Bradford Middleton, 6/29/2015

Current Occupation:  Low-grade sales assistant for big supermarket company.
Former Occupation: Student, Music PR, writer, admin serf.
Contact Information: Bradford Middleton lives in Brighton on England's south coast.  When he isn't writing stories and poems he can often be found on the check-out at a local supermarket.  For more from him follow @beatnikbraduk on Twitter.

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HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN?

Back to work on a Sunday after a week off
And no-one can even be bothered to say hi
Let alone ask how my blessed week away has been
A week spent trying to piece together a life
In a city I ain’t lived in for nearly ten years
That went to shit on about the Wednesday
And ended in the ubiquitous three-day drunk

So back to this town and back to work
Within ten minutes the boss is shouting
As I wander round our store feeling dazed
Work the delivery she says, I’m going for a cigarette
As the new guy flounders beneath the mass of a queue
I simply ignore it, loading a cart
Thinking how the hell did I get back here?

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TERRIBLE NEWS AT THE WORKPLACE

I’ve had some days of feeling down about my job
But right now it just seems to be something I can’t shake
There is no way out, no end in sight
As my job circles the drainpipe leaving me with thoughts of dread
The thought of just one more shift
Leaves me feeling just damn sick

The boss I hated, the one who’d gone away
He’s coming back, demoted, on a lower grade
But he’ll still be my boss and I know he can’t wait
My colleagues are all happy as he’s English
And apparently one of us but all I can remember of him
Is how useless he was and how my name was just ‘tills’

With the new boss, of Russian-Peruvian descent,
I have a camaraderie bonded over music and politics
But no one else seem to think he’s better than what we had
As under their breaths they just mutter about damn immigrants
Taking our jobs, whilst telling anyone who’ll listen why their voting UKIP
Just so we can have more idiots in charge rather than people who are capable…

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THE MAN WHO TOOK DOWN EASTER

At work one day I was asked to do something I thought I’d enjoy
I got to work hard at my task
Taking down the promotional stands from the day before
When a young kid walked in with his Mum &
I was busy un-stacking the shelves of the chocolate eggs and bunny’s that announced it had been Easter but it didn’t take long before
I returned to the real world; being interrupted by a voice behind me

Mister, what are you doing the voice enquired?
I’m taking down Easter, no more chocolate eggs for another year I told him
Did you get your fix? I goaded
Cos that’s it now, they are all gone
The kid looked at his Mum and his bottom lip began to quiver burst into tears at the thought of no more chocolate and with that image in front of me I thought
It’s days like this that make me feel glad to be alive!