Sirius
Sirius woke up to a cold breeze hitting his side as Remus crawled out of their shared bed. “Time?” he asked groggily, eyes remaining closed as he scrunched his face into his pillow.
“Six,” Remus replied, leaning over him and stroking his hair. “Sorry love, I’ve got to be in at seven. It’s my Sunday. You sleep in, I'll see you at 10.”
Sirius responded with a grunt. Opening his eyes and turning around in the covers to face Remus he said, “this is why they say not to sleep with your boss.”
He laughed, “I think it’s different when you are engaged to them.”
Another grunt came from Sirius as he blew Remus a kiss goodbye and crawled back under the covers. It was cozy as he drifted in and out of sleep until his alarm went off causing him to groan in annoyment.
He got up and out of bed and into the shower, making sure to perfect his hair ready for a day of working with the general public. He put on his work uniform (a standard black t-shirt and jeans) and packed his bag ready for his shift. Into his bag he put his store lanyard, a water bottle and a packet of fags.
Checking his watch to make sure he had time still he went into the kitchen to make his lunch. He opened the cupboards and set to work making a homeware BLT and grabbing a pack of prawn cocktail crisps as well as a timeout wafer. He was not about to be going hungry at work even if it was only a six hour shift due to Sunday trading laws.
It was 9:30. Perfect timing, his commute to work was 20 minutes in a car and it could never hurt to be a couple of minutes early. He walked out of the front door of his and Remus’ house and made sure to set the alarm, listening to it beep before he slammed and locked the door behind him.
He pulled into the staff car park around the back of the complex of stores and parked his car right next to Remus’. He liked to think that the cars were friends and would talk to each other whilst Remus and him worked.
He checked his watch again and lit up a cigarette outside of the doors to Right Fit after texting on the work whatsapp to ‘please be let in’. He was just finishing his fag and stumping it out when he saw Remus coming down the stairs. He sighed and took his last breath of outside air and prepared to be thrust back into the world of customer service.
“Hey love,” Remus said, opening the doors and letting Sirius in before locking them again. “Peter, Marlene, Mary and Tonks are already here, we’ll do the briefing in about 5 minutes, I just need to finish up the rota.”
“Ok,” Sirius responded. “As long as I’m not on tills all day.”
“I can’t make any promises!” Remus replied with a wink as he led Sirius into the back rooms and dipped into the office, leaving him to drop his stuff in the staff room.
As Sirius walked into the staff room he put his hand up in a wave and was greeted with 5 “Hi’s” from his co-workers. He put his bag into his locker and his food into the communal fridge after putting his lanyard around his neck.
“God if it’s busy today I’m actually going to cry.” Sirius said to the room.
“It’s a Sunday mate, it’s always busy.” Peter responded.
“And lunch is only 15 minutes.” Marlene added.
“Hardly even enough time for a fag,” Mary interupted with a frown.
“Jokes on you, I get 30 minutes,” Tonks piped up.
“Ugh Nepotism.” Everyone responded, rolling their eyes jokingly.
“Hey,” Sirius said in defence. “Nym’s under 18 that’s why. I can’t help it that my relatives are all so charismatic and good at retail work.”
Remus opened the door just as Sirius started talking and interrupted with, “Regulus, charismatic?”
“Ok ok, you have a point.”
Everyone laughed and walked out of the staffroom and down the stairs into the main building after clocking in with the machine. Hearing the familiar beep of the clocking in machine put Sirius straight into his customer service mindset as he continued down the stairs and onto the shop floor.
After listening to the briefing that Remus gave Sirius was instructed to go and open the doors to the shop. As he walked to the front of the store ready to open for the day he saw a queue into the shop already forming outside of the shop doors. Looking closer he saw people peering into the shop through the doors and actually pounding on the glass. If this was what it looked like now he was in for a rough shift today.
He sighed and pressed the button to open and unlock the doors, letting the sea of people flood in through the doors. He was just beginning to turn around and walk back onto the shop floor when he heard a high pitch “ahem” coming from next to him.
He turned around and was greeted by a short, fat woman with a severe, blunt bob who was wearing a dress that looked to be at least two sizes too small. As Sirius turned to look at her he put on his best customer service voice and said to her, “Hi there! How may I help you?” in a warm, sunny tone.
“You actually opened 2 minutes late,” the woman said, shaking her head at him and showing her watch. “Some people have places to be and I think that your main focus should be on the customers, not on chatting with your colleagues as I saw you doing this morning.”
Sirius looked at her in utter disbelief for a moment before opening his mouth to speak. “I’m awfully sorry about the fact that we opened 2 minutes late,” He said, purely shocked that he was getting a complaint from someone this early in the day. “But just so you are aware, what you saw this morning was a team briefing, we do one every morning. I am really sorry about our lateness in opening though.” Whilst he was talking he added a sympathetic smile to his face as well as a slight tilt to his head.
“Yes well, you should strive to do better with opening,” She continued. “Some people like me have places to be on a Sunday and are trying to take a quick trip to pick up a parcel.”
