All in a day's work

Just after I finished college and was studying for finals, my family sold our council house, upped sticks, and moved from suburbia to inner city Dublin where we bought a grocery shop with accommodation overhead.

We would open at 7 am to greet the milkman who would attempt to deliver 23 crates while billing us for 25, moving empties out and refills in with the speed and dexterity of a prestidigitator before speeding off in his van more quickly than you could say ‘ya robbin’ little fecker.’

Next came the bread man, whose trick was to take the bread returns to the van, place them among the fresh pans and deliver them back to you. In those days you got fresh bread every day. There was none of this ‘best before’ stuff. The bread was today’s and fresh or yesterday’s and stale.

Then came the legion of ‘aul wans’ for their daily bread and milk. “Is this bread fresh luv,’ they’d enquire while giving it a good old squeeze with their dirty maulers, leaving the waxy wrapper dinged and covered in fingerprints, prompting every other customer of the day to make the same enquiry.

At lunchtime descended the marauding hoards, a hundred builders from the site up the road, all demanding sandwiches made up with cold meats and cheese freshly cut. None of the pre-made nonsense in a nice plastic wrapper. Clambering over each other they’d be to get your attention."Ham' Spam' 'Jam'. 'Anything as long as it’s meat.'.

But that wasn’t the worst of it!

The day after we opened up we were robbed at knifepoint by four local scallies. They came running in, jumped the counter, and demanded I open up the cash register. When faced with a threat, fight rather than flight is my default, so I told them to go and expletive off, the reply to which was a punch in the face. In a rage, I picked up the sellotape dispenser, a big, heavy yoke, and made to hit one of them, at which point they ran, with the sellotape thingy flying through the air behind them.

A few days later another guy jumped the counter while I was at the till and pushing me aside, quickly grabbed the cash and left.

Now we are not the kind to go to the police, but my father had, let’s say connections in the Republican Movement (IRA/Provos) and was in school with 'The Don", the guy who ran 'operations' in Dublin. Anyway, the next day my father got a tap on the shoulder from one of the local bad boys who returned our cash and swore never to do it again. The word was out, we were untouchable.
Of course, that word got out to the local Gardai (police) too so they raided us periodically to keep us on our toes.

What that job taught me was never to work with children, animals, or the public.

But did I learn?

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Posted in response to @galenkp's Weekend experiences prompt to describe a bad job you've had.
The images are my own