Lifers

There's two types of employees at the grocers. Students and lifers. Everyone's either under twenty or over thirty. At the cash, you pay someone who's either still in secondary school or someone's who skipped going to their reunion because they didn't want to say that they make their living as a cashier. There's only one Most Likely To Succeed in every graduating class but nobody thinks their career will involve standing in front of a cash register eight hours a day.

My boss, he's a lifer. Been there twenty years. Twenty years. As he says, that gives him the right to not do any more facing. So, after twenty years he's been able to switch from facing to ordering. He's moved one step up the ladder.

On breaks, you can see the two groups split up. The young smokers go to the right as they leave the building, the lifers to the left. So far I've been hanging out on the left side.