I only have a short list of things I hate that customers do but I think it should be put out on the world wide web so that people understand how to behave.
1. Don't bag things that don't need bags. It's wasteful and ultimately will increase the cost of your groceries in the long run.
2. I know Americans are stereotypically known as lazy but let's not perpetuate that feeling further. If you weren't strong enough to carry your two grocery bags out to your car, that's fine, but the very least you can do is take it to the cart corral. It only takes a minute and eliminates the chance of me furiously yanking the cart off the curb and into the door of your precious SUV.
3. Don't assume I'm stupid. I know that we type in the amount of cash you gave us but I can figure out your change on my own. When you add change to the amount you are giving me, I can handle it. So avoid saying something like "Ohh, I'm sorry, is that too hard for you?" because I'm passive aggressive and I will squish your cupcakes when I place them in your bag.
4. Get off your phone, pay attention, have your payment ready. It makes the entire process faster for you, me and the people behind you. And honestly, why do people act so surprised when they have to pay?
5. Be nice. We are.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Eating in a Grocery Store
I'm not typically surprised or bothered by customer's actions in my store but every so often they'll get me. Lines got a little long and I told the next customer in line I could get them at register 4. I recognize this lady because she always comes in and seems completely exhausted so I wasn't all too surprised when she had an empty deli container on the belt.
Me: Uhh, do you want me to throw this away for you?
Customer: Oh yeah, and I ate this too. <Holds out hand and reveals peach pit>
<<HANDS ME PEACH PIT>>
Me: Ummmm
Customer: I ate a peach too
Me: I don't understand what you want me to do with this. (We sell peaches by the pound and without the peach, I can't charge her for it properly)
I'm still holding the peach pit because I can't believe she thought that was appropriate and she ate it without ever washing it off?!? The produce manager has to handle rotten produce all day and sometimes it drops on the floor. Produce should always be washed.
I finally threw the peach pit in the garbage and put a bottle of GermX on the scale to charge her for a 1.5lb peach.
Back To School
A family came through my line the other day, I tried to be super nice to make them happy they came to our little store but they just weren't having it. I assumed they had a bad case of the grumps and went about scanning each item. Then the crayons came down the belt. Glue, scissors......paper, binders, pens, pencils. A small smile comes across my face. I can't handle it, I have a 100 Watt smile across my face and here comes the construction paper.
Customer: Are you ok?
Me: IT'S JUST SO EXCITING!!!
Customer: Um, what?
Me: I love school supplies. It marks a new year and they have everything they need to learn as much as they can in this year and by next year they're going to be so much smarter than they are now!"
Customer: Oh do you have kids?
Me: No but I have a little brother and sister and it just makes me so happy for them and all the babies going off to school.
Customer: Oh Lord, I don't know how you're going to handle having kids.
Customer: Are you ok?
Me: IT'S JUST SO EXCITING!!!
Customer: Um, what?
Me: I love school supplies. It marks a new year and they have everything they need to learn as much as they can in this year and by next year they're going to be so much smarter than they are now!"
Customer: Oh do you have kids?
Me: No but I have a little brother and sister and it just makes me so happy for them and all the babies going off to school.
Customer: Oh Lord, I don't know how you're going to handle having kids.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Cashier Competency
I work in a very small store so it's not uncommon to be the only cashier at the front. I'm a pro at multi-tasking though so it's not a big deal. Today I found myself alone helping this elderly lady with her items and I noticed a guy having trouble with the self-checkout. (Seriously, if you don't know how to work the machine or have more than 10 items, do NOT use that line, it's not faster.) The lady I was helping was just about ready to go when I hear, "HEY, this thing's broken." Yep, I got it sir, give me just a second...get on the pager to call a cashier up to the front to help Mr. Impatient. Less than a minute later, he's in my line complaining about how nobody showed up. I look over my shoulder, yep, there she is, he could have waited and been gone by now. The lady behind him in the self-check line followed him over to my line.
Mr. I: Well those things never work
Lady/Sheep: Yeah but I prefer them because I spend so much time picking out my produce and the cashiers just throw it in the bag and bruise my produce.
