Date: 2008-11-02 11:52:02 Created: null
... or ICA Supermarket Parken as it's known nowadays, gave me my first real job. It was in the late spring of 2000. I had done the civil service during the autumn and winter of 1999, finishing it right in time for Christmas, and had been drifting around at home ever since. During the summer of 1999, after finishing the gymnasium, I had finally started giving in to ever-increasing naggings from parents, and also developed more motivation to earn my own money, and thus applied to a few jobs. Didn't get any of them though, so I'd lazed through that summer as well. But now it was spring, and it seemed everyone else was making their own money. So, I reported my status as unemployed to the unemployment center. I got to talk to someone and fill out some forms (some of them on 60 Hz screens using trackballs and stiff metallic keyboards) about what kind of jobs I was looking for. I didn't have too high expectations on the returns of registering in their databases, but there's always a chance and it didn't cost me anything.
Very shortly therefter a letter from them landed in our mailbox. "Here's a job that's just registered in our database that we think you should apply for." it said. ICA Parkhallen was looking for someone to "participate" in their online store. Collect orders following "data lists" (direct translation, it looked about as silly in Swedish too). Need to be organized and have a good sense of duty. No demands on prior experience. Part time, extra at staff's absence. Sounded interesting enough to me. I called them, said I was interested and asked how they wanted my application. A few days later I biked across town (noting about how long it took and how warm I got for future reference), shook hands with the owner and gave him my application. Everything seemed promising enough. They'd call me. Ride back home, feeling hopeful.
Pause.
Very little happened and continued to happen for at least a month. Not one word, sound or minimap ping. I called them and yes, they were working on it and would get back to me soon or something like that. I don't remember exactly, but I did call twice at pretty long intervals before they got back to me. Then I was suddenly asked to come over again. Then things suddenly happened very fast. I was told the reason they were looking for someone was that the person who usually took the online orders was ill and had been for quite a while (the reason they had taken so long to get back to me was probably that they were hoping that person would come back to work I realized). So I was to take that person's place until it got back, and then help it so it could gradually get back to working full time after that. And could I show up on Monday by nine to start learning the procedures? Sure thing!
So on a Monday in the middle of May I showed up, signed the contract (I was hired as working full time until the end of June if I'm not mistaken), walked around the store and shook the hands of a lot of people I soon forgot the names of (but I'd learn them soon enough). Then I was introduced to the procedures of handling online orders. The basics seemed easy enough. Print orders in the morning, collect an order, check it out, repeat with next order. Easy, right?
I'm not sure how many orders there were during a week on average that summer. I know it's been pretty calm the weeks I've worked this and last summer. But that first time I worked my ass off. After the first day or two of introduction (plus some help handling some special orders) I was basically on my own to handle everything about the internet orders. I immediately got a lot of responsibility which was very motivating and challenging, but I also had to learn everything by trying, retrying and so on. Ever since the original person fell ill they had been passing the online handling duties between other staff, none of which had learnt the things from the ground up. I was soon the one who knew everything about online orders best, which wasn't exactly reassuring when you had a question. It's also not nice to be completely green and the only one responsible when you make mistakes. Nobody could check my actions for mistakes so of course I made my share of them. Those things I noticed myself I had to spend precious time finding out how to correct and correcting. Time was the main resource I didn't have enough of. I started at six every morning, and one or two days I worked 12 hours to get everything done. It's hard to be effective when you're lacking time to sit down and think and there's nobody with more experience around to show you how to do it. Those mistakes I didn't find out customers called to complain about, which was about the thing I liked the least about the job. I started hating when the phone called, since it usually meant I'd done something wrong and a customer was calling to complain about it.
Remember this was my first experience ever working full time with anything! When you start working you might as well do it properly :-) ... I ended up working pretty much all summer, being called in on short notices during the last weeks I'd meant to have off as well, and working a few hours per week once the university studies started as well. By that time the expert was back at work though, which was great. It's much more relaxing to come in and work a few hours (with someone who's even better at the job than you to boot) than to work all day. Plus I didn't have to answer the phone either :-) ...
The loath of ringing phones of course decreases and goes away with time, as do the amount of work required to handle things. I'm still hopeless at taking lunch breaks though, and that habit is hard to shake. Breakfast at nine is what I survive on at work, that and candy. Apart from the phones there are a few other bad or annoying things about the job. A big one is not knowing how much work there is when you arrive in the morning. There could be one order or there could be 17, you won't know for sure until you've downloaded them. This summer (2002) and the past I've only worked full time during the holiday season, when everything's pretty to very calm, but as soon as people start coming back to work there's no way to know how many orders there might be or how long you'll have to stay. If there are a lot of orders you can be there all day, running around like a lemming on an all-caffeine diet. If things are calm you could be standing around with nothing to do at 10:00, and there's no way you can tell which way it's going to be until you download the orders in the morning. Kinda trying on your nerves I can tell you, especially when you get as many orders as you've feared.
Then there's a whole heap of annoyance to be found in the way the system is built and works. I could rant about that for a long time but I don't suppose ICA (that's the store chain of which Parkhallen is one store) wants me to go into that. Suffice to say that if the common system for all of ICA happens it'll be a great benefit for everyone.
On the other hand, few things beat the satisfaction of doing the job so well that nobody has any complaints and you get home at a decent time. On the last day of full-time work last summer I was shocked to recieve 12 orders in the morning, but I all got them done with time to spare. Then you feel happy with yourself. And the first week I worked this summer I didn't get any complaints at all from anyone, which was also a great source of satisfaction.