By this point Sirius was tired of her bullshit and decided to just get rid of her. “If you have places to be and a parcel to pick up may I suggest going over to the till point to pick that up instead of berating me for something that I can’t change. Then you will have enough time to run your other errands as that seems to be the problem here.” As he said this he put on a falsely sunny tone and made sure to pronounce all of his words correctly. This had proved to be the most effective way to get rid of nuisance customers so far.
The woman looked at him flabbergasted and then turned in a huff and strode towards the till points. He heard a laugh coming from his left and turned around to see Marlene cackling from behind a mannequin, her blonde hair peeking out from the sides.
“God, what a bitch.” She said, patting Sirius on the shoulder. “You sorted her right out though.”
“It’s going to be a long old day,” He replied, letting his shoulders sag and a frown form on his face. “Hope you’re prepared.
Sirius was on the shop floor tidying clothes and putting the ones from the fitting rooms out onto the shop floor. It was busy. Like super busy and Sirius practically had clothes coming out of his ears as he ran around the shop trying to get them put away as Tonks gave him armfuls at a time. He and Marlene were running around like crazy and by the end of the mad rush their hair had steadily been looking more and more dishevelled.
His lunch slot was at 13:30, perfectly in the middle of his shift. He gave a salute to Remus as he dutifully trailed to the back to grab his bag and move outside for a fag. After he had had his smoke break he sat on the bench outside of the shop and a packet of prawn cocktail crisps before looking at the time on his phone and realising that his measly 15 minutes was over.
Sirius put his bag away and went back onto the shop floor, checking the rota. He was on tills for the rest of his shift. He rehearsed his customer service script in his head as he logged into the till system.
‘Just to let you know this till is email receipts only, is that ok?
Would you like a bag?
Have a lovely day!’
It was an hour left till closing and the day had gone by without a major incident except for the fact that Sirius’ cheeks were hurting from the amount that he was having to smile at customers and he was definitely running out of small talk from all of the useless conversations he had been having with customers to pass the time.
He was just walking over to have a chat with Remus when he was a topless man walking into the shop. Sirius looked at Remus and raised an eyebrow. I mean it was a hot summer day but what kind of person went shopping with no top on, it was just indecent.
As the man got closer Sirius smelt a strong waft of beer floating towards him. As he looked the man up and down he noticed that he was holding a green heineken beer bottle in one hand. The man walked up to the till with a dress in hand and Sirius knew just but looking at him that it was going to be a long interaction.
“Excuse me Sir,” he said. “You aren’t allowed to drink alcohol on these premises, please take it outside.”
“I’m not fucking drinking it.” the man said, getting so close that Sirius could smell the beer on his breath making him recoil subtly in disgust.
“It isn’t allowed in here, please take it outside.” Sirius continued, crossing his fingers below the desk and hoping that the man would agree.
“FIne i’ll put it outside,” the man said, walking away with a sway that caused him to drop the bottle and spill half of its contents on the floor of the shop.
“Fucking fantastic,” Sirius heard Remus mutter under his breath as he got blue paper towels out from under the tills as well as a wet floor sign. As the supervisor on duty it was up to Remus to clean up all spills and bodily fluids as they were ‘biohazards’ and so needed proper training to clean up. Or so they said. Although he wasn’t complaining, they saw far too many bodily fluids for a retail shop in Sirius’ opinion.
Sirius got back behind the till point when he saw the man coming back towards him and tried to put on his best smile as if he couldn’t smell the stagnant beer emanating off of him.
Sirius scanned all of the items and told the man the total in a strained voice, “That’ll be £89.99 please Sir.” he said, turning the screen to show him.
“Can I pay cash?” the man asked as he started to pull it out of his wallet.
“Yes we do!” Sirius said, wanting the man to finish the transaction quickly so that he could get the stale smell away from him.
As Sirius clicked the cash button on the till he saw out of the corner of his eye the customer pull out 2 red notes from his wallet. “As those are £50 notes I will just have to get my supervisor over to check them.” Sirius said as the man put them on the counter.
“Why?” the man said, drawing himself up to his full height and inadvertently pushing his belly out further demonstrating further that he did not have the physique to be shirtless even in the hot summer weather. “It’s legal tender, you can’t refuse it.”
“I know that Sir.” Sirius repeated, “but I will just have to get my manager to check it as they are the notes that are forged most of the time.”
“Well mine aren’t fucking fake.”
“I didn't say they were Sir.” Sirius was at the end of his tether at this point as Remus came over and checked the notes, taking his sweet old time.
“Hurry the fuck up” the man shouted at Remus.
Sirius had to hold his laughter when the man got closer to Remus as after knowing the man for so long he could read his emotions perfectly. He saw the brief look of disgust that crossed over Remus’ face when he smelt the breath of the man and the small step back he took.
“They are all fine sir, go ahead and put them through.”
Sirius checked the man out and gave him one last friendly smile as he walked away. Once the man was gone Sirius looked at Remus and pulled a face of pure rage, balling his fists up in mock anger. Remus laughed and left him to tills in favour of tidying up the store.