Mr. I: You know, you should just tell them you want to do it yourself
Meanwhile, I'm already done ringing his stuff up and I'm waiting on him to pay for his things. Approximately 3 minutes later, he gets done and tells me that the lady behind him would like to bag her own groceries.
Now let's stop for a second. This is an incredibly easy job. There are a lot of rules to remember once you get past the basics but really, we know how to do this as children. Scan, bag, scan, bag, scan, bag, total. Easyyy. Not to toot my own horn but...toot, toot, I'm pretty smart. I can do this shiz in my sleep.
Back to the story. I look at the two and look back down and I hear the woman say, "no it's alright, she looks competent enough to do this."
I was just coming off my meltdown over the radio so I had the potential to deliver a roundhouse kick to the face. Alas, I held my tongue and smiled, even told her to have a great day.
Really though, I work with a couple of ding dongs but most of my coworkers are really smart. Circumstance leads a person to that job, not will. Think about it.
However, I will admit that my passive aggressiveness has gotten the best of me before. I squeezed a package of cupcakes this lady just had to have an extra bag for. I don't like cupcakes and I don't like waste. Boom.
Mr. I: Well those things never work
Lady/Sheep: Yeah but I prefer them because I spend so much time picking out my produce and the cashiers just throw it in the bag and bruise my produce.
Mr. I: You know, you should just tell them you want to do it yourself
Meanwhile, I'm already done ringing his stuff up and I'm waiting on him to pay for his things. Approximately 3 minutes later, he gets done and tells me that the lady behind him would like to bag her own groceries.
Now let's stop for a second. This is an incredibly easy job. There are a lot of rules to remember once you get past the basics but really, we know how to do this as children. Scan, bag, scan, bag, scan, bag, total. Easyyy. Not to toot my own horn but...toot, toot, I'm pretty smart. I can do this shiz in my sleep.
Back to the story. I look at the two and look back down and I hear the woman say, "no it's alright, she looks competent enough to do this."
I was just coming off my meltdown over the radio so I had the potential to deliver a roundhouse kick to the face. Alas, I held my tongue and smiled, even told her to have a great day.
Really though, I work with a couple of ding dongs but most of my coworkers are really smart. Circumstance leads a person to that job, not will. Think about it.
However, I will admit that my passive aggressiveness has gotten the best of me before. I squeezed a package of cupcakes this lady just had to have an extra bag for. I don't like cupcakes and I don't like waste. Boom.
Radios, rawr!
The managers at work put up a problem/solution board in our break room about two months ago. We were told it was anonymous and all of our requests would be recognized and possibly resolved. Inevitably, the board exploded with requests for things like better pay, new management, no 'I' in team (doesn't make sense to me either) and, just in case they didn't understand, pay increase. So a month of management erasing such requests resulted in a meeting where the purpose of the board was defined a bit more clearly. The board is for actual physical problems with the building, not for personal issues. Enthusiasm for the board dropped so I became the only one using it. I listed a missing outlet faceplate, broken mart carts, new US flag (because ours is tattered and sad) and a request for new/more radios (walky talkies).
When I first began at "Retail Shed", we all seemed to have our own radio. Communication was easy and the paging system didn't get used for every little thing. Ideally, the assistant manager, CSM (moi), customer service desk associate and one other associate will carry a radio. No doubt you can understand why effective communication is necessary in a business. Well radios started going missing and we were reduced to two radios (only one of those worked) and the assistant manager's radio. So the service desk and the assistant manager became the only two with radios. Cashiers became frustrated because it was difficult to communicate with CSMs when they needed things. My store manager called me into her office and explained to me that I always need to have a radio on me. I explained to her that as soon as she got enough working radios in the store, I would be glad to but that I'm not going to bother carrying a one-way radio everywhere with me. Then she started complaining about us using the paging system and I told her that it would all stop as soon as we got more radios. So it's been this vicious cycle. Let me break it down:
A radio costs around $50 but I was told that our store couldn't afford to buy anymore. The world's largest retailer SELLS radios, it wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket to drop $200 to improve store communication.
