My first job was as a bag boy at Publix. $1.00 buck an hour. It started in June of 1963 at the grand opening of the Publix on Belcher Road and Gulf to Bay blvd, in Clearwater. They hired a whole bunch of us for the grand opening, gave us about a 1/2 hour orientation and then told us to show up in time to clock in before 9:00 am when the doors opened. We had to wear white shirts, black pants, black shoes and a black tie. You could bring your own tie or you could wear one of theirs which were clip on bow ties. I thought the bow ties looked gay, so I brought my own 99 cent clip on regular tie. You had to be all ready to go before you clocked in. One time a couple of us clocked in and then went into the back and put on our ties and then went to work. That probably took two or three minutes. But as soon as we got back up front the assistant manager was there and chewed us a new one. "We're not paying you to get dressed!".
Anyway, back to day one. When those doors opened at 9 am the customers just streamed in. I had never seen a store so busy in my life. It was a baptism under fire. They had given us a few instructions on bagging during the orientation. Cans on the bottom, lighter stuff on top, wet and cold stuff in a separate bag. They were real anal about bag use back then. We were not allowed to double bag anything except for frozen stuff. They used the brown paper bags then. The biggest size were the "50 lbs bags" Next the 25 lbs, the 10, then 5's. We were supposed to economize to the max on the bags. Which was BS because if you put very many cans into a single bag it was gonna tear. But if we double bagged them you would get your butt chewed a new one by one of the assistant managers. There was one exception. If the customer asked for double bags we could do it then. I used to pray for customers that had gotten wise to this and asked for double bags so I wouldn't have to worry about then tearing. Somewhere around the 1980's Publix got wise and quit trying to nickle and dime on the bags and they started to double all bags. But not while I was working there.
But I digress. Back to day one. It was on a Thursday. The Grand Opening was to run Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Back then Publix closed on Sundays. They didn't tell us nuthin. So we just started bagging groceries non stop. I was wondering if that was going to be it for my life. Just non stop grocery bagging till the end of time. Back then the average grocery order came to about $25 bucks which would be four of the big 50 lbs bags filling up one grocery cart. That probably represented about a weeks groceries for an average family.
But then around noon they started telling us in shifts that we could take a lunch break now. That was the first time I found out that we would get a break. I can't remember how long we had. I think a half hour, but it might have been more. But you had to clock out of course and then clock back in when you were done. I remember what I got for lunch though. I went back to the cold case and got a cuban sandwich and then a quart of skim milk form the dairy case. The cuban was 25 cents. The milk was the same. So 50 cents plus two cents tax for lunch. I ate it in the back of the store, then clocked back in. We got another break around dinner time. Then it was non stop bagging till closing time. They locked the doors at 9 pm but there were still customers in the store. So a few of us kept bagging while the rest started clean up. First you swept the aisles. Lot of cigarette butts on the floor because smoking was allowed in the stores back then. Then we wet moped, followed that up with a dry mop, then a wax mop, and finally we ran the buffer. And of course some unlucky dude got to do the bathrooms.
I got home but I could not sleep. I would close my eyes and all I could see was an endless stream of groceries coming at me that I had to bag. And I'm wondering if this is going to be it for the summer? Thirteen hours a day six days a week? I kind of complained to my mom that night about how they hadn't given us a clue as to what our schedules were going to be and what if this is it? Thirteen hours a day six days a week? And all she said back to me was "Think of all the money you will make".
Anyway, Saturday was a repeat of the first two days. By now I've got the process down pretty good. I'm just a grocery bagging robot. One of my favorite assignments was if I could be lucky enough to be the guy that the assistant manager picked to go out into the parking lot and round up all the carts and bring them back in. That was a plum assignment to me. Fresh air and freedom from those groceries, even if just for a little while.
When 10 o'clock Saturday night rolled around and all the customers were gone and the store cleaned up the big store manager, his name was Irby Long, Mr. Long to us low lifes came and talked to us. It was the first time he had even acknowledged our existence. Up until the then we had taken our orders from either the assistant manager, or the next dude down the chain who was referred to as "The third man". He handed out our schedules for the next week and to my relief they had me down for about 20 hours. That was the first time I found out that it was going to be 13 hours a day every day.
