Getting Trollied again

Updated and Revised Blog for 2016!

Very pleased to find out that the Sky One sitcom ‘Trollied’ is returning for a sixth series this Autumn. I absolutely love this show, and hopefully this season will hit the same heights as before.

Having worked in a supermarket from age 15 until I escaped aged 23, I can very much relate to the events in Trollied, and feel warmed by knowing that not much has changed in day-to-day supermarket shenanigans since I left in 1999.

Viewers of the show that haven’t worked in a supermarket before, might find it all a bit odd and not very funny at all. Crass even.

But if you’ve done your time in food retail, like I did for over 8 years, then you will know. You will just know how accurate some of the apparent outlandish storylines actually are.

You name it, if it’s been on Trollied, then I’ve recognised that it’s actually happened (and probably still happening) in real life.

Such as, staff:

…sleeping on top of the warehouse chillers (knew a guy that did this at least once a week)

…performing knee slides across the floor on night shift (every night)

…wilfully damaging goods (I saw a guy do a flying headbutt into a pallet of 200 egg boxes)

…having sex in the warehouse (didn’t witness this(!) but it definitely happened fairly often)

…being chucked in the baler (the new kids on Produce)

…eating food off the shopfloor (happened on a daily basis)

…describing fruit shapes to old ladies using genitalia innuendo (too many to mention)

…managers ‘stealing’ other managers’ cars, parking them halfway across town and letting the tyres down (I loved working at that branch!)

It’s not an exhaustive list by any means, but you get the gist!

Another staple of Trollied are the undertones of relationships. The amount of relationships that interweaved in the stores I worked in were innumerable, and ‘incestuous’ was often the term used to describe them. I remember rumours of one person who had relations of sorts with at least a dozen other members of staff from the same store… and frankly I lost count of the amount of senior managers visiting the customer toilets with checkout girls. And boys.

I even had my own brush with a ‘Mrs Robinson’ experience. To be fair I was 22, and she was only 34, but her 12 year seniority on me was quite something to experience! I was probably far too shy for my own good with her... :-)
Additionally, when I was 19 I was accused of having an affair with my female manager, who was well into her 50’s #shudder … and NO, I didn’t!

One particular highlight was someone taking the time to put a prank call in to Customer Services in the summer of 1996. Using the tannoy to broadcast to over a thousand staff and customers, the innocent young checkout assistant boomed:

“This is a customer announcement. There is an urgent call for Mike Hunt, who is shopping in the store today. Please can Mike Hunt come to Customer Services”

I kid you not.

Later that night, by pure fluke, I actually met the bloke who put the prank call in. Turns out he didn’t even work for the supermarket, but had done it for a mate of his whose last day it was.

So Trollied is very realistic and should be a real eye opener to those who think its fiction. It isn’t!

And as I’m feeling kind, I’ll leave you with a top tip: Never buy grated parmesan from a deli counter…

Stop Press: 
More Trollied / Supermarket life blogging:

It Was A Womans World (Trollied Part 2)