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Something about the Store makes people want to kill each other.
Today was the first of the month, which, at the Store, invariably means it's going to be an abysmal clusterfuck. The military (which there are a lot of, as we're just a few miles away from a major Army/Air Force base) get paid today, and food stamps start going out as well, which means that a lot of people suddenly have a lot of money to spend. On top of that, it's a Saturday, which means people have more free time to come shop. And on top of that, we're short three cashiers, two due to illness and one due to a scheduling error.
The end result of all of this is that the front end of the store, which I was in charge of running tonight, is a total dumpster fire. We've got all our cashiers in checkstands, plus several of the grocery clerks, and we've still got lines 7-8 carts deep, most of them large purchases of $200 or more.
And that's when our latest donnybrook broke out. I was in the bookkeeping office grabbing some rolls of coin for a cashier who'd run short when another cashier turned on the overhead and called for me in a panicked voice. The cashiers are supposed to call for a supervisor by pressing a button which sends a message to our earpiece, so if they're on the overhead instead it usually means serious business. I rush out and find two parties in his line loudly shouting and swearing at each other.
Here's what had happened, the party in front, a white man and woman, had been loading their stuff onto the belt, and the party behind them, two ladies of another ethnicity, started trying to put their stuff on the belt while the first party was still putting their stuff up. The woman in the first group told them to stop because "your food stamps can wait", which set the ladies in the second group off as they didn't have food stamps and now we had a racial matter on our hands. By the time I arrived, they were screaming at each other at the top of their lungs, the man telling the women to stay away from his wife and one of the women accusing the man of threatening to shoot her. (Did I mention the man was open-carrying a handgun? Because of course he was.) I had to step between them and tell everyone to calm down, and it was good timing that a cashier was coming back from break at that point, because I was able to have him take the women to another checkstand and ring them out, ending the confrontation with a few shouts of "I better not run into you in the parking lot!", just a few seconds before I would have had to call Mr. Wayne to get involved. I ended up going outside and watching both parties go to their cars lest another confrontation occur.
Yeesh. I get that the Store is a high-pressure environment. At one point this evening, we were in a state I like to call "critical mass", where all the checkstands are open, there are no shopping carts left in the vestibule, and the parking lot is full, such that the only reason we aren't doing more business is that it isn't physically possible for us to do so. You don't want to be in there any longer than you have to, and you're as frustrated as everyone else that things are so congested. We, the employee-owners, are just as frustrated and tense as you are.
But that's no excuse for this kind of behavior. Both parties in this confrontation were wrong. You shouldn't be trying to jam your stuff onto the belt while the person in front of you is still putting up their stuff, because it's just going to turn into a confused jumble for you, them, and the cashier. You shouldn't be shaming other customers over food stamps, nor assuming that just because someone is of a certain ethnicity that they must be on food stamps. The first, because food stamps are used by people of all races and are a good and necessary thing that helps keep our economy and our entire nation running smoothly, and the second because assuming someone is poor because of their skin color is stupid and hateful you racist idiot. And even if you're the target of such an ignorant hateful slur in public, that doesn't mean you need to start yelling and swearing and causing a scene in front of hundreds of other people who just want to buy their food and go home.
I'm just happy no one started throwing punches this time. The cashier I mentioned in my previous thread on this topic (who was on his last cashier shift before transferring to LP) was nearby and told me he was this close to getting involved if things didn't settle down on their own.
As a postscript, we've got a pipe running along the ceiling at the front end of our store that carries cold water to the restrooms. Lately we've been having some issues with water pressure, and one of the side effects of that is that every few hours, that pipe will start visibly shaking and making a loud booming sound something like a jackhammer. We had a plumber out today who took a look and confirmed that, while the system needs some work, there's no imminent danger of it failing.
I told my boss when I heard about it, "If that thing explodes and I get soaked, I'm going home." He laughed and said I wouldn't get punished if I did.
Today was the first of the month, which, at the Store, invariably means it's going to be an abysmal clusterfuck. The military (which there are a lot of, as we're just a few miles away from a major Army/Air Force base) get paid today, and food stamps start going out as well, which means that a lot of people suddenly have a lot of money to spend. On top of that, it's a Saturday, which means people have more free time to come shop. And on top of that, we're short three cashiers, two due to illness and one due to a scheduling error.
The end result of all of this is that the front end of the store, which I was in charge of running tonight, is a total dumpster fire. We've got all our cashiers in checkstands, plus several of the grocery clerks, and we've still got lines 7-8 carts deep, most of them large purchases of $200 or more.
And that's when our latest donnybrook broke out. I was in the bookkeeping office grabbing some rolls of coin for a cashier who'd run short when another cashier turned on the overhead and called for me in a panicked voice. The cashiers are supposed to call for a supervisor by pressing a button which sends a message to our earpiece, so if they're on the overhead instead it usually means serious business. I rush out and find two parties in his line loudly shouting and swearing at each other.
Here's what had happened, the party in front, a white man and woman, had been loading their stuff onto the belt, and the party behind them, two ladies of another ethnicity, started trying to put their stuff on the belt while the first party was still putting their stuff up. The woman in the first group told them to stop because "your food stamps can wait", which set the ladies in the second group off as they didn't have food stamps and now we had a racial matter on our hands. By the time I arrived, they were screaming at each other at the top of their lungs, the man telling the women to stay away from his wife and one of the women accusing the man of threatening to shoot her. (Did I mention the man was open-carrying a handgun? Because of course he was.) I had to step between them and tell everyone to calm down, and it was good timing that a cashier was coming back from break at that point, because I was able to have him take the women to another checkstand and ring them out, ending the confrontation with a few shouts of "I better not run into you in the parking lot!", just a few seconds before I would have had to call Mr. Wayne to get involved. I ended up going outside and watching both parties go to their cars lest another confrontation occur.
Yeesh. I get that the Store is a high-pressure environment. At one point this evening, we were in a state I like to call "critical mass", where all the checkstands are open, there are no shopping carts left in the vestibule, and the parking lot is full, such that the only reason we aren't doing more business is that it isn't physically possible for us to do so. You don't want to be in there any longer than you have to, and you're as frustrated as everyone else that things are so congested. We, the employee-owners, are just as frustrated and tense as you are.
But that's no excuse for this kind of behavior. Both parties in this confrontation were wrong. You shouldn't be trying to jam your stuff onto the belt while the person in front of you is still putting up their stuff, because it's just going to turn into a confused jumble for you, them, and the cashier. You shouldn't be shaming other customers over food stamps, nor assuming that just because someone is of a certain ethnicity that they must be on food stamps. The first, because food stamps are used by people of all races and are a good and necessary thing that helps keep our economy and our entire nation running smoothly, and the second because assuming someone is poor because of their skin color is stupid and hateful you racist idiot. And even if you're the target of such an ignorant hateful slur in public, that doesn't mean you need to start yelling and swearing and causing a scene in front of hundreds of other people who just want to buy their food and go home.
I'm just happy no one started throwing punches this time. The cashier I mentioned in my previous thread on this topic (who was on his last cashier shift before transferring to LP) was nearby and told me he was this close to getting involved if things didn't settle down on their own.
As a postscript, we've got a pipe running along the ceiling at the front end of our store that carries cold water to the restrooms. Lately we've been having some issues with water pressure, and one of the side effects of that is that every few hours, that pipe will start visibly shaking and making a loud booming sound something like a jackhammer. We had a plumber out today who took a look and confirmed that, while the system needs some work, there's no imminent danger of it failing.
I told my boss when I heard about it, "If that thing explodes and I get soaked, I'm going home." He laughed and said I wouldn't get punished if I did.
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