What posesses people to take not only a full cart full of groceries to an express but 2 carts? What ARE people thinking? These express lanes aren’t set up to take more than 20 items at a time. The space to put your groceries is small with no conveyor belt, the area we place the bags can litterally only hold 4 bags, not the 20 it takes for a full cart. I see people stack 3 or 4 items high on these tiny spaces, just to get their groceries scanned. In fact once I had a stool fall on my hand. I’ve seen tons of bottles of soda or jars of pickles fall because people stacked items there or the bag carousel. It’s a proven fact that these lanes can’t scan your items as fast as on a belt non express lane. So if getting out fast is your excuse for piling up 50 items on a 20 item or less lane, you’re out of steam.

Not only is it dangerous, takes more time and not set up to take more than 20 items, it’s completely defeating the purpose of having express lanes. Express is there for people who only have a few items that we can get through quicker. It’s not for people with 21 items, wic checks, hand keyed ebt cards. It’s suppose to be SPEEDY. If you have a special need for gods sake go to a belt equiped lane where no one is standing behind you trying to get to their son’s soccer game or mother’s funeral or cousin’s wedding. The express lane is to get people with FEW items through fast.

And the excuse “well you don’t have a customer now.” is complete bull shit. It’s like saying “well I only speeded when there was no one around.”. Rules are rules. Besides that consider murphy’s law of express lanes; If I take someone with over 20 items within 15 seconds of rining the first item up there will form a huge angry line behind that person.

Now the CFH of express lanes. Wic checks and EBT cards that don’t scan. You folks KNOW it takes longer for wic checks to be confirmed, scanned and rung up. If you have a special need like with wic checks, take it to a belt. Normally I have no problem with ebt cards, but anyone who works with them knows that they lose their magnetic charge a lot and have to be hand keyed in by the cashier. If you have one of these cards don’t even look at an express lane. Not only do I have to hand key in the 15 number card twice, I have to wait for a supervisor to come and approve it, which during a busy time I’ve seen take up to 15 minutes. Just go to a belt for farts sake.

I had this lady once come up to me when I was at a express lane that is known to be THE busiest express lane. We weren’t slamming busy but busy enough to where I always had a customer or one approaching the lane. Then this big, fat, sweat clad lady comes pushing a full cart up to my lane and I politely tell her “I’m sorry ma’am but I can only take 20 items or less.” She starts ranting about how I’m refusing her service and since when have we been able to refuse customers. As I’m trying to tell her that it’s been like that since I started working here she keeps interrupting me with angry remarks. I offered to take her to a belt that could accomodate her. She stomped off, turning to a man behind her pushing another cart and headed for another express lane. She not only had 1 full cart of groceries, but 2! And she expected service at a 20 items or less lane?

That’s it for now, rant off. But there have been plenty more CFH at the express lanes and there will be plenty more. Boggles me that people expect special treatment.

And don’t get mad at me when the computer denies your favorite brand of cereal/cheese/juice. If we sell you a product that is not WiC approved, it comes out of the stores pockets. I have no way to control what WiC approves or doesn’t approve. I just go by the guidelines they send us and try to explain to you what is or isn’t allowable. If you want to yell at someone because Kraft slices aren’t approved, call your local political representative or go to the WiC offices. Besides, does it really matter if it’s apple juice or pineapple bannana when it’s free? Heck, when something is given to me I don’t complain about specifics.

Which brings me to the next topic on public assistance that boggles me. Food stamps are no more, now there are EBT cards. Basically a debit card provided by public assistance with a max amount you can spend on food.

Now I know there are quite a few disallowed items, but it just makes me blink to see the stuff that is allowed. Soda, candy, ice cream, and other “luxury” foods that when I’m budgeting go right off my shopping list. If it were up to me the public assistance cards would cover fresh produce, meats, canned vegetables, breads and baking items and staples only. I think it needs a serious revamp.

I was also somewhat dismayed when one of my customers was talking about how folks sell their cards. They take the cards and sell them to friends/relatives for half the value in cash. Then the card buyer just uses it easy as pie. It’s just a debit card that no one is told to police/monitor in any way. I guess they figure if they put a pin code with it that’s all they need to do. We don’t check signatures/id or anything when it’s an EBT card. Anyone can concievably use it and they do pass em around like party favors. And we cashiers aren’t paid enough to try to police it for the government. For $7 an hour you think I’m gonna check every card that comes through my line and deal with the harassment from those customers? No freaking way.

Like I said, I have nothing against folks who use public assistance or Wic or other programs. If you really need it and you use it the way it’s intended I have no beef with you and will gladly help you get checked out in any way. But for those who abuse the system, bend the rules and otherwise defraud the government I have one thing to say to you…. “What goes around comes around.”

