56) Running the Store
Anne and Dennis went off to England for two months holiday and we were left in charge. It was a funny little shop, full of strange things, some of which we did not recognise. Our customers were mostly casual coffee pickers who worked for the farmers in the area. They were paid for the amount of coffee beans that they picked and the farmers did not like to have a lot of paper work involved in their pay system, so they were paid in cash for every single tin of beans that they took to the foreman, that way there were no fights or arguments about who was owed what. The rate for a tin of coffee beans was not a lot, something like 1 ½ cents a tin. To be able to pay them like that, the foreman needed to have an awful lot of 1 and ½ cent pieces at his disposal. All through the day the wives, mothers or the children of pickers would drift in and out of the store but at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon tractors towing large trailers loaded up with the workers would arrive at our front door. The farmers would bring the workers down to the store to enable them to buy what they needed. There would be a mad scramble to be the first in the queue and often the push was so great the counter would be pushed backwards and Lorna and I had to refuse to continue serving until they got into an orderly line and waited their turn. I could never understand why there was such a rush, we never closed until they had all been served and the tractor never left for the farm until they were all on board.
The main items they bought were very basic, bread (sinkwa), bread rolls (ma bunya), mealie meal, milk (melek), tea, sugar, meat,(nyama) chicken (inkoek) rice, small dried fish,( kapenta), candles, matches, bottles of cool drinks and sweets.. Their housing would not have had electricity, they had no refrigeration so meat would have been bought and eaten pretty quickly and they would need to come to the store fairly often. The meat we sold was the cheapest of cuts, mostly offal, it was delivered in large frozen slabs and the helper that Anne had left with us would cut it up and pack it into small packets of about 250 grams for resale. We also bought the dry goods, tea, flour, rice and that sort of thing in bulk and repacked it for sale.
Our customers were mostly poorly educated and as with their wages from the farmer, liked to see exactly what they were getting for what. They would ask for a loaf of bread and pay for that, then they would want a bag of mealie meal or a packet of tea and that would be paid for. When you had served them with that they would buy another item and pay for that separately again. It did mean that we did not have to use our brains much to add things up but it would mean that we walked back and for a great deal more than was necessary. We tried hard to get them to tell us right in the beginning all the things they wanted, we told them they could pay for them all separately if they wanted but it would make the whole process quicker and less tiring for us if they let us get it together all in one go but we never managed to change their method of shopping. The items we sold were cheap and sold in small quantities so each one only cost a few cents so that was how they paid us, in the 1 and ½ cent pieces that the farmers had paid them with through the day. On Monday mornings the farmers would come and change all the copper coins that we had for notes and silver so that they would have the small change to pay their pickers throughout the week. We often laughed at the way the coins went round and round and were sure that we recognised some of them having seen them again and again and again.
Another habit Lorna and I tried hard to break them of was hiding their money until the very last moment. We used to tell them “Please have your cash ready when your turn comes” but they would wait until we told them how much it would be and then start looking for the cash. They tended to buy the same things every day so they knew the price, they just did not like showing their money until it was time to pass it over. Then often they could not remember where the money was hidden. Sometimes it was secreted in a shoe or in a lady’s bra. Another hiding place was in their hair. Did you realise that the thick curly hair of the African women will hold and hide quite a bit, but sometimes it was hard to find and the customer would have to run her fingers all through her hair until it was found, while a shop full of people waited to be served and her friends would all join in the hunt amid much laughter. Once a customer paid Lorna with a pile of coins that were very wet. Lorna asked why they were so wet and was told that they had been hidden in the baby’s nappy. Lorna freaked out and threw them all into the sink so that she could wash them before putting them into the till. After that we were even more careful about washing our hands after touching the money. I could never understand why they hid their money, very few of them just kept it in a purse or a pocket.
