy a grocery store can become, especially when it is nearing dinner time. Sometimes it is very busy with ten or more people in line at the checkout and sometimes there can be no customers in sight. A custard shop can sometimes be the same, but it can also be very different because it is much smaller. It can go from packed with customers when you can barely hear yourself think to quiet silence except for the hum of the custard processor. When you walk in the door of Foo’s Frozen Custard your nostrils are overwhelmed with the sweet smell of custard, hot fudge, and other toppings. Freshman Basil Burnette, sophomore Beth Dudley, and freshman Fee Pauwels work at these stores. They deal with hectic and chaotic people that are hustle and bustling around to finish their errands and get things done. And they have to deal with these people on the weekends when they have to miss hanging out with friends.

Burnette describes her work at Cosentino’s Market as boring and tiring. When she gets her schedule and sees she is working late on the weekend her reaction isn’t too good. Burnette goes to her shift because she can’t do anything about it, but sometimes she isn’t excited to do it. She said she isn’t very happy when she sees her late shift so she plans things with friends before because she can’t do anything after. Burnette doesn’t like working at Cosentino’s because you always have to be doing something whether it be sacking groceries, putting away milk bottles, or getting carts.

Dudley, who also works at Cosentino’s, doesn’t think working is bad when other people she knows are working with her, but she doesn’t prefer working on weekend nights because she “has better things to do.”

“I think working with nice people or people I know makes my shift a lot easier and it goes a lot faster,” Dudley said.

When employees are waiting for customers to come their way and checkout they have casual conversations about how their weekend has been or what happened in school that week. This was an overheard conversation in Cosentino’s:

Cashier: “So what are you doing this weekend?”

Bagger: “I have tons of homework and I have to work a lot. Do you have a lot of homework?”

Cashier: “Well kinda, but I have a project due on Tuesday to this crazy English teacher.”

These are the conversations that keep workers moving during their shift without falling asleep when there are no customers in sight.

Dudley described that late Saturday nights there aren’t that many people there because that isn’t necessarily the “prime time” to get groceries. The only people that are actually there are customers making last minute runs on things like coffee or pie and groups of teenagers that are getting food.

Pauwels who works at Foo’s Frozen Custard said it is a cool place to work but she has had to close the shop with a couple other people around, which means she works a long shift. One night, Pauwels had to work from 2-10 pm when she took a double shift.

“It was so boring and tiring that [my friends] came over and hung out with me a little,” Pauwels said.

Pauwels said she gets a good amount of break time between the waves of customers that come in. When there aren’t any customers in the store the workers there talk about other people that work there, funny stories that have happened during their shifts, like when the custard machine exploded and all the custard spilled out, or things they are doing that weekend.

Even though these girls have to miss hanging out with their friends on weekends, they go home with the satisfaction that they have earned money that they can spend in the future with their friends.