‘The Horrors of Kwiksave’ is a candid recollection of my memories working at Kwiksave (the now-defunct discount supermarket chain) as a 'Stock Lad'.
I wasted over FOUR years of my life in this maggot-infested hellhole and still occasionally wake up drenched in sweat after enduring a nightmare in which I am working there still.
Some of the names have been slightly changed simply to save my arse in case anyone takes offence at some of the details regarding my facts or opinions.
Many of the people mentioned are now dead as this happened so long ago, but their siblings are not.
This is the 'HIVE Special Edition' of a multi-part autobiographical story (with a little over-embellishment on some of the details) I posted on STEEM over 3 years ago.
It contains a LOT more detail and content than the original and will fill in many gaps that were missed the first time around.
Chapter One: A Prelude to the Best Job in the Land
Chapter Two: The Job Centre
Chapter Three: The Interview
Chapter Four: Christmas is Coming
Chapter Five: The Changing of the Blades
Chapter Six: The Staff
Chapter Seven: The Auxiliary Staff and The Load
Chapter Eight: The Sugar Maniac
Chapter Nine: The Accusation and "Big Lad"
Chapter Ten: Naggy
Chapter Eleven: Shit & Noise
Chapter Twelve: The Death of Mort
Chapter Thirteen: The Time of Many Managers
Chapter Fourteen: The Calm before the Storm
Chapter Fifteen: David Dire
Chapter Sixteen: Bad Totty
Chapter Seventeen: Tracy, The Wild One
Chapter Eighteen: 'Buff-It-up'
Chapter Nineteen: The Demise of Ian Banks
Chapter Twenty: The Date (Part One)
Chapter Twenty One: The Date (Part Two)
Chapter Twenty Two: Dire's Lunge)
Chapter Twenty Three: 'Eggy-Poos'
Chapter Twenty Four: Adele, The Hot Minx
Chapter Twenty Five: Last Christmas
'WARNING: BAD LANGUAGE BELOW'
“Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away”
Not bad I thought… for a Christmas song. It contained a tinge of melancholy, or as musicians would say, minor keys. The day was freezing cold, and Christmas was just a few days away.
Source
...'if I was to like any Christmas song, it would be this. Unfortunately after too many hearings, it's like the rest, overplayed'...
I prefer the other side, 'Everything She Wants', I mused trudging my way back to Kwiksave dejectedly, new purchase in hand and leaving the Woolworth store behind.
Later that day…
“Ze lawwww has been changed and from next years.., Kwiksave will be opening on Sundaysss so youz will have to work”, piped up Dire in an unusual spontaneous bout of conversation.
He stared at me in anticipation of a response, but was one needed?
This was a fucking statement, an unwanted one, and my froggy-eyed, pallid-skinned boss who only needed to emit a single croak to convince anyone of his amphibious heritage, had successfully added to the visible raincloud of doom over my head.
As if I spent enough of my life in this torturous hellhole already? Barbara had left a month ago, having clinched another uninspired job as a checkout operator in a local shop within walking distance from her parent’s house.
From her point of view, she no longer needed to tolerate the leers of Dire, pay for bus fares, and could tumble out of bed and fall into work.
I suspect she was happy to be free of the ridiculous burden of remembering every single price in the store because Kwiksave was too tight-arse to buy those sticker guns and place price stickers on every can of beans, and other foodstuffs.
Source
...'even a rotting pie would have been preferable to fuck all. Is this wetting your appetite?'...
In the five Christmases, I had endured, neither Mort nor Dire had ever given me any concession, gift, or even a box of green-tinged, three-months mouldy out-of-date Mince pies. Even Asda gave their employees a cheap bottom-of-the-range Turkey, but here, forget it, fuck all.
Dire must have noticed something in my expression and continued unabated…
"I goes drinking in zee pubs on Sundaysss as I has to escapes the wife, so I likes it no mores zan you", he added with a frown, which added a thousand creases to his already wrinkled forehead layered with beads of sweat.
“Wes will have to see vot happens, I thinks youz will have to work alone”, Dire concluded, and without warning pivoted like a ballerina version of ‘Big Daddy' and waddled down the aisle toward the office, arms tossed out and oversized arse wiggling from side to side.
'...Dire was not foreign but communicated in a very broad local accent and so I am accentuating his dialogue with some exaggeration for effect'...
Source
...working on Sunday.., you can shove that up your fat arse, you corpulent, beer-guzzling, girlfriend-lunging, pot-bellied, overweight, flabby mother-fucker...
"Work alone?", I knew what that meant. That fat cunt was going to leave me, lock up the store, and get pissed at one of the locals. Rawtenstall had no less than EIGHT pubs in 1984 and one was even close enough for Dire to waddle too, though no doubt he would be driving, pissed or otherwise.
I have to get the fuck out of here, or I am going to be committed and be seen as clinically insane, I thought as Dire vanished into the office, though I was quite aware he was watching me seconds later through the one-way glass windows.
“Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away..”
An annoying earworm was starting to form in my head. Could it eclipse that even more irritating Shaking Stevens song that was playing throughout the store, 'Snow is falling, all around us…"
What was worse, the new Wham song I had just purchased, or some ripoff Shaky song that was terrible to start with?
Source
...'the humble Cornish Pastie. Better eaten hot, but very filing and ideal snack food for starving poor stock lands'...
Slouching in resignation, I made my way to the back-shop in search of a stolen Cornish pastie to munch on, anything to brighten my decaying mood.
Why couldn’t Kwiksave employ some other mug to stack their shelves on Sundays?
I knew the answer right away, in the fact that nobody wanted to work here, and in my five years tenureship, only Welder had been employed full-time.
The rest had been those YTS mugs with about as much combined brain power as one of Dire's farts' methane content, actually that was a poor metaphor and placed those dimwits in good light.
“Did you hear the news…, more time down at the pub soon”
Source
Welder shook me from a walking slumber and I started looking around with a guilty stare.
My pungent, stinking overall, co-worker was proudly wielding a large board attached to his arm, a pen nocked between his fingers and trying to look important.
He noticed my face flushed red, bulging cheeks and give me a disparaging look.
My anger flared and I hastily started toward the back-shop door.
“Fuck you, this will be my Last Christmas at Kwiksave”, I mumbled, storming out and back into the store spitting a mouthful of pastry.
To be continued...
Cover Picture is a combination of free sources from here and here, combined and edited with Luminar 4. Any unsourced images are my own. Some images produced using Bing AI.
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