Supermarket Superhero

“I’ve messed up your display.” The elderly woman says as she takes a bunch of bananas that I just took out of the case and stacked on the display.

I smile at her kindly and reply, “I put that there just for you.”

She returns my smile, and her eyes twinkle a little as she carries on with her shopping. I return to assembling a pyramid from the rest of the pallet of bananas, grinning to myself.

I’m a lead produce clerk at a grocery store, the assistant to the manager of our department. A job of service, and I often get customer comments like the one I just shared. Apologies for buying the food I am putting out for them. I make it pretty, for them. The nicer a display looks, the faster it sells. If the food is just thrown up there in a haphazard pile, it gets overlooked and something else will get purchased instead.

I make Art of Work… not just a work of art, but a daily dedication to the beauty of ordinary things, your food.

Why do I love doing this? Some people would say that the service industry is fraught with challenges and rude customers and mundane tasks. I LOVE what I do!

I will be filling a display of apples and half of it will tumble down. A concerned customer will come over to me with sympathy and help me pick them up off the floor. “Oh the art of stacking round things!” I will mirthfully muse to them as they hand me the runaway fruit. This usually elicits a chuckle from the helpful customer. I just brightened their day, and all I did was make light of what could have been a frustrating situation.

The wet rack where our lettuce, cilantro, carrots, parsley and radishes live, gets watered every 15 minutes. The sounds of thunder signal a timer that turns on the automatic sprinklers. Any child within range knows exactly what that sound means, and they get to see it “rain” inside. “Mom it’s raining in here!!!” I hear from over my shoulder. I turn towards them just in time to catch the child’s attention and answer a question that wasn’t asked.

“We have to water the garden, so the greens stay fresh.” I tell her playfully. Her mother flashes me a grin as the little girl looks in wonder at the wet rack with new eyes.

I get to share in the moment of delight as I watch the sprinklers rain down on our vegetables. How simple it is, how mundane, but I just made it fun by saying something clever instead of losing the wonder of this curious child.

I have favorite produce to stack. I’ve included the pictures here. I named them all too, just as any artist would a great painting, or any other work of art they created. Avocados are the perfect building blocks because they are pear-shaped. They are not the same as pears, but rounder and have tough, sometimes bumpy skin which help them stick together in a way that locks each into place for a geometric formation of the most profound beauty. Jicama is another vegetable that has a shape I adore. Like the fine quilted stitching on a comforter, the rounded middles with a pointed top and bottom, giving them a unique appeal when stacked artfully on top one another properly. This tan root would be so boring if it were chucked in a bin carelessly. Oranges are tricky to stack, but the outcome is nothing less than perfection when the uniformly shaped citrus rests on top one another like golden hills in a sunset.

I find the beauty in simple things.

That’s my supermarket superpower.

I get to sweep every hour. It’s a standard at our store, to make cleanliness a priority. It’s important! Customers will comment on how nice our department looks and affirm that we are doing such a good job. They express how they love coming into this part of this store because it is so well maintained. What they don’t know is that the broom in my hand is not a duster on a stick, but a dance partner that I get to twirl around the floor every single hour of my shift! We twist and sway to whatever music is playing on my Youtube playlist that day. Sometimes we rock out, other times we slow dance, there are even moments when we waltz casually through the aisles like lovers. This is my world, and I get to make it as interesting as I desire. My dance partner never objects to whatever rhythm I choose for us, picking up bits of onion skins or lettuce that have fallen. Sometimes I get to peel a sticker that has adhered itself to the floor. I decorate the broom handle with them. Every department knows which broom belongs to produce because it is the only broom in the entire store (and we have at least 6) that is covered in colorful stickers with random PLU codes or even a bright orange ORGANIC sticker when I’m lucky enough to find one.

Do you know how much a bin of watermelon weighs, or a case of grapes? How many cases does it take to fill a display? How many varieties of fruits and vegetables to we stock? If you could imagine for a moment what it takes to move that much food! The quantity alone is mind-blowing. On a regular day of the week, our loads push 9,000lbs. That load is put away by hand. My team cuts away the plastic wrap, dismantles seven-foot-tall stacks on top of pallets, and methodically fills our walk-in fridge with the lot. That’s the first time we move it. After that, we have the rest of that day and the next to clear it out of there and get it stocked on the display floor. We order every two days, me and the boss that it is.

It's our job to anticipate how much of something the customers will buy. Our ad changes over every Wednesday, so there are signs and tags to hang and an estimation of what will sell well. Our order guide gets highlighted once a week that show us which products are on sale. Those items can sometimes sell in quantities of thirty cases a day, or more depending on the price. That means that we order sixty cases of that one product alone! That’s so much food, right? It’s quite impressive to consider the volume and mass of food it takes to support a community of people. You buy one or pounds of grapes. We buy one or two HUNDRED pounds of grapes. I’ve also included pictures of our load too. Can you believe how high they stack those pallets? It’s a workout. I feel like a superhero when I’m lifting all those cases and putting them away. I feel strong! Potatoes come in fifty-pound bags. Either five, ten-pound bags, or ten, five-pound bags. I had my son add up the weight of forty-five of those… yes, it’s 2, 250 pounds. I lift that every other day. Superhero workout for sure!

Did you know that celery is the #1 bought vegetable on every single holiday? I didn’t either, until I started working at the grocery store. It’s a silly little fact, but it’s something I know now, and you do too.

There are moments I must leave the safety of my department to assist a customer in another part of the store. Sometimes products are hard to find. I take the journey into the jungle of aisles housing boxes and jars, cans and cartons, to aid someone in need. I could direct them to the courtesy clerks of course, but why when I have the chance to venture out into the wild in search of an elusive item? I almost always find what they are looking for because I’m not only a worker here, but I also shop here too. I know the places to go for the hard-to-find items. There’s a specialty section right next to the produce department and the alcohol section is behind us. I often get asked where things are in other places of the store, and I have mapped this kingdom with a cartographer’s skill so I can be as helpful as possible.

I enjoy being in service and some people seek me out repeatedly because they like how I help them.

If there is drama in the workplace, it doesn’t find me. My co-workers know that I am here to do my job and my attention is for the customers, not them. I am a quiet worker. Diligent and respectful of the privacy of my co-workers and their lives outside of our supermarket biosphere. I do not bring my home life to work, and I leave work there when I come home. It is a hat I chose to wear so I can take it off when I’m no longer there.

I like that.

I can tell you that it’s fun. But that is my story. It may not be as much to other people within my work environment. I make it fun. I create that for myself, and often I am smiling the day away while damsels in distress need rescuing, or my dance partner beckons me to the floor, or I am in search of treasures in far off lands, or a weightlifting wonder.

I get to make balloons too. It’s a perk of the job and another service we offer. Whether it’s a child’s birthday party, a memorial service, or a public event, I get to be involved in a small way to make that happen. My contribution may seem small if you think of it in terms of smallness. But the adventures I get to live are enormous!

So, the next time you wander through the produce department at your local store, look at the displays. Examine the delicacy and craftmanship of the stacked food you buy. Consider what hides behind closed doors, the thousands of pounds of food waiting to go out on display and the people who lift them every day for you. When you walk through our garden, please do it with care. Pay attention to the green things “growing” against the wall, waiting for you to buy them. It is our little garden, and we tend it with love, just for you.