Karma baby!

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.

On an average 4 hour shift I see a minimum of 150 customers. Sometimes more, hardly ever less. In an 8 hour day I get to ring up at least 300 of you folks. I’d say out of every 5 customers, 1 of you has a special need, request or issue. The majority of you are absolutely wonderful, happy folks who are a pleasure to cashier for. But every once in a while I get a Customer from Hell. (Henceforth known as the Cfh.) Off the top of my head my biggest CFH was the coupon lady. While she was nice and she and I chatted to pass the time while the CSM got the official word on her coupons, she still took 45 minutes of my time. My time is kept track of by the computer. That 45 minutes with her goes into an average called my IPH which comes from an average of my items scanned per hour. It counts all my time on the system, save for a few minor things like checking ID for beer/cigs and customers writing checks. The higher my IPH is the better my future evaluations will be and from the rumors I’ve heard, it has a direct relation to how much my future pay raises are. So while she was nice, there was no way I could prevent her 45 minutes from blowing my IPH average.

Then there was the “Angry Cart Lady”. I cheerfully greet this heavy set, short haired lady as she piles her groceries on the belt. Not just sets her groceries on the belt but really piles them on 2 and 3 deep. She even placed a table over the end portion that I could have much easier scanned inside the cart. A minor annoyance since it makes it precarious for me to scan items without having an avalanche of merchandise come down on me. I smile and deal with it and scan her items and bag them.

As I’m scanning, bagging and making small talk with her the lazy susan holding the bags fills up. As she notices this she grabs the cart and almost runs me over trying to make sure that it is set as close to me as it can get. If you’ve seen how the registers are set up there is really no room for a cart at my elbow, but there is ample room at the customers side near the end of the lazy susan bag holder for a cart. As she stomps back to her side of the cash register my smile turns into furrowed eyebrows pondering her intentions. She loudly, pretty rudely, informs me that “I NEVER, NEVER put my own bags in the cart, EVER.”.

I’m a bit taken aback, because really it’s not set up for the cashier to place the groceries in the customers cart at “THE STORE” and while we’ve never been told it’s not our job to do it, it’s kind of assumed that this is part of the trade off of losing bag boys, that customers put their own groceries in the cart. I smile anyway though and keep my composure and put her bags in the cart. And to be honest I’m not all that picky about how they are organized in there. I stack the bags on other bags when normally if I help a customer place their bags in their cart I’m very careful, almost anal retentive about how I do it. But this fat ass bitch literally won’t raise a finger to help me with her groceries. Even the retarted table that I have to negotiate over the cash register. I smiled all through it though.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind helping people put their groceries in their cart, but for crying out loud, I’m getting paid $7 an hour and that lady EXPECTED me to do all the work. She never once thought about how me taking the time to load all her groceries took from the next customer or how in exchange for a bigger savings, the whole shopping experience has become less service oriented. I’m not getting paid nearly enough to deal with fat ass, lazy bitches like that. That’s like going to McDonalds and paying for a big mac but expecting a new york strip. Get a clue lady!

Stay tuned for more customers from hell stories to come!

First you have to understand the hierarchy at “THE STORE”. We have the manager and his co managers, then there are the different department managers, then for my area we have our customer service managers who answer to the customer service lead manager. I’m among many others at the low end of the totem pole as cashier, but even just cashiers have an unspoken class system. The ones that have been there longest with their special colored vests, the ones who have made cashier of the month with their special colored vests and then us lowly peons with are normal, drab colored vests.

Directly above us cashiers are the regular customer service managers. They’re the ones we call for overrides, approvals, change, problems and issues we can’t handle. I think all of us cashiers have our favorite CSM’s that we like to work with more than others. For me it’s Jan. (Named changed to protect her innocence, though innocent is not one word I’d use to discribe her.)

Jan is black haired, somewhat short, average build, not fat not skinny. She has one of those gravely voices that you just know comes from smoking ciggarettes forever. She’s an older woman but not old, I’d say mid to late 40’s.

Her attitude is flat out take no shit but 100% cheerful fun. You’d expect her to be a fun party buddy but if you needed your back watched she’d be the first to cover you. She’s what I’d call a GOG, a good old girl. Old school, no nonsense down to earth very approachable type who doesn’t put on any airs. She has a terrific sense of humor and I can joke with her easily. I even have a pet name for her already…. Janalanadingdong. (modified to protect her innocence!) She’s my FAV for csm’s.

She’s relatively new to being a CSM from what I gather. But after chit chatting with my fellow peons, she is definitely one of the favorites of everyone. You can always count on her coming to our aid quickly and with no questions and never making you feel like you’re beneath her or wasting her time. This is definitely one lady I admire and respect in “THE STORE” food chain.

