My Punk Employment

This piece is an autofictional seed for the Autofiction x Worldbuilding submissions call. It inspired this other piece.

Customers often mistake me for an employee in many of the stores and businesses I frequent. This started when I was a young man, and hasn’t changed a bit as I’ve aged. There is something about my demeanor—a certain lifelessness perhaps, or a resemblance to a generic clerk—that punks people. And punking them is my goal, for the thrill in it. Whenever some clueless shopper takes me for an employee in some establishment where I have never worked, I at once fall into the role and do all I can to satisfy him or her, going the extra mile and remaining cheerful despite sometimes unreasonable demands. I always put the customer first, even though it really isn’t my customer, but someone else’s. For naturally I fly under the radar of the stores’ managers and real employees, who likely wouldn’t welcome my amateurish assistance, and would encourage me to leave if they were aware of it, perhaps by force. I do my best to conceal my punk employment, and never take credit. When I’m done helping someone, I buy what I need and depart without a word, a working class hero in my own mind.

I give an example of my chameleon-like ability to mimic employment. The other day I was walking around downtown, wading through the oompah bands and beer drinkers who periodically mark my city’s Germanic heritage, and stopped in a department store to look at shirts. I was prepared to dislike the ordeal, let me add. I didn’t mind looking at shirts, but buying them I loathed. To my dismay, however, the silky numbers I inherited from my recently deceased father had all fallen into rags, and I was in need of essential garments. So there I was, on a lovely fall afternoon, standing in the men’s section of a large clothing display, gazing at long-sleeve flannels and cottons while outside a brass band honked Wagner. A young matron, obviously shopping for her husband or other large lout, soon came up to me with a big, flapping pair of pants in her arms and said, Do you have these in a 42-long? My son is only 16 but already enormous, she explained. He will eat six chicken breasts in a single sitting.

I glanced professionally at the style, and being familiar with the store, having over the years taken countless midday breaks in its confines while working my actual job just down the street, said I believe we do, and led her to a nearby bin. These are 42-longs I said, disguising the triumph I felt in locating them easily. And if you like that material and color you might also like these, I added, touching a few inseams. Now—and this was said in anticipation of acceptance—if you’d care to spend a little more, you can get something much softer and more comfortable. I myself insist on softness, and there’s a fabric over here you really need to feel. Is your son sensitive? She allowed that he wasn’t, particularly. Does he dress right or left? I asked. I liked to throw in this question, whether the shopper was male or female, since it provoked such delightful responses. What do you mean? she asked. I mean, does the boy fold his private parts to the right or to the left of center, when he puts on his pants? I don’t know, she said, does it matter? I tsk-tsked, indicating that it was strange she didn’t think it would matter or strange she didn’t know how her son folded himself into his pants, and briskly went on to clinch the sale. I didn’t actually ring up the transaction or handle the shopper’s plastic, having no training in that, and it would have exposed me to harsh retribution besides. But I did direct her to a familiar checkout clerk, who assuredly recognized me as an idler who liked to waste time in his store. As I departed, not without putting a couple of new shirts on my card, I waved adios to the salesperson who wouldn’t see me again until I appeared for my next shift.

I am also quite handy at the supermarket, particularly with the elderly. I mean the elderly who are nearly deceased, the bona fide elderly. Many of these insist on demonstrating self-sufficiency, but those whose spines are bent into question marks and can’t help staring at the floor, as well as those who drive refrigerator-sized electric carts through the narrow aisles and annoy everyone with their tortoise-like progress and the bells and alarms they set off when backing up, summon me without hesitation. As soon as I stand near one of these relics, I will hear a gently whispered request for assistance. On my last visit to the store, to be specific, I was wandering down the cookie aisle, looking for a treat that contained no sugar and no fat and yet was delicious, when a white-haired interrogative sign bent over an aluminum walker asked me to hand her a box of ginger snaps from the top shelf a good three feet beyond her stunted reach. I was delighted to oblige, and selected a box of snaps for myself too, though they were decidedly unhealthy. I then escorted the lady, almost dragging her since I was in a hurry that day, to an express checkout lane, only to have her protest with a cashier as witness that she hadn’t finished shopping yet. She still needed bouillon and mouthwash. Well, you can’t please them all, though the old bird thanked me all the same, saying she hoped I got a raise.

I didn’t, of course. And if I get no pay for all the work I perform at the various businesses where I pretend to have a job, I never expect any. My sole reward is the punking.