I also need to include that I was asked to keep my things in a drawer in the manager's office because they wanted my bag out of the way when Home Office came to the store. I was fine with that and when I went to retrieve my bag, I found a radio. I asked my manager why it was there, she didn't know, so I assumed the little bugger got put in there by mistake. Boom! We've got another radio. Well, two days later, an assistant manager is pissed because I didn't have any business in her drawer and that was "her" radio that she stole from her former store.
Alright back to the board. My request for new radios has been unanswered for over a month. Meanwhile, we're still not supposed to page and we can't communicate with each other. I noticed an overnight support manager making some purchases before he headed out and he had a radio on. I said, "hey we're going to need that, you can't take it with you." He gave me this incredulous look and said "No, this is MY radio, I take it home with me." WELL. Dumbfounded, frustrated and immediately pissed, I made my way to the break room to see how many radios we had. One.
My favorite thing about working in my store is that we can speak our minds with no fear of retaliation. (Largely because my store manager doesn't actually understand anything that we're talking about, I've decided she spends all of her time playing Snake on her phone.)
A couple of my buddies are making breakfast so I started up my motor mouth and let it rip.
When I first began at "Retail Shed", we all seemed to have our own radio. Communication was easy and the paging system didn't get used for every little thing. Ideally, the assistant manager, CSM (moi), customer service desk associate and one other associate will carry a radio. No doubt you can understand why effective communication is necessary in a business. Well radios started going missing and we were reduced to two radios (only one of those worked) and the assistant manager's radio. So the service desk and the assistant manager became the only two with radios. Cashiers became frustrated because it was difficult to communicate with CSMs when they needed things. My store manager called me into her office and explained to me that I always need to have a radio on me. I explained to her that as soon as she got enough working radios in the store, I would be glad to but that I'm not going to bother carrying a one-way radio everywhere with me. Then she started complaining about us using the paging system and I told her that it would all stop as soon as we got more radios. So it's been this vicious cycle. Let me break it down:
A radio costs around $50 but I was told that our store couldn't afford to buy anymore. The world's largest retailer SELLS radios, it wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket to drop $200 to improve store communication.
I also need to include that I was asked to keep my things in a drawer in the manager's office because they wanted my bag out of the way when Home Office came to the store. I was fine with that and when I went to retrieve my bag, I found a radio. I asked my manager why it was there, she didn't know, so I assumed the little bugger got put in there by mistake. Boom! We've got another radio. Well, two days later, an assistant manager is pissed because I didn't have any business in her drawer and that was "her" radio that she stole from her former store.
Alright back to the board. My request for new radios has been unanswered for over a month. Meanwhile, we're still not supposed to page and we can't communicate with each other. I noticed an overnight support manager making some purchases before he headed out and he had a radio on. I said, "hey we're going to need that, you can't take it with you." He gave me this incredulous look and said "No, this is MY radio, I take it home with me." WELL. Dumbfounded, frustrated and immediately pissed, I made my way to the break room to see how many radios we had. One.
My favorite thing about working in my store is that we can speak our minds with no fear of retaliation. (Largely because my store manager doesn't actually understand anything that we're talking about, I've decided she spends all of her time playing Snake on her phone.)
A couple of my buddies are making breakfast so I started up my motor mouth and let it rip.
"Evidently we all have our own radios now. Mark is taking his home. This is just like the Telxon's, everybody is afraid they won't have the tools they need so they hide them and screw the next shift over. I'm sick of this crap! I get in trouble for not having a radio but they won't even supply me with one! Lisa got all pissy because we were using her radio. I guess I just need to take one with me when I leave and tell everyone it's mine. I'll never have to worry about these stupid radios again!"
I noticed my store manager in her office but I didn't let up because I wanted her to hear it. Maybe I even threw my pen and growled. Sue called from her office and said if I had a problem I could come talk to her about it. I grumbled, "I'M FINE," took a deep breath and decided that I was not fine and stormed into the office.
I started my rant all over again and she said, "nobody has a personal radio, they are the store's radios and I will ensure that nobody takes them home." "Alright thanks, sorry I yelled," I yelled. She told me it was fine.
I'm on a personal mission to reclaim the radios for our store. I'll keep you posted.
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