Fallen From Grace

Failed To Be Noticed

Amongst ongoing problems in the family I also had continuous problems at work. They'd been going on for a while. I just had been trying to leave my problems at work and not take them back home compartmentalizing different sections of my life or I wouldn't have been able to deal. It was because I always got used to the saying that problems got left at my front door when I went to work and I applied that logic at work and not having it cross over to affect my home life but I was getting worried and concerned about getting passed over by not being given the opportunity to go on self scan. As simple as this was it was a huge deal to me. If I was, it would mean I was working as a team with everyone and not battling everything alone by myself.

Originally I asked Elaine at work, when I first started because she was the head of checkouts and she always tried throwing me off from doing it and I was getting tired of this way I was handled.

"The customers are a lot meaner down there," she'd previously said.

If she was really looking out for me I reassured her that it would be fine and I would handle it. She was forgetting I had worked in retail since I was fifteen. I had worked in a cafe in a department store, worked amongst their fashion and then another clothing brand when I got made redundant from the first job, and worked in another cafe at a different department store - I had all this experience and customers hadn't always been pleasant and friendly.

"I have already had customers get angry with me," I reminded her.

"They get sniper, nastier and very cruel down there."

Elaine didn't think I could do it because as the saying goes actions speak louder than words so it wasn't in my head. She may have thought as a manager she was looking out for my best interests.

"What if you pass out?" She reminds me. "We can't pull you off there quicker like a till."

"Try me out," I requested.

I realised I hadn't got to even say I felt faint to get out of doing it if it became tough.

"If you don't you'll never know if I'm good enough and if I can't do it I can't do it, but at least I'll know."

It was however the end of that conversation and I was gutted that she only promoted better people than me to do it. I had seen her do it even with new employees. Someone started who started on checkouts and then she thought they were better suited to self scan. After getting upset and angry watching others get the chance I tried piping up again. All of this felt personal because I didn't know any other way to take it.

"I would be your best worker."

Even though I was angry I knew I couldn't speak to management the way I spoke to myself at home in the mirror in the way I would have liked to. So, I kept to a pleasing register because I was well aware by now when people looked at me, people undermined me. I was five ft one, small framed with petite features with a disability and I was sick of it.

"I can do it."

Yes, the supermarket hired me knowing I had disabilities and suffered from Mosaic Syndrome, I had to disclaim them because it was the right thing to do legally but now this syndrome it was working against me.

"I'm not going to put myself forward for something I think I can't do."

I wasn't pushing beyond my means. I wanted to be noticed, not completely out there and landing myself in hot water so I didn't know how to handle things, but I knew I could do this.

"You have to problem solve," Elaine said.

"Okay."

I did manage to go on there, I tried blagging it a bit to the customers like I could help them and that I knew what I was doing but I was shown a little bit of the general idea of what to do and then I figured out the rest because I was by myself because the other girl disappeared and things were going great. I saw a colleague walking past that I knew and smiled.