Anne had left us a long list of instructions so that we would know where to order different things. Most things would be delivered to us but as the business had always been on a completely cash basis there were no accounts and things had to be paid for before they were delivered. The list said that to order tea we had to go to Greens Garage. We thought that it must be a mistake but as we were just about out of tea we had to give it a try. I went to Greens Garage in Umtali and asked if they knew anything about ordering tea. They did not turn a hair, they knew exactly what I was talking about, took my money gave me a receipt and said that the tea would be delivered the following week, and it was. I never did work out how that happened. We bought some frozen products from a company called Irvin and Johnson, I looked up the number in the telephone directory and phoned to find out where their depot was only be told that they did not have a depot in Umtali but the van would be parked in Main Street at 8.30 am and we just had to be there at the right time to get what we wanted. But if we missed them at 8.30 in Main Street we could catch them at the next stop. I have memories of chasing the Irvin and Johnson van round Umtali to buy frozen fish. It all seemed rather crazy.
Lorna had a young baby, Laura who was about eight or nine months old when we started with the store. Lorna had intended leaving her with a nanny while she was at work but some problem arose with the nanny and Laura had to come to work with her. It turned out to be a big problem. She was not content to sit in her chair all the time and wanted to be carried. She was too heavy to carry all day and if she was put down she got in the way and was filthy dirty in no time at all. So Lorna took a leaf out of our customer’s books and started carrying the baby on her back. The black women made it look so easy, I suppose they had been used to it all their lives but it was new to us and although we took it in turns to carry Laura we found it hard going and very tiring. We bought a special harness to carry her and she seemed to enjoy it but Lorna and I didn’t. Never having seen a white woman with her baby on her back the black ladies thought it was very funny but some of them would take pity on us and take care of Laura for a little while.
Anne and Dennis had had the store for many years but when we took over we could see all the things that they were doing wrong. We were sure that we could do it better than them. We thought that after all those years they had stopped looking at the way they were doing things and had got into a rut. At the beginning we made quite a number of changes but slowly we could see that far from being in a rut they had years of experience behind them and by the time they returned we had understood why things were done in a particular way and changed them back again. It was a good lesson to me. It is very easy to be critical of the way other people do things and to think you can do better but unless you have been in their position you just don’t know what the problems concerned are.
One thing I wanted to change was the amount of white bread we sold. At that time there was a lot of publicity about our diets lacking roughage and we were being urged to eat brown bread, a thing I had done for ages before that. White bread was considerably dearer than the brown bread but our customers who were pretty poor would just about always buy the white bread in favour of the brown. I reasoned that if we did not sell white bread they would be forced to buy brown and benefit their health and their pockets but it did not work. We went a whole week with only brown bread and for the most part they just went without. Maybe if we had kept it up a bit longer they might have got the idea but I thought of the children with nothing to eat and just ordered the old order again. Most of the brown bread we sold was to the Europeans in the area. I think white bread was a status symbol and I learnt to mind my own business, maybe you can encourage people into good eating habits but you can’t force them.
The main items they bought were very basic, bread (sinkwa), bread rolls (ma bunya), mealie meal, milk (melek), tea, sugar, meat,(nyama) chicken (inkoek) rice, small dried fish,( kapenta), candles, matches, bottles of cool drinks and sweets.. Their housing would not have had electricity, they had no refrigeration so meat would have been bought and eaten pretty quickly and they would need to come to the store fairly often. The meat we sold was the cheapest of cuts, mostly offal, it was delivered in large frozen slabs and the helper that Anne had left with us would cut it up and pack it into small packets of about 250 grams for resale. We also bought the dry goods, tea, flour, rice and that sort of thing in bulk and repacked it for sale.
Our customers were mostly poorly educated and as with their wages from the farmer, liked to see exactly what they were getting for what. They would ask for a loaf of bread and pay for that, then they would want a bag of mealie meal or a packet of tea and that would be paid for. When you had served them with that they would buy another item and pay for that separately again. It did mean that we did not have to use our brains much to add things up but it would mean that we walked back and for a great deal more than was necessary. We tried hard to get them to tell us right in the beginning all the things they wanted, we told them they could pay for them all separately if they wanted but it would make the whole process quicker and less tiring for us if they let us get it together all in one go but we never managed to change their method of shopping. The items we sold were cheap and sold in small quantities so each one only cost a few cents so that was how they paid us, in the 1 and ½ cent pieces that the farmers had paid them with through the day. On Monday mornings the farmers would come and change all the copper coins that we had for notes and silver so that they would have the small change to pay their pickers throughout the week. We often laughed at the way the coins went round and round and were sure that we recognised some of them having seen them again and again and again.
