Customers from HELL!
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!