In "A&P" by John Updike, the main character, Sammy decides to quit his job. Throughout the story Sammy reveals the reasons why he dislikes his job. A few reasons are: he becomes bored with his job, Sammy only working at this job because of his parents, he dislikes how a group of girls were being treated, and, finally he is trying to please others.
Sammy soon grows tired of his summer job. He consistently sees the same customers, and his job requires the same rituals every day. Sammy gets so bored with customers he starts comparing their actions to animals, "The sheep pushing their carts down the aisle" (Updike 202), " like scared pigs in chute"(Updike 204). Sammy gets so aggravated with a customer because she starts giving him trouble: "customer starts giving me hell" (Updike 201). This anger ultimately causes him to call this customer "cash-register-watchers" (Updike 201) and "a witch" (Updike 201).Every day Sammy hears the cash register, as a result he comes up with a song: "Hello (bing) there, you (gung) hap-py pee-pul (splat)!"(Updike 204). Sammy's imagination helps him get through his long work days and also moderates clearly his boredom.
The reason Sammy quits his job is because he wants to keep his parents happy. His parents got this job for him because they were friends with Lengel the manger "He's been a friend of my parents for years" (Updike 204). Lengel and Sammy know that quitting his job, would disappoint his parents and he does not want to do that. When he is about to walk out of the store, Lengel says, "Sammy, you don't want to this to your Mom and Dad" Sammy says, "It's true I don't" (Updike 204). Sammy deal with trying to please his parents, yet be the young man he wants to be "Now here comes the sad part of the story, at least that what my family says it sad" (Updike 203).