While the “coupon lady” got a huge overage, you don’t see most coupon cutting folks trying to achieve that. I truely believe the “coupon lady’ is a rarity and probably not even all that accepted in her own coupon circles. From what I read it seems most people genuinely want a deal, not a free ride.

I also learned that “THE STORE” I work for doesn’t have a nation wide, consistant policy on coupons! They officially state that it is set by each store. So don’t get mad at us rabid cashiers who have no clue what to accept couponwise from you, if our own company can’t come to a consensus how can we be informed? It does seem that as a general rule my store’s coupon acceptance is:

No internet coupons Bogo is accepted Overage is accepted One per purchase means 1 item to 1 coupon, not 1 item/coupon per transaction. No doubling coupons

Here’s some good urls I found poking around. About.com’s coupon section. The Coupon Mom site, I didn’t get to poke around much but it looked good. I spent most of my time at review sites talking about “THE STORE” and how it handles coupons. (Our store could use some TLC in the customer service department regarding coupons and cashier awareness on them.)

Then I sort of blink as I look down the belt at the items an older, bleached blonde lady is placing in two seperate piles. Mounds and mounds of the identical trial size items. 3 different types of deoderant, mounds of ziplock bags, diaper wipes, mouth wash and shampoo. All in mass quantities, all in trial sizes. Her items make their way down the belt to me and as they do she presents the coupons. 25 coupons for $1 – $1.50 off on mouthwash, shampoo, deoderant, diaper wipes. So I start scanning, beep beep beep go 25 ladies style deoderant of one scent, beep beep beep goes the men’s version. To speed things along I do quantity, scan one item, hit 25, hit quantity and enter. Bam, that scans the 25 diaper wipes. She also has two of these scent machines and 2 $10 off coupons to go with them. This lady is practically telling me what I need to do to make this work. She lets me know that not only has she done this tons of times before but that our own district manager calls her to talk about it.

It turns out she’s some big “coupon lady” and does this at stores all over town. She even has swap clubs she trades coupons with over the internet. She takes the mass quantities of items and gives them to her church missionaries. The coupons actually pay for the items and leave an “overage”. This overage actually pays for her additional purchases or ones not fully covered by the coupons. The coupons match the items and the computer is taking the coupons so I don’t assume there is a problem. According to her there isn’t one, it’s all perfectly legit and sanctioned by “THE STORE” policies.

I scan all of the items from the first bunch, reach the max coupon limit scanning in 100+ coupons. Then we run into a problem with one set of coupons. It won’t take it for some reason. Since I can’t override the computer I have to call a sub manager, my immediate supervisor. The coupons match but the supervisor doesn’t think the overage issue is suppose to be happening. The blonde lady tries to explain to the supervisor that not only is it OK but “THE STORE” is going to get reimbursed for the full amount of the coupon regardless of what the lady spends on the items. The dubious supervisor goes off to call a manager, leaving me to chat with the lady while we await the decision.

One of the “co-managers” comes to my cash register with the supervisor. No one can seem to understand the conundrum so I explain to co manager and supervisor that the items match the coupons, the computer is accepting it and all but the one coupons are just fine. The blonde lady also informs the manager that the district manager in fact knows about this and it is fine. She insists that he call the district manager or anyone higher up. Both he and the supervisor walk off, leaving me yet again with the lady and her mass quantities of trial size items.

I can completely understand what’s going on even if those above me can’t. She’s basically using coupons on trial size items that cost less than the normal sized item the coupons were intended to be used on. The problem is that the coupon/item manufacturer hasn’t stipulated that it not be used on trial sized items. The lady lets me know that there’s even websites that you can swap coupons for, find out which stores carry the items you get cheaper and forums to read to learn how to do this!

In short, she’s buying 25 items at .97 each and using a $1 off coupon. The overage may only be 3 to 50 cents, but on mass quantities it’s adding up. Her $40 bill slowly has shrunk to $4 and she has over 200 items! She also lets me know that since there is no face value to the coupon she can’t have a negative balance, so she carefully divides items up and makes sure she only uses enough coupons to have to pay a few dollars for the big ticket items. That’s why she has two carefully divided piles.

Finally the supervisor comes back minus the co manager but with approval to accept and hand key the other coupons. While the supervisor clearly doesn’t morally approve, she hand keys enough in to let me learn and goes on her way. Since there are over 100 coupons, at the end the supervisor has to come back to accept the transaction.

