The big box store variation of the crappy
fast food McJob or the low level office job.
The
Super Slave Market is filled to brim with merchandise reaching up to the fluorescent light ceiling, annoying consumer crazed customers and of course, dozens of overworked, underpaid disgruntled employees. This is where dreams of a successful career go to die, right into the discount bin.
The
New Job Episode will often focus on one character working in such an environment (if he doesn't become a
Burger Fool) and then subsequently finding out being a grocery store or local
Wal-Mart employee is not as easy as it looks. Alternatively,
the fiction will sometimes focus on those poor souls that have already been working there for years (Such as in
Clerks or
Employee of the Month) and will give the viewer an inside look at life behind the counter.
Either way, as this is
Truth in Television, working at the
Super Slave Market is certainly no fun. Between the customers, the horrible music and the tyrannical management, quitting or getting fired is sometimes the only way out.
If the
Super Slave Market is making peoples lives miserable outside the store as well, it's a
Predatory Business.
Examples:
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Comics
- Retail is all about the world of the Super Slave Market. Namely, how much it sucks.
Film
- Clerks was one of the first films to really explore life behind the counter and expose retail life as the godforsaken Crapsack World it's always been.
- A more comedic upbeat example is the Super Club store in Dane Cook's Employee of the Month where the employees are still very competitive and haven't completely had their spirits crushed. However the in universe rival chain Maxi-Mart plays this trope straighter than straight.
- In the movie The Wrestler, Randy the Ram has a miserable day job at a grocery store, complete with a douche bag boss and terrible customers.
- The main character of Funny People sees his day job in a supermarket deli as one of these. His co-worker, an ex-convict who feels lucky just to have a shot at an honest living, sees it in a much better light.
- The titular character Ted gets a job in one of these places. Though the negative aspects are largely omitted in favor of Ted's Wacky Fratboy Hijinx.
Live Action TV
- Sam and his friends on Reaper spend as much time dealing with the incompetent management and obnoxious customers of The Work Bench as they do chasing down escaped damned souls. It's a toss-up which job is worse.
- Not a huge superstore, but just as soul-numbing to Granville would be Arkwright's little corner store in Open All Hours.
- Where Eric and Red work for some time in That '70s Show.
- Used in one episode of Leverage, where the team tries to take down a Wal Mart ripoff. One elderly diabetic employee was continually forced to work through his breaks, with predictable consequences. Eliot snaps and nearly beats up his boss, calling him a bully.
- Lois's job at the Lucky Aide drugstore in Malcolm In The Middle is portrayed as this.
Standup Comedy
- Jeff Dunham's puppet, Walter, considers getting a job as a Walmart greeter now that he's retired.
Video Games
- 'Minotaur In A China Shop' has the titular minotaur character trying to fetch breakable china for customers while contesting with clumsy awkward controls. When the minotaur has broken too much merchandise, he goes into an Unstoppable Rage.
Web Comics
- One of the main characters of Paul Southworth's Krazy Larry works at the superstore "Everything But Walnuts", a giant store that carries literally every imaginable product except walnuts, first as a clerk, and later, as their mascot "Nonuts The Ferret". Ironically, he finds this job after quitting his old Burger Fool job. He actually enjoys the mascot part of the job more because even though it involves him standing outside naked with only a censorbar over his crotch and getting pelted with rocks by passing cars, its still better than dealing with the soulcrushing drudgery inside the store.
Web Original
- The website Not Always Right has countless tales from retail workers who live this trope
Western Animation
