• Today was my last Saturday shift at Waitrose. I will work another four fridays, and thats it. No more Luke/Jenny/Sally/Flo/Cat/Alex/James.
• I played badminton this afternoon for two and a half hours.

Hope you all understand now. I wouldn't.

1. I get up tomorrow morning, and there is a letter from UCAS on the doorstep confirming my 3 unconditional offers to all my remaining universities.
2. I go to Archway in January, and meet all the volunteers. Amongst them is my future best man, who just so happens to be studying at the same uni as me. We get on famously.
3. I resign from Waitrose on January 31st, earning my bonus and leaving that dead-end job with cash in hand. In my happiness, I buy a lottery ticket for the first time.
4. I win £64,000 on the lottery. I pop it in a high-interest savings account, and go to Everest Base Camp.
5. Return triumphant from EBC, having learnt to play bridge and summited some random high mountain or other.
6. Go to uni. Along with my future best man, meet 3 awesome friends, 2 male, one female, and the love of my life, reciprocated.
7. 2nd term - we all move in to the same flat.
8. End of uni, get a first.
9. Go on to become doctor and save many lives.
10. Come home from work one day and...
11. Invent longevity vaccine. Rename it, because the name longevity vaccine is shockingly ironic considering it's purpose.
12. Invent method of turning carbon dioxide into perfectly buttered toast.
13. Invent method of transporting vast quantities of perfectly buttered toast to 3rd world countries.
14. Go to bed. Get back to work for the next morning on time.
15. Live a long and happy life.
16. Live longer, due to longevity vaccine, averted global warming and general world happiness due to removal of starvation.
17. Observe the progress of humanity.
18. Die happy.

Nothing better than some realism to temper Christmas.

Comment reply: Emma Pidduck

Why £64,000? Well, money makes you happy, no? No. Only goes a short way, and then it becomes spurious and rubbish. £64,000 is a nice figure as it allows you to buy things you want and sort out nice presents for people.

And who needs huge amounts of money anyway when you are about to invent some of the answers to the worlds problems, and something for vain people also?

Comment reply: Jenny Mohan

Won't you hate yourself forever if that comes to pass?

• wrapped 3 presents
• finished the christmas rhymes for aforementions presents
• cleared up some paraffin
• smeared vaseline on his chapped lips
• failed spectactularly in his endeavour to produce an interesting blog entry, enhancing this poor advertisment for his own personality by completely and absolutely avoiding the barest hint of humour, and fell back finally on to the bloggers cardinal sin - writing about what one is doing. Coincidentally, this is why blogs were invented. Talk about causality mix ups.

1. Don't resign. Work up until January the 31st, such that I get my annual bonus - then resign. The bonus will be about £300-400, and I'll also get another months earnings - about £170. The disadvantage is that I will be working, likely, 5am-8pm every day in London, then on the weekend another 7 hours at Waitrose. I'm not sure I can handle that workload, and I will doubtless become very stressed. I would end up working 85 hours a week. I'd be free on sunday, but I'd be knackered, and also I'd be in London some weekends as well.
2. Resign now. Less stressful, but less enrichening. I will be paid for XtremeEverest, but I will lose out on the approx £600. I will be more alive, and have an extra free day in which to sleep so that I have a day free to do something I like with people I like. I won't have to let people at work down by having to change shifts and then resign, and nor will I need to juggle people and me to keep both jobs running. My life will be easier, but slightly poorer.
3. I can't get my Thursday shift changed, so I have to resign.

Recommendations?

1. Stop for a moment. Think. Where might this item be? its brandy CREAM. Might it possibly be with the cream? Have you checked with the cream? No? Why are you asking about this in the vegetable aisle?
2. Go to where you suspect it might be. Look. Don't glance and decide it isn't there. Look. If you can't see it, ask a member of staff. Don't talk loudly about it, and how it isn't there, and how you desperately need it for tonight, in the hope that a member of staff will talk to you about it. They won't. They have a job to do, that doesn't involve catering to people to nervous to ask "Where is the brandy cream?".
3. What if you, in a fit of foolishness, have no idea what you are buying? Say it is for someone else? Hunt down a section manager - they will be wearing green jackets and white shirts. Ask them - because if it's not on something the average shelf stacker works with, they won't have much of an idea. Section managers, on the other hand, will. Except for the checkouts woman, who while being lovely, won't have a faintest idea where this product is.
4. Get your product, say thank you, and move on. A little thanks goes a long way, especially towards helping the next customer.
5. So, you've decided you actually don't need this product after all. Put it back WHERE IT CAME FROM. You are NOT doing the staff any good leaving frozen fish in the cheese section - for one, the frozen fish might unfreeze in the relatively warm cheese chiller and then have to be written off. You, personally, will then have effectively wasted a fishes life. You might as well have clubbed it to death yourself.

An no, no I haven't been asked a lot of pointless questions this evening at Waitrose. Never in a million years would I consider making this blog entry applicable to customer questions at Waitrose, or my own personal experiences as a shelf stacker.

As if I would.

Comment reply: organictwiglet

how big do you want the vegetable section to be? Soya milk, margarine, olive oil, baked beans, anything pickled, anything meat (after all, it was built of amino acids etc harvested from plants), anything alcoholic, any dairy product (cows eat grass), toilet paper, paper in general, cocktail sticks and chocolate. coffee, toothpaste.

Name something that WOULDN'T be in the vegetable section!