When Anna Sam entered the supermarket world as a part-time checkout clerk, she was 20 years old and still in college, intending to work for a short while to help finance her studies.
But graduation came and went, and no other jobs were available. So she stayed on. And on. Eight years went by, “beep, beep” at the cash register day after day. Anna Sam, student of modern literature, had become a checkout lady. Her professional universe had been reduced to a supermarket behind the soccer stadium in this Brittany city 200 miles west of Paris.
Then in June came the book “Tribulations of a Cashier,” which catapulted Sam from obscurity at the checkout line to fame as a best-selling author. The book, a lighthearted account of what it is like to ring up sales all day long for customers who hardly acknowledge your presence, became a summertime sensation, selling about 100,000 copies.