‘The Horrors of Kwiksave’ is a candid recollection of my memories working at Kwiksave (the now-defunct discount supermarket chain) as a 'Stock Lad'.
I wasted over FOUR years of my life in this maggot-infested hellhole and still occasionally wake up drenched in sweat after enduring a nightmare in which I am working there still.
Some of the names have been slightly changed simply to save my arse in case anyone takes offence at some of the details regarding my facts or opinions.
Many of the people mentioned are now dead as this happened so long ago, but their siblings are not.
This is the 'HIVE Special Edition' of a multi-part autobiographical story (with a little over-embellishment on some of the details) I posted on STEEM over 2 years ago.
It contains a LOT more detail and content than the original and will fill in many gaps that were missed the first time around.
Chapter One: A Prelude to the Best Job in the Land
Chapter Two: The Job Centre
Chapter Three: The Interview
Chapter Four: Christmas is Coming
Chapter Five: The Changing of the Blades
Chapter Six: The Staff
Chapter Seven: The Auxiliary Staff and The Load
Chapter Eight: The Sugar Maniac
Chapter Nine: The Accusation and "Big Lad"
'WARNING: BAD LANGUAGE BELOW'
On yet another boring, monotonous, thrill-filled day I was filling up the butter section. In those days, butter mostly came packed in that silver or gold wrapping although those big plastic tubs did exist.
Using my stock knife, I slashed the top of the box damaging the packs of Lurpack butter in the process.
Source
This always happened and the damages section was persistently full of butter due to my negligence. To tell you the truth, I didn’t give a crap, and Mort didn’t seem to care or notice either.
Or did he?....
The Accusation
A red-faced Mort came storming down one of the aisle’s making a beeline for me. It was early, the store was not busy but there were a few customers about.
I hurriedly covered up the top of the butter box hoping he would not notice using little subtlety.
There was never a, “How are things going”, or “Good Morning” or even the slightest glimmer of a smile but if Mort had one redeeming trait, he was always straight to the point.
Source
“Why didn’t you tell me you had a criminal record”, he demanded loudly enough for heads to turn.
So much for subtlety, that was the Mort style.
The accusation caught me by surprise but as I knew I had done nothing wrong, I figured I could talk my way out of this one.
What did shock me was that it had taken Kwiksave seven months to perform a simple basic criminal record check?
After explaining in my most sincere voice about Carrot, the interview and application form in earshot of several very nosey customers all listening with great interest to the drama, he gave me a long suspicious glare with those squinty eyes of his.
The silence lingered uncomfortably…., was this my time to be sacked?
I could visibly see the mental computation going through his head as those eyes bored into mine looking for any sign of weakness or guilt, and after what seemed like a full minute Mort made his decision.
“Well… we will have to keep you because you are trained up”, he piped up gruffly adding, “I’ll be calling Carrot to verify your story so you had better not be lying”
After so much mental deliberation and exertion, he strode back to the office most likely to put his feet up and have a nap.
He couldn’t get rid of me and knew it. He would have to do some work, and getting suckers like me to do almost all of it was nigh impossible.
I heard no more about the criminal record check.
"Big Lad"
Mort’s wife and kid used to visit sometimes. How this abhorrent, bullying tyrant had managed to charm ANY woman was quite beyond me but I could see it was so.
I can’t recall if she was a biffer, a babe, or something in between, most likely she was unremarkable.
The kid was a boy, appeared to be around 1.5-2 years old and like any father, he was insanely proud of his son.
“Big lad isn’t he”, he would say to me while adoringly watching his toddler grab a pack of bog rolls and throw them down the aisle followed by another and then another.
I don’t know how many times he said, “Big lad”, but it was like his mouth had gotten stuck, much like a defective piece of vinyl.
In response, I would generally generate a grunt, secretively roll my eyes and look completely bored. At the age of 18, I didn’t give a shit about Mort’s “Big lad”, and why was he suddenly talking to me?
“Tidy up that aisle…, get on with it”, he demanded after a few minutes suddenly noticing his darling little sprog had emptied around 20 packs of rolls all over the floor.
I suppose I should have felt lucky the little shit had not been throwing full jars of jam.
To be continued...
Cover Picture is a combination of free sources from here and here, combined and edited with Luminar 4. Any unsourced images are my own.
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