Another habit Lorna and I tried hard to break them of was hiding their money until the very last moment. We used to tell them “Please have your cash ready when your turn comes” but they would wait until we told them how much it would be and then start looking for the cash. They tended to buy the same things every day so they knew the price, they just did not like showing their money until it was time to pass it over. Then often they could not remember where the money was hidden. Sometimes it was secreted in a shoe or in a lady’s bra. Another hiding place was in their hair. Did you realise that the thick curly hair of the African women will hold and hide quite a bit, but sometimes it was hard to find and the customer would have to run her fingers all through her hair until it was found, while a shop full of people waited to be served and her friends would all join in the hunt amid much laughter. Once a customer paid Lorna with a pile of coins that were very wet. Lorna asked why they were so wet and was told that they had been hidden in the baby’s nappy. Lorna freaked out and threw them all into the sink so that she could wash them before putting them into the till. After that we were even more careful about washing our hands after touching the money. I could never understand why they hid their money, very few of them just kept it in a purse or a pocket.
Anne had left us a long list of instructions so that we would know where to order different things. Most things would be delivered to us but as the business had always been on a completely cash basis there were no accounts and things had to be paid for before they were delivered. The list said that to order tea we had to go to Greens Garage. We thought that it must be a mistake but as we were just about out of tea we had to give it a try. I went to Greens Garage in Umtali and asked if they knew anything about ordering tea. They did not turn a hair, they knew exactly what I was talking about, took my money gave me a receipt and said that the tea would be delivered the following week, and it was. I never did work out how that happened. We bought some frozen products from a company called Irvin and Johnson, I looked up the number in the telephone directory and phoned to find out where their depot was only be told that they did not have a depot in Umtali but the van would be parked in Main Street at 8.30 am and we just had to be there at the right time to get what we wanted. But if we missed them at 8.30 in Main Street we could catch them at the next stop. I have memories of chasing the Irvin and Johnson van round Umtali to buy frozen fish. It all seemed rather crazy.
Lorna had a young baby, Laura who was about eight or nine months old when we started with the store. Lorna had intended leaving her with a nanny while she was at work but some problem arose with the nanny and Laura had to come to work with her. It turned out to be a big problem. She was not content to sit in her chair all the time and wanted to be carried. She was too heavy to carry all day and if she was put down she got in the way and was filthy dirty in no time at all. So Lorna took a leaf out of our customer’s books and started carrying the baby on her back. The black women made it look so easy, I suppose they had been used to it all their lives but it was new to us and although we took it in turns to carry Laura we found it hard going and very tiring. We bought a special harness to carry her and she seemed to enjoy it but Lorna and I didn’t. Never having seen a white woman with her baby on her back the black ladies thought it was very funny but some of them would take pity on us and take care of Laura for a little while.
Anne and Dennis had had the store for many years but when we took over we could see all the things that they were doing wrong. We were sure that we could do it better than them. We thought that after all those years they had stopped looking at the way they were doing things and had got into a rut. At the beginning we made quite a number of changes but slowly we could see that far from being in a rut they had years of experience behind them and by the time they returned we had understood why things were done in a particular way and changed them back again. It was a good lesson to me. It is very easy to be critical of the way other people do things and to think you can do better but unless you have been in their position you just don’t know what the problems concerned are.
One thing I wanted to change was the amount of white bread we sold. At that time there was a lot of publicity about our diets lacking roughage and we were being urged to eat brown bread, a thing I had done for ages before that. White bread was considerably dearer than the brown bread but our customers who were pretty poor would just about always buy the white bread in favour of the brown. I reasoned that if we did not sell white bread they would be forced to buy brown and benefit their health and their pockets but it did not work. We went a whole week with only brown bread and for the most part they just went without. Maybe if we had kept it up a bit longer they might have got the idea but I thought of the children with nothing to eat and just ordered the old order again. Most of the brown bread we sold was to the Europeans in the area. I think white bread was a status symbol and I learnt to mind my own business, maybe you can encourage people into good eating habits but you can’t force them.
posted by JC at
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