Working in The Supermarket will dispel the myth that an hour contains 60 minutes. Like a casino, it is full of space, empty of time; no clocks, no sunlight, no centre. As a customer entering The Supermarket, you are to walk a predetermined path through the produce, deli, bakery, and meat departments before the dairy and grocery sections open into two alternate paths. The paths ultimately fold back into each other, producing a fake labyrinth that would even make Borges a little proud. But I don’t think the path is inherently nefarious, built to trap or disorientate. It is merely the best way for a customer to spend their time, as dictated by the authors of its design. Time as currency. Currency, the thing you sacrifice time to acquire. Time, which itself becomes incalculable when the electric lights cannot die and there’s no clock to consult.

And the fluorescent lights do not go out, believe me. I’ve worked a lot of nights here and they feel just like the days. The whiteblue glow is cast across every surface so there’s barely even a shadow. There is the omnipresent buzzing of the radio, which perverts every one of the store’s 4,972 square metres like the asshole who bothers the girls at the checkouts. The radio is often playing Jessie J’s 'Price Tag' as he makes his rounds past every female employee on the shop floor: “It’s not about the money, money, money...”

The Supermarket is a surreal movie set, complete with lights, sounds, cameras, and most importantly, actors. Everyone is being filmed, has been filmed always. But how many times can one employee ask another “how’s it going?” and receive, “you know, living the dream,” before the audience gets bored? How long will The Supermarket tolerate the asshole so long as he faithfully consumes its groceries? How long until you give up reading? Don’t you know that this is a waste of time? I know it is: I am the author of its design. It will collapse before it will finish. I will collapse before I finish.

*

One day I’m on break in an outside courtyard with my friend Sam, where the slanting sunbeams are bouncing across metal tables and chairs like stage lights. A little to our right, a man on a phone call says, “we’re probably about metres away from each other, but I can’t see ya,” and I write that down. The Supermarket is surrounded by lots of other shops filled with people my age or younger. Jobs are few in our increasingly gentrified town, which makes it both a privilege to work at The Supermarket, and supremely contradictory. The Supermarket belongs to a multi-billion dollar company, but it caters to the needs of the working class more than the endless stream of breweries, cafes, and boutiques that open each year, many of which pay lower than minimum wage, cash-in-hand. Sam sighs, looks up from her phone, asks me what I’m thinking about. “Just wanna sleep,” I reply, and she laughs a little. It’s time to go back.

It can be difficult to resist misanthropy working a minimum wage job. Difficult to behave like somebody I am not, see the same people, do the same thing many times over. It’s exhausting for the body and the mind. I estimate that I can move between 800 and 1000 litres of milk and a few hundred kilograms of dairy products, each hour, on good days. When I first started here, I would end my shifts with bloody nail beds, the nails pressed back into my fingers by hard cardboard. This is a lot for any body, but the mind is more susceptible; we are living in the attention economy, after all. Our senses are being competed for, through eyes, ears, and noses.

The casino part of The Supermarket knows this, of course. Every product is differentiated, but many are differentiated to distract from the product itself. Shopping becomes gambling when advertisements read ‘Millions of $1000 Instant Wins!’ and ‘One in 100 Wins!’ It is a gamble to buy something we’ve never eaten before, to stack too much in our shallow trolley, or to talk to the pretty girl at the pharmacy. So how does anyone make a million choices every day and stay sane?

*

One thing you become accustomed to are the customers. One wears his high-vis yellow work jumper every day even though he lost his job ten years ago to an injury. Another, with a rounded Italian accent, always asks where something is just to have words to say and to hear words in return. But really, he always knows exactly where to go for what he wants. Another will hold my shoulder, just for a second, and tell me to “take care of myself”. The older they are, the more they’ll say, and the more they’ll need to hear something.

I was clocking the end of my shift in the tearoom last week when Carmen from the checkouts received a phone call: her house had sold. The price, much larger than she or any of us expected, limped out of her mouth as a question. Whoever was on the phone confirmed it, and she squeaked.

[Vanessa and Jules, tearoom right]

Vanessa (produce department): You could retire on that!
Jules (deli department): She won’t though, will she.

[An invisible cue moves between their faces, travelling by eyes—they both know that Carmen doesn’t work here because she has to. It might be a consequence of habit, or an attachment to the job. Either way, the little ‘20’ label on her badge, meaning 20 years of employment here at The Supermarket, will only grow]

[Connor, tearoom left, opens the door to leave. Dolly Parton’s ‘9 To 5’ fades in on the in-store radio]

Carmen: I’ve got to call my sister. She won’t believe this. Bloody hell. I don’t believe it.
Vanessa: Anyone for the bottle-o? [Jules laughs]

[Nobody disagrees. The employees rise to return to their departments]
[Exit Connor]