5.45am

6th Dec.
With all the excitement of getting our Christmas tree on Friday night I completely forgot to say that I’d had my Induction at Tesco in the morning.
It was simultaneously depressing - chaotic, disorganised and a bit pointless, and fascinating - going through those ‘staff only’ flappy doors and seeing behind the scenes. Warehouse and freezers stacked full to bursting with boxes and cages full of boxes and crates and pallets.
When I left they weren’t sure when I’d be starting but they called later to say I was on the system and I’d be starting first thing Sunday.
On the way back from Harry Potter yesterday we stopped at Tesco in Aylesbury and I picked up some black jeans and a Christmas jumper to go with the clompy, ugly black trainers I ordered from Sports Direct the other day.
So today was the day. I had a terrible night fretting about not waking up at 5.20am. The result was I hardly slept a wink and was proper wide awake at 4.30am!!!
Mr K came down just before I left at 5.40am to give me a kiss and a good luck hug. He’s ace!!!
It only takes a few minutes to drive to the shop so I was there by ten to six.
I went down to the Dot.com section in the warehouse not knowing what to expect and met the manager there. At least I assumed he was the manager, he didn’t really say a word to me. When a young woman appeared with one of the trolleys the pickers use he drawled in a voice that said he couldn’t be less interested “you’re training”
And to me “she’ll show you what to do”
Wow.
“She” (I still don’t know her name) was actually very nice and off we went into the shop to pick an order.
I assumed it was one order and was totally baffled why someone would order 4x four pints of semi skimmed milk, a pint of whole, a litre of skimmed Cravendale and two pints of skimmed.
It turns out the pickers (we!!!!!) pick multiple orders at the same time. Who knew?!!
The scanner thing tells you the location (aisle, left or right side, shelf section in the aisle, shelf and lastly position on the shelf. For example Warburtons crumpets would be something like 13L 3 C (third shelf up) 2 (second item along)
The key apparently is to follow that precisely rather than looking for actual items.
Then you scan the item and then it tells you which colour tray to put it in. The trays are all the same colour (the ones your shopping comes in!) but there are colour coded barcodes on the side of the trolley. Orange and yellow are virtually indistinguishable and if you get it wrong the scanner beeps really annoyingly.
Ditto if you scan the wrong item or don’t scan enough of them or scan it too many times what it thinks you should be scanning the trolley.
Uuggggghhhh!!!
When you’ve finished you got back to the warehouse, scan a barcode thing on the wall, dump your trolley off, get a new one, scan all the trays, scan the barcode thing on the wall and set off again.
All pretty straightforward. Apart from all the chuffing beeping when you get something wrong.
I did three or four orders with her and then was let loose by myself. I found it much less stressful without an audience!
She’d said something which rang alarm bells - that she was leaving at 9.30am to go to her other job but normally stayed until the end.
When you say ‘the end’.....? I asked.
We stay until the last order’s picked, she said. Usually between 12 and 1pm but on a really bad day it can be up to 3pm.
I’m sorry what??????? 9.45am was my expected departure time!
At the interview he’d mentioned being available until up to 1pm but implied it was occasional and asked about in advance.
Apparently not.
I left at 1230 not knowing I should have had a break after four hours. Nobody tells you anything!
I slumped home, slumped on the sofa, dragged myself up to the bath, felt jetlagged all day - like it was bedtime at 3pm.
Not great. But not so awful I won’t do it again.