By the end of the 2nd group of items I have spent 45 minutes on this one customer. She’s nice enough and it’s kind of neat learning about something like this. But in my mind it’s also taking advantage of the system. While it’s not legally wrong, it’s a bit morally wrong to me. I pretty much stayed calm through the whole deal, never got upset, impatient or bitchy. I stayed cheerful and talked to the customer trying to make her feel more at ease while the co manager and supervisor figured it out. The only time I felt paniced at all was when it was all over…. I thought about how horrible my daily report was going to look. 45 minutes on one customer with voids, coupons and supervisor over rides was going to reflect horribly on my noobie report average. Near tears I asked the supervisor about this and she let me know it would be ok since management was aware of it.

I got some urls for websites from the lady which I’ll post here later. I left it in my smock at work. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using the system to their advantage, but I doubt I ever could do something like this. I’d feel like a cheater somehow. To use a single coupon every now and then that has an overage wouldn’t bug me, but to blatently take advantage of a loop hole like that just seems unsettling.

I made the trek into the back and sure enough, there was another machine, but with a similar error! This time instead of giving up I asked and one of the customer service managers rebooted the machine, bringing it up error free! After spending the next 45 minutes filling out their computer based application and question process I was an official applicant!

On that note……where the hell did the days go when you just went into a place with your resume, a cover letter and a smile? I remember my first real job as a waitress all I did was fill out a one page application and was hired the same day. Every other job I held was either through knowing someone or handing in a resume. Now in some places you can’t even apply at the location you’re applying to, you have to apply online! And besides learning job history, they give you a personality test!

Within the next day I recieved a call from 2 different personnel managers for the store, both from 2 locations. Thankfully, one was for the store I wanted within walking distance from my house. I had an interview set up for within the week. I was really nervous!

I didn’t have to wait long for the first part of my 3 part interview. First I sat down with the personnel manager and she asked me a set of basic questions. Why did I want to work for this company, what were my strengths, weaknesses. Then she pulled in another manager type, this one happened to work in the electronics department. She too asked me a preset list of questions, following a basic guide set on a piece of paper. Lastly I got to repeat almost the same list of questions for another manager, this last one I think a bit higher up in the food chain of managers.

Either they were desperate for mad housewives like me or I impressed them enough because I was filing out the paperwork to become an “employee” and getting my paperwork for my first piss test! The personnel manager told me she’d call me with information on the first orientation available once she got my pee test results.

With the map to the drug testing company in hand I got into my falling apart van and sped away. If they could get my results quick enough to the manager I might be able to start within the next few days, otherwise I might have to wait weeks. It was a small office snuggled amongst a dozen bland other looking businesses in a somewhat large sized strip mall.

A mid 20’s man was walking in the same time I was and he seemed less thrilled than I was at the prospect of peeing into a cup. After giving the receptionist/pee collecter my paperwork, she walked me back to the bathrooms. Never at once did she directly touch me or anything but my paperwork. She pointed at the plastic sheathed pee cups, pointed at the little cubby that locked with a key on the bathroom door for me to place my purse and instructed me to wash my hands and asked what was in my pockets. I almost expected her to frisk me somehow without touching me. She escorted through the bathroom door and shut it behind me.

For those of you who have peed in a cup before you know how akward it is. First off I was to fill the cup up no further than one line but not below another and it seemed these lines were both pretty close to eachother. Needless to say, I ended up peeing on my hand. At least they had diaper wipes in the bathroom to use for just those occassions.

I returned the now filled but not over filled pee cup to the receptionist/pee tech. Once again, she didn’t touch anything but directed me with a rubber gloved finger where to place everything. We retrieved my purse and off I went.

That evening I got a call from the personnel manager at “THE STORE”. She wanted to know if I could make orientation the next morning at 9am. I would fill out the rest of the “official” paperwork then to make me an official employee of “THE STORE”.

Tune in for another episode later detailing my experiences at “THE ORIENTATION”!

Sometimes the things that happen are only slightly amusing, sometimes just stuff I can’t keep to myself. I’m sure some things won’t be really all that interesting to anyone but me.

So a little back ground: I’ve just gone back to work after being a mom/housewife for the last 10 years. It was something that I pretty much had to do to supliment our income so we can get ahead instead of staying stagnent financially. If I had my choice I’d still be nothing but a stay at home mom and house wife.

Down to the closest, busiest, local grocery super store I went and applied. Within 2 days of putting in my application I had an interview set up. A day after the interview I was sitting in an orientation and had a hand written schedule for the next 3 weeks.

Though I LOATHE being away from my family so much, I’m really having fun and enjoying working again. I’m by nature a friendly, outgoing person and being a cashier really fits me to a T. I’ve done retail before so I’m familiar with it. (I owned my own video game rental/retail store for a bit, did waitressing too for at least 7 years.)

So be watching for the tales, experiences and stories of me in my new environment!