What began as a part-time job quickly became something more. McRobbie said the store environment of the 1970s was close-knit, with colleagues forming friendships that extended well beyond work hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no weekend work back then and everyone was like family,\u201d she said. \u201cWe had a social club and all became friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Supermarket work in the 70s and 80s was labour-intensive by today\u2019s standards. Prices were stamped on products using hand-held ink guns and checkout operators manually punched each item\u2019s cost into the till.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen customers brought items to us, the price had to be punched into the cash registers,\u201d McRobbie said.<\/p>\n
Learning prices was a job requirement. Each week, checkout staff were given a list of about 250 grocery items to memorise, particularly the specials.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to take them home over the weekend and learn them by heart,\u201d she said. \u201cOn a Monday we were tested and if you got more than three wrong you had to resit the test before being allowed on the tills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cash registers did not calculate change, making mental arithmetic essential. Power cuts added another challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the power went out, we had to get the hand crank,\u201d McRobbie said. \u201cYou could still ring up sales and open the drawer by turning it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1991, she moved to the newly opened Big Fresh supermarket on Anglesea and Liverpool Sts, a Woolworths-owned store later known as Big Fresh Franklins, then Countdown, and now Woolworths again. McRobbie has remained there ever since.<\/p>\n
Over the years, she has worn countless uniforms and worked under about 40 store managers.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach would come in with new ideas of how things should work,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019d think, \u2018been there, done that\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her roles have ranged across the store, with one of her favourites being promotion manager.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it was Big Fresh I went around schools and radio stations promoting the store,\u201d McRobbie said. \u201cI also organised Christmas parades.\u201d<\/p>\n
Customers have come and gone too, though some are unforgettable.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne elderly man used to come in with a suitcase he used as a lunch box,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Now working four days a week as an online supervisor, McRobbie oversees a service that did not exist when she started.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen online orders grow from five to more than 300 a week,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
McRobbie is one of Woolworths NZ\u2019s longest-serving team members, with only three others nationwide having worked for the company for more than 50 years. Retirement, however, is not on her radar.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople ask me about it, but I think I\u2019d get too bored,\u201d she said. \u201cI still have my health and I still enjoy working.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom Eley is a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. He previously worked for the Weekend Sun and Sunlive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What began as a part-time job quickly became something more. McRobbie said the store environment of the 1970s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[13212,806,138,7471,6567,71,24176,122248,424,122249,22638,122250,111,139,69,1642,6848,3333,1243,97,108935,122247,686,92,12767,19135,1530,80],"class_list":["post-198452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-13212","tag-as","tag-business","tag-charts","tag-evolution","tag-from","tag-hundreds","tag-inkstamped","tag-life","tag-maree","tag-marks","tag-mcrobbies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-online","tag-orders","tag-price","tag-shopping","tag-supermarket","tag-tags","tag-transforms","tag-week","tag-woolworths","tag-worker","tag-working","tag-years","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}