Safeway II (Away From the Sun)
In my entire two or three months of grocery store experience, ha...The most striking and adventuresome has been working on the Night Crew, that is, working from 10 PM to 7 AM...the graveyard shift...and I have done it with the appropriate enthusiasm that goes with any new job when you first start. But then other factors start to kick in, even after two weeks of graveyard...like personal life, and quite frankly, the upside-down nature of personal happiness.
At first I didn't mind too much and found it quite fascinating how a grocery store actually operates; Like the items we see on the shelves every day...fresh...and just the everyday fact that we have gone to these places all our lives, and cruise up and down these aisles of plenty, with a minimum of thought as to how those things get there...
And there are those who can't do that...and I'll be the first to admit that, while I can whine on a computer about my own issues, when many in the world can't even fathom going into a grocery store, they go hungry....in my constant reverie I try never to forget that...
Well, as for the food, they come by semi-trucks at 3 to 4 in the morning from distribution centers, up here it's from Davis, California...It takes about 15 minutes for the truck to actually manuver in to the loading bay....and they're filled with wooden palletes of boxes, and in those boxes are the cereals and pastas and sauces and paper towels and everything else we see on those grocery shelves...
And then I stock them...It's an art ;o)
If ever you see a neatly stocked shelf, maybe that was me...
But this is not what I did, nor what I would choose, I'm only doing this because I couldn't find a job as an artist, because that's what I did and who I am...or still trying to (that's another blog)...
It almost seems like another life back then in the 90's when I WAS an artist...and to be honest, it was a better life...I was Golden at one time.
But I have gone through enough self-admonition and experienced the indignities of those consequences...You may have read before about the 'raft' scenario...or you may have read about the 'praying' one...where, in any event, if there was just one part of my own soul where the spirit of survival, or even the common sense of goodness risides, it may have listened...
And now I found myself at 3:30 in the morning, stocking pasta in an aisle with only contemplation...I can see certain labels with pictures, and it reminds me of old vacations my parents took, bless them...
I see certain boxes of cereal that I'm amazed are still around, like Kix...
I see Nestle's Quik Chocolate Mix, and it reminds me of when, as a kid, I would eat it by the spoon without milk, and my teeth would turn brown...
But mostly it's the Music coming over the PA that keeps me sane...but sometimes melancholy...there's one song..."Away From the Sun" by 3 Doors Down that really sets me off...but it makes me remember not to be far 'from the arms of the ones I need'...and also as a reminder...
"you got a talent, Joey...don't waste it"
At first I didn't mind too much and found it quite fascinating how a grocery store actually operates; Like the items we see on the shelves every day...fresh...and just the everyday fact that we have gone to these places all our lives, and cruise up and down these aisles of plenty, with a minimum of thought as to how those things get there...
And there are those who can't do that...and I'll be the first to admit that, while I can whine on a computer about my own issues, when many in the world can't even fathom going into a grocery store, they go hungry....in my constant reverie I try never to forget that...
Well, as for the food, they come by semi-trucks at 3 to 4 in the morning from distribution centers, up here it's from Davis, California...It takes about 15 minutes for the truck to actually manuver in to the loading bay....and they're filled with wooden palletes of boxes, and in those boxes are the cereals and pastas and sauces and paper towels and everything else we see on those grocery shelves...
And then I stock them...It's an art ;o)
If ever you see a neatly stocked shelf, maybe that was me...
But this is not what I did, nor what I would choose, I'm only doing this because I couldn't find a job as an artist, because that's what I did and who I am...or still trying to (that's another blog)...
It almost seems like another life back then in the 90's when I WAS an artist...and to be honest, it was a better life...I was Golden at one time.
But I have gone through enough self-admonition and experienced the indignities of those consequences...You may have read before about the 'raft' scenario...or you may have read about the 'praying' one...where, in any event, if there was just one part of my own soul where the spirit of survival, or even the common sense of goodness risides, it may have listened...
And now I found myself at 3:30 in the morning, stocking pasta in an aisle with only contemplation...I can see certain labels with pictures, and it reminds me of old vacations my parents took, bless them...
I see certain boxes of cereal that I'm amazed are still around, like Kix...
I see Nestle's Quik Chocolate Mix, and it reminds me of when, as a kid, I would eat it by the spoon without milk, and my teeth would turn brown...
But mostly it's the Music coming over the PA that keeps me sane...but sometimes melancholy...there's one song..."Away From the Sun" by 3 Doors Down that really sets me off...but it makes me remember not to be far 'from the arms of the ones I need'...and also as a reminder...
"you got a talent, Joey...don't waste it"
posted by Olias at 10:31 PM
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