750,000 years of evolution…

Reduced to three shapes

When I was 15, my first job was at a wholesale warehouse. My NI number arrived early and by the next weekend I was wearing my red company polo shirt. I began where all Saturday job staff start—shelves. ‘Fronting’ as we called it. Soon I graduated to building display patio furniture. Then fireworks. Then tills.

But of all of my jobs for £3.42 an hour, my favourite aisle by a mile, was the WIGIG aisle. When It’s Gone, It’s Gone. (A masterclass in scarcity tactics). The WIGIG aisle consisted of six bays loaded to the gunnels with last man standing products. Each adorned with a bright yellow oval sticker.

But it didn’t stop there…

There was one very special bay within WIGIG that was devoted to BOGOF. Buy One Get One Free. (The most irresistible offer known to mankind). Each product had an ultra-sticky neon green sticker that hurt to look at and could be seen for aisles.

Sadly, there was one more bay. One bay that was only a trolley’s width away, but worlds apart: EX DISPLAY. A tragic rats nest of slightly dirty, slightly chipped, slightly unsafe electrical products, still hoping to go home with someone before the music ended. All singled out with a little red dot sticker, like the kind you’d find below a piece of art in a gallery, not a pallet bay in a warehouse, that signalled an automatic 20% discount. The further back you looked, the higher the discount.

But. No matter the season, the month, the week, day or time of day it was, the WIGIG aisle was always well and truly rammed with customers. Customers everywhere. A WIGIG in one hand, BOGOF in the other, an EX DISPLAY slung around their neck. Carnage. At points it felt like we were in a Turkish Bazaar, not a wholesale in Lincolnshire.

Yes, society has come a long way. Yes, us humans think we’ve figured it out. But our brain still thinks and acts like we’re on the Savannah. This is good. Because when our brain sees a flash of yellow, a pop of green or a spot of red in the distance, our brain thinks we've found breakfast. But we know we’ve found a bargain.