Persian cucumbers or bust

My first month or so at The Shipyard now behind me, there are a few things I have learned.

Working the early morning shift means two things, primarily: I never, ever will have time to down a cup of coffee before sprinting to catch the bus at 5:45am. Second, the customers who arrive promptly when the store opens are, for the most part, on the ripe side of 60 and tend to pay in exact change that’s plucked from a tired looking Ziploc baggie.

They are also the decorated veterans of grocery shopping. They know what they’re looking for, how they would like their things bagged (“in a plastic bag, inside of a paper, and then inside of this reusable one I brought please.”) and they know that you will never completely understand what they mean. “I know this cereal is here,” one woman told me, a determined and flustered cloud settling over her head. “I always get it here.”

Now, this is probably true. She looks like she has her wits about her, and her nails are long and pink and sharp looking. Her earrings tell me she has money, and people with money are always right when it comes to things like cereal, right? This is when we smile and nod and offer to check in the back to see if the item is temporarily out of stock.

Magic words, people. Now, I’m not insinuating that I want the search for a specific kind of cereal to be unsuccessful, not at all. However, I’ve found that helping people in this setting gives you about .003 seconds to determine if the customer is going to be difficult.

The other day I was working in the produce section, unloading cartons of strawberries onto the shelf, when a confused looking elderly gentleman approached me.

“The smaller cucumbers,” he says.

I give him my best quizzical customer service eyebrows and put down the box of strawberries.

“They are…smaller. Than these.” He points disgustedly at the normal sized cucumbers nestled innocently next to the broccoli and zucchini.

“Oh, the Persian cucumbers?” I ask. “They should be right over…”

I turn to where these lovely varietals usually sit, and find nothing. “You know what? It looks like we might be out of them for today,” I tell him. “But we might have some more coming out. Would you like me to check in the back?”

He says nothing, just stares for a second. He turns and walks away.

“Aaand that’s a no,” I mutter as I return to my strawberries. Chef, a coworker next to me putting up another box, snorts out a laugh and we went back to work. No more than five minutes later, the gentleman was escorted back to us by another coworker, who informed us he was looking for Persian cucumbers. Apparently the man had taken it upon himself to search the back stockroom himself for this salad staple and had been promptly redirected back onto the floor.

By this point, Chef had a box of standard cucumbers in front of him, and was stacking them a few at a time. The man hovered over his shoulder for a second, huffing a few open-mouthed breaths, then, seeing the cucumber he wanted in Chef’s box, reached down over him and snapped it from the pile. He tossed the cucumber in his basket and shuffled away.

Now, to be clear, I love the customers who come through the Shipyard. But this is mostly standard behavior, it seems, and to be expected if you’re putting up something like a box of new green bananas. People expect the very best produce, and will sniff it out faster than sharks in blood-infested waters.

When it comes to feeding ourselves, we take no prisoners. And absolutely nothing is going to prevent us from finding that cereal that we know is there. Nothing, you hear me?