Work work work!
I’ve been working like mad lately. Then when I do get time off I spend those precious moments with my husband and son. Biggest suprise to me is my husband is missing me more than my son is. We’ve all 3 had a lot of adjustments to make and it’s been rough going for us all. I think we’re slowly getting the hang of it though.
My hubby spoiled me for mother’s day. I woke up to coffee made and waiting for me, a card and 2 packages of my favorite, expensive Seattle’s Best coffee. When my son stumbled into consciousness he gave me a nice card minus it’s envelope. My husband also did a LOT of the chores on my list for me, and the last few weeks has replaced blinds that I hated. Overall hubby’s rating is up there with the pope imo.
I did have to work for Mother’s Day. Not a biggie, though it’s the first year I’ve missed our annual Mother’s day fishing outing. They did manage to drag themselves without me though. (=p) I worked a long shift, 10 to 7. “THE STORE” put out roses for us working mothers which was nice. The first half of the day was explosively busy, one customer after another, fraught with problems and issues. Several people had forgotten wallets or had bank cards declined which means lots of time waiting on CSM’s approving suspened or canceled transactions. One lady complained about the long lines and how “THE STORE” needed more cashiers. I heartily agreed that we need more cashiers but people just don’t want the job and that while I would like to see every cashier they have there, I’m happy for the mommies that got it off to spend with their families on mother’s day. She looked a bit guilty as she stated “Oh I didn’t think about it being Mother’s day.”
On that note let me tell you what I couldn’t tell her. “THE STORE” has a hard time not only hiring new cashiers but keeping them. The pay they offer is barely over minimum wage. You have sometimes YEARS to wait until you can get approved for full time as they like to keep everyone part time to avoid paying out benifits and running into overtime pay. I talked to one lady and she’s been trying to get full time for 2 years now. On top of that we get a raise once a year IF our performance meets standards. (which I’ve heard are pretty high standards, I’ll let you know later after my first evaluation.)
Someone quoted a figure to me one day that 1 out of every 4 cashiers actually hired will stay. Next to the crappy pay we have tons of stress. The majority of people who have problems, issues or complaints don’t go to customer service or management, they voice them to the cashiers. Some of us try to fix those problems, complaints and issues, but bottom line is we are powerless. Complaining to the lowly paid, often ignored and kept in the dark cashier is like going to your kids school and complaining to the janitor about poor teacher performance. Yet every day, 90% of the people who come through my lane expect me to give them top quality service for bottom dollar prices.
Then to top all that off, we really don’t get any respect from the higher ups. We cashiers are expected to do it all. We do spill clean ups, zoning - which is the act of replacing the things people leave lying all over, cleaning in general if it can be done with paper towels and windex, attending the cash register, bringing carts in from the parking lot, covering greeters for breaks and sometimes being sent to another department to help when they are short. Most the time we’re not asked we’re told. There are a few CSM’s that will ask and say thanks and show appreciation by words, but like my dad use to say “actions speak louder than words.”
For example, this last week we had to almost battle the management to retain the privledge of having water at our registers. Some district muckity muck came through and got a bee in his bonnet not liking the sight of all the water bottles at the registers. So BAM, new rule - cashiers can’t have waters at the registers. Well I’m in Florida, it’s hot. Our store is always hot and especially so up at the registers which are near the constantly opening and closing doors. We don’t have fans at our registers and we’re working non stop. We also use our water for other things than drinking, on paper towels for cleaning up messes that shouldn’t be cleaned with windex. For soaking a paper towel so we can wipe our fingers to pull the “sticky” money apart. (That new money that is all stiff and sticks together.)
After a lot of cashier grumbling and complaining the management reached a compromise - we can have water, only water and ONLY water that the CSM’s hand out to us. Well I guess that’s ok with me, though the cashiers that drink more than 1 bottle a day are inconvienced. The CSM’s have enough to do if you ask me, without management asking them to hand out water to us too. God help you if you’re on break or they run out of water when they hand it out.
Other quick ways we lose out as cashiers - We’re always to busy to attend any of the daily, weekly and monthly meetings they hold. I have worked there 3 months now and have been to 1 meeting and that was on my day off. From what I understand they have 3 meetings a day, 10am, some evening time and 10pm. Then there’s a bigger meeting on saturday’s or fridays or something like that. But no one ever pulls cashiers off registers to attend meetings. We’re the damn mushrooms of “THE STORE”, kept in the dark and fed shit.
Despite the corporate policies, the shitty treatment of the little guys and the ineffectual management, I really like my job. In spite of all the crap, I really like the other little people I work with. They’re genuine, hard working and very interesting people to get to know.