On why you shouldn't make assumptions about people just because of the job they do.

What people generally think when they look at the women who work in Safeway, is that they're not very interesting people, that the ones who are over 50 are all working there for a bit of 'pin money' and to get themselves out of the house, and the ones who are under 20 are there to make pub and club and cheap-clothes money before they either a/get a proper job or b/ go to University.

(N.B. There are only these 2 categories since these are the only age groups who either apply to get jobs in Safeway, or whom Safeway has decided to employ. I am not sure which of these is correct, but the fact remains, there are no women who work at there who are over 20 and under 50.)

Anyway, that's what people tend to think.

But if you go to Safeway in the morning before the rush starts when the check-out women have just clocked on, you are routinely engaged in conversation whilst your groceries are checked. And it's not just chitter-chatter, not just comments on why eating cake is bad for you ('A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips') although admittedly, this does sometimes happen.

No, often it's interesting, enlightening, fascinating conversation.

Today for example I was engaged in a discussion about the ecological impact of dishwasher tablets and how the government seems to be unaware of the potential catastrophe which could befall us and how America backing out of the Kyoto agreement was a devastating blow to environmentalists. Uninititiated by me, I might add. And since the woman who introduced the topic of conversation didn't know that I was at all interested in environmental issues, I can only assume that she has this sort of conversation with all her customers and that it's one way of relieving the boredom and monotony of scanning item after item after item and generally having to conduct yourself like a factory machine.

I used to think it would be the very worst kind of job I could do, working on a supermarket checkout, but actually the women who do it look like they secretly have a really good time. They look like they have a sort of conspiratorial camaraderie in the crapness of the job and are smiling inside with amusement at the fact that everyone assumes the are completely unintelligent just because they wear a badge saying 'How may I help you?'

And I quite like that kind of secret subversion.

I quite like the fact that the environmental viewpoint of the general public could quite possibly be changed for the better because of a lady called Marjorie who has pin curls in her hair and wears pearls and who checks your groceries at a supermarket.

It's like changing things from the inside out. A drip, drip feed of clever thinking which no-one ever notices and so no-one rails against until suddenly one day everyone has become ecologically aware and is campaigning and changing things.

And all because of Marjorie, the check-out lady on Aisle Number 9.