I have had some hilarious and memorable experiences while working at a grocery store. This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I am a major klutz. I really wish I wasn’t so klutzy and didn't do stupid things, I just can’t help it, though. To my defense, I was not trained to know some of these things when I was hired and I guess I am lucky to have some entertaining stories for all the parties I don't attend. My parents claim I was blessed with a gift of idiocy. I don't see it that way. Just for reference, all of these incidents occurred while bagging or scanning groceries and they were all accidents, trust me.
1. On my first day, I was so nervous and my hands were so shaky I could barely bag the groceries.
2. Also on my first day, I forgot to put someone's groceries in their cart after bagging them, so I hid them to avoid getting yelled at. Little did I know it's not even a big deal there because people forget groceries all the time.
3. No one told me when I was hired that I needed to ask permission to go home. So when my shift was scheduled to be over, I just clocked out on my own terms. That was until I got yelled at.
4. The one and only opening shift I was scheduled for (at six a.m.), I arrived 45 minutes late because I set my alarm for 5:15 p.m.
5. I grabbed a pack of wrapped corn on the cob to scan and threw it across my check stand onto the floor, unintentionally of course.
6. While I was scanning a hot deli chicken sandwich, I was unaware that the wrapper bag was not sealed on both ends. As I held up the bag saying, "These are so delicious!" the sandwich fell out of the bag and stuck to the scanner. It was the last sandwich left in the deli.
7. I once dropped a personal-sized watermelon on the floor and it cracked in half. Luckily it was not the last watermelon left.
8. While scanning a 12-pack of soda on the bottom of the cart, I dropped the box on its corner and soda squirted EVERYWHERE. The soda was not “diet” so It made a huge, sticky mess all around my check stand.
9. I once dropped a quarter in the receipt machine that got stuck permanently.
10. I attempted to grab a pack of blueberries from a cart and instead, you guessed it, threw them onto the floor where the pack burst open and blueberries rolled all over the place.
11. A bag of deli cheese was not sealed either so after scanning it, the cheese flew out of the bad, onto the conveyor belt.
12. I spent a while on my hands and knees picking up chicken and noodles from the spilled mess of soup a guy dropped. For once I did not drop something!
Working in a grocery store has been a whirlwind of adventures if that's what you want to call these accidents. Although these stories are slightly embarrassing, they are pretty entertaining to reminisce on. Hopefully, I grow out of this, I like to think I'm just going through a phase.
