A Bored Merchandiser’s Sudden Burst Into Life
How one spillage made me question everything
During college, I had this job, as many do, to supplement or simply provide some disposable income. Living at home, rent-free, on the assumption that when I graduate and become employed, a slightly lower than the standard crippling rental fee would duly be imposed and I would not take off for pastures new immediately (I did take off for pastures new immediately).
I’m in the throes of a four-hour shift, and not the salacious kind, merchandising in the homeware department. Until now, I had no idea that merchandising could be so banal despite the obvious connotations that such a marketing strategy should be otherwise. Surely one is trying to entice a customer by using a new, original, and creative strategy that Debenhams next door, or Next, not necessarily next door but further down the high street, did not yet think off.
Instead, I meander throughout the aisles as slowly as a grazing animal. Straightening and fixing ‘merch’ that will inevitably be knocked over, tilted sideways, or — if it's oil for example — that a haphazard, bespectacled, middle-aged man, in keeping with the bumbling male stereotype, will undoubtedly come in and knock. This would then necessitate that the famous yellow cone is removed from the warehouse unceremoniously and sprawled out on the floor. A warning to anyone who cannot see the dark blue and black liquid contrasting so sharply with the yellow linen floor.
But there’s more, should the myriad of customers, grazing even more slowly than I, fail to see said spillage, they are in luck. For they will be greeted with the pronouncement written clearly in black, as it happens, in contrast to the yellow body of the sign, ‘CAUTION — WET FLOOR’. Although, if one fails to notice the initial contrast between the oil and the floor, it may not be desirable for the manufacturers of such a sign to waste time and effort on further contrasting.
Don’t get me started on the colorblind, this itself opens up a whole host of new issues that one would not necessarily have the time to comprehend over the course of a four-hour shift. Take it from me then, that the majority of our customers are sufficiently evolutionarily developed to be able to comprehend the pitiful mess before them and to act accordingly.
Wouldn’t it then be an insult to their intelligence, having got so far, to have to be warned to take caution? If the sign also signaled that the floor was wet? Wouldn’t a yellow cone by itself suffice? As an elderly woman and, presumably her daughter, now cautiously approach, I can tell that they have a relatively solid (as opposed to liquid) understanding of the potential hazard that lies before them.
And I should hope that they understand how unnecessary it is for the sign to remark that the floor is wet. I should hope that the results of spilled liquid are still moist afterward. The trouble now is to ensure that said moist aftermath does not in fact entail tears.
The younger woman grips her mother’s hand and they grind to a shuddering halt, at least by the standards of the already-slow pace they were meandering up their preceding path. What? Ain’t you ever seen spilled oil before? And it is unusual to see women in this corner of the shop, while usually a welcome respite, the age bracket of these folk burn away any erotic interest of my own.
Perhaps they got lost, just a mother and daughter out for a Sunday stroll, or is it Mother’s Day? F*ck. Is it Mother’s Day? I have a mother too you see. It can’t be, no, that was last year. But it’s an annual event! Relax, management still hasn’t decided to fully remove the last remnants of the Christmas stock.
But now I can see that the younger gal has clearly envisioned the potential disaster should her feeble older mother slip and slide in such squelchy slime. And she would go down faster than she’d come up. Would the legs shoot up, cartoon-style, turning the tartan skirt upside down amid a plethora of sobs and desperate cries for help?
And what does an old woman, newly acquainted with pain, sound like? I’ve never heard such a noise. Could it be that, due to their age, they make no sound? For they lack the energy? No, I’m not an ageist, I am merely wondering. Cancel culture cannot cancel my thoughts. I need them to kill the monotony.
The older woman looked up for the first time, presumably not since 1987, and glared, a piercing glare.
Despite all the aforementioned, and as the trepidation rose within me, I still had the temerity, to say to them: ‘Be careful there, you might slip’. The older woman looked up for the first time, presumably not since 1987, and glared, a piercing glare. She was definitely an autocratic teacher in a past life. Maybe she deserves to meet the oil up close and personal. Penance for the sins of a previous life. And she replied, ‘Well, I wasn’t intending on going for a swim in it’.
No, the bloody sign wasn’t needed.
