Mr. Bonesteel had been very clear in his team briefing that morning at 7am: “Five-star ratings are where it’s at, people. It’s how Metromart corporate measures out success. So when you’re out there, you are earning five-star reviews at the self-checkout. I’m setting a quota, and you all need to meet it. Our top stars will earn some great prizes, but if you fall behind, you’ll be written up.”

Tanisha stood looking over her domain, a bank of 16 self-checkout machines, and wondered how she was going to make it work. At first, people were just ignoring the star rating, since the Metromart software automatically dismissed it after five seconds. She was able to catch a few of them to leave five-star reviews herself, before Barbara warned her while on a store returns run–Demetrius had been caught doing the same by Bonesteel and been written up. The ratings had to come from customers, and they had to be five stars.

“Why even have five stars if we’re only using one of them?” Tanisha said. “Why not thumbs up thumbs down?”

Barbara shrugged. “They don’t pay me enough to get written up for asking. Good luck, kiddo.”

By lunchtime, Tanisha had resorted to approaching people as they were checking out and asking them to leave five star reviews. There wasn’t much else for her to do, after all, since it was impossible to keep an eye on 16 machines at once for someone sticky-fingering an extra item or two, and she figured Bonesteel would probably approve of her moving about and interacting with customers, just as he would probably not bother to stop and listen to the substance of their conversation.

Most folks were understanding, giving a “sure” or a curt nod and obligingly leaving ratings. A few were very supporting; one customer mentioned working at Metromart in another life and how often people had been written up for too many returns in their department. Tanisha could only smile nervously, the memory of Bobby White in Electronics being written up for too many returns (in between write-up for unsolicited discussion Transformers fanfics with unwilling customers) still fresh.

But as always a few were dicks about it.

“Well now, missy, why should I leave you five stars?” one old white guy said. “Convince me.”

“Our manager says we need them for corporate,” Tanisha replied.

“Well, now that’s your problem,” the man said. “My problem is why I should give you a rating you haven’t earned. I checked myself out, with no help, so that’s five stars for me if anybody’s counting. You did nothing, which here I come from is zero stars.”

“I asked nicely,” Tanisha said with a forced smile. “People are always complaining that no one asks nicely anymore.”

“Fair point, fair point,” the old man said. “Tell you what, we’ll met in the middle.” He selected three stars and collected his groceries before Tanisha could protest.

As he moved away, she saw the manager approaching on his rounds, the screen to her left lit up with a wholly unacceptable number of stars for all to see.

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