SHELF STACKING FOR BEGINNERS
Work
and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has stated that shelf-stacking is as
important as a degree.
"The next time
these smart people who say there's something wrong with this go into their
supermarket, ask themselves this simple question: when they can't find the food
on the shelves, who is more important: them, the geologist or the person who's
stacked the shelves?"[1]
When university geology
graduate Cait Reilly, 24, from Birmingham, challenged having to work for free
at a local Poundland discount store or face loosing her benefits, the airways
and comment columns were all suddenly filled with cries of ‘job snob’ and
paeans to the virtues of shelf stacking and the nobility of the humble shelf
stacker. Indeed it seemed that everyone from the local radio shock jock and right
wing newspaper columnists to government ministers had all spent some time
during the course of their lives stacking shelves. So before I make any further
comment I had better establish my credentials as a shelf stacker.
When I left school in 1971
my first job was in the stores of a car repair workshop, Paint and Panel, I
still have my first wage slip somewhere, for the princely sum of just over £6.
My primary activity, you guessed it, involved shelves, removing and replacing
tins of paint, starter motors and exhaust filters. I did this 5 days a week,
and it was in this environment that I developed the acute skills required for
the removal and placing of items on shelf units. At the risk of breaking a
trade secret I have to tell you it was not difficult. Consequently when I am at
a loss in the supermarket to find the tinned peas I do not confuse the staff
member who can locate them with a brain surgeon.
Furthermore it does not surprise
me that so many people seem to be able to lay claim to once having been engaged
in the profession of shelf stacking; summer jobs, working your way through
university, making ends meet during a lean period, the skill is easily acquired
and consequently widely distributed. I remember working alongside some of these
students during the 1970’s. They, rather like the cabinet ministers of today, seem
to imagine that a 6 week stint of shelf stacking somehow provided them with
proletarian credentials.
In reality of course it is
a mind numbingly tedious task and a
couple of months is about the maximum before your psyche starts to experience
some degree of damage. To face a lifetime of such menial work, stretching out
in front of you to the horizon, can only be endured by a variety of forms of
escapism; through TV, the movies, daydreaming and or copious amounts of alcohol.
So when I am told by some well paid journalist, government minister, or
engagingly employed radio journalist that they too once stacked shelves you
will forgive me if I am somewhat less than impressed. Nor am I impressed with
their guff about discipline and the dignity of labour. It would be nice to see
all those who opined about Cait Reilly’s job snobbery being removed from their
well paid jobs and be made to get out of bed in the morning and do some form of menial work for the minimum
wage, let’s see then what they would have to say about the dignity of labour.
It seems to me that if you
require people to undertake such menial jobs the least you can do is remunerate
them reasonably for doing such work.
Now I need to put my
shopping away. I’ll need to place tins of lentils and chick peas on the top
shelf, glad to know that all that training didn’t go to waste.
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