Team Fortress Grocery Store

Team Fortress 2 is awesome - just plain awesome. It's a multiplayer shooting game made by Valve (Half Life series, Left 4 Dead, Portal, Steam), where you can choose from 9 different classes. Each class works completely differently, has different strengths and weaknesses, and the most effective teams has at least one of each. You have the standard Soldier, the super-fast Scout, the powerful Heavy, and so on and so fourth.

I work in a grocery store. I have for over four years now. After a while, you start to notice some things. The different departments in a grocery store are quite similar to the different classes in Team Fortress 2. Just like in Team Fortress 2 your fighting a war against the blue/red team, in a grocery store your fighting the war on empty shelves. The following list will explain further.

Offensive classes.

Soldier - I might as well start off with the most basic of the bunch. The soldier, or the cashier, is your basic front-lines person. Just like a soldier runs in, sweeping the enemy away with his rocket launcher, the cashiers sweep away at all those food products everyone buys. The soldier shoots everything in sight, the cashier scans everything in sight. But the soldier is just one of the three offensive classes; what of the other two?

Scout - In Team Fortress 2, the scout is the fast guy. He's best for quickly capturing control points early in the match, as well as running past everyone as he heads for the enemies intelligence. In the grocery store, the shelf-stalkers are quite similar. They move all around the store, filling up everything (capture points), cleaning everything (intelligence), and other all-round stuff. There's really nothing more to say about this one.

Pyro - Ah the Pyro, probably my favorite class in TF2. He's the best class for ambushing the enemy, as well as causing general chaos. I don't know how, but I once got 32 kills in one life with the Pyro...all in the same fight. Just ran in, burning everyone, and somehow I didn't die. Sometimes the Pyro can cause serious damage, but because of his short range, he's often killed off without a fight. In any case, the managers aren't too different from the Pyros. They'll ambush workers, telling them to work on something else. Different managers will often give you conflicting tasks, therefore causing chaos. Also like the Pyro, sometimes the managers are useful, sometimes they're not. This all depends on whether the managers actually do anything or if they just walk around. Yes, I've seen managers that do nothing but walk around and tell workers to do stuff. There's also my store manager, who tends to order way too much food; therefore causing chaos. So there you go, the manager is like the Pyro.

Defensive classes.

Demo-man - In TF2, the demo-man is best use for setting traps. He can remotely detonate his grenades. However, he can also shoot grenades around corners when used in offense too. He's one of the more strategic classes in the game. In the grocery store however, the demo-man isn't strategic at all. The demo-man is the person who gives out free samples. Yes, because we officially call free samples "demos". What? You were expecting something more cleaver? Sorry, I got nothing on the Demo-man.

Heavy - In TF2, the heavy is probably the most mindless of the classes. His only strategy, find a spot to defend and fire your mini-gun away at the invading forces. His mini-gun will take care of everything for you. In a grocery store, receiving is like the heavy. His strategy is simple, unload trucks. He uses a power jack to help him, but he still unloads heavy skids all the time. Sure, there's more to receiving than simply unloading trucks, but that's the long and short of it. Therefore, the heavy is the receiver.

Engineer - In TF2, the engineer is the best class for setting up defenses. He's also useful for helping the team reach the enemy's base quicker and supplying them with extra ammo. The engineer is easily the worst class for attacking, and he is almost exclusively a defensive class. This is like night-crew. While the store is closed, they are setting up everything. They fill the shelves, they clean up the backroom, and they prepare the store for the next morning's opening. They have nothing to do with customers, so therefore they have no offensive capabilities. Therefore, the engineer is night-crew.

Special classes.

Medic - In TF2, the medic heals people. That's the long and short of it. In the grocery store, the medic is anyone with first aid training, 'nuff said!


Sniper - Isn't it obvious what the sniper is in TF2? Well, it's a bit more complicated in the grocery store. The sniper is loss prevention. Why isn't this the spy? I'll get to that later. Loss prevention walks around the store like an ordinary customer. If they catch someone stealing something, they'll snipe them (catch them). Their disguise as a normal person is their sniping position. They wait until the opportune moment to snipe their targets in the, um...law. Therefore, the sniper is loss prevention.


Spy - In TF2, the spy is easily the most interesting class. He can disguise himself as the enemy, cloak himself (become invisible for a short time), disable sentry guns, and stab people in the back. He is difficult to use, but can be very effective when used right. Everybody hates a spy; they tend to mess everything up. Because of this, everyone also fears them. Whenever a spy is caught, everybody is informed immediately. In a grocery store, secret customers are like the spy. They are people working for the company that owns the grocery store. They act as a normal customer, buy their groceries, then rate the store's customer service. If your workers do poorly, you will know. The managers fear them, and always tell us how they rated the store. The secret customer is the spy.

So there you go, different grocery workers represent different TF2 classes.