Surviving?

[bean]

Working in a busy grocery store during the holidays is bad enough. I can't imagine what those of you in other retail outlets are going through.

Today's projected sales were about 2.5x our normal Wednesday sales. We did well over 3x. We had the staff for a bit over 2.5x, but didn't have a chance in hell of providing short lines and quick service at this rate. When I arrived at 2:30pm, we had already done about 1.25x our normal sales for a Wednesday.

I was supposed to get off by 10:30... which means I leave the sales floor, at the latest, by 10:15 to count my drawer, do my deposit, sign the papers, and clock out.

I clocked out at 11:08. We didn't even get the last customer out of the store until 10:30. And of course, the cashier who bitches the most that people leave earlier than her (even when they get there earlier) was the first to haul ass off the floor at close. Thanks bitch, even though you arrived an hour AFTER me, you clocked out a good 45 minutes before me, but hey... if management won't grow a spine, they'll just pay more overtime to me everytime you bitch and moan.

Also, while in the cash office waiting for my deposit to be counted, another cashier and I were talking about how much we hate certain coupons, rather loudly. The supervisor counting everyone down turns around and says "Bean, is this because I counted Ben before you?". I just stare at her, say "Huh?", and she demands to know why I'm so pissed off and if it's because she's counting someone else before me.

I tell her I'm not pissed off, and Al and I were discussing coupons. She says "bullshit" until Al (who's been there for 11 years now) tells her the same thing, we were discussing coupons, and he even holds up the exact coupons we were bitching about (store promos). I then go on to tell her "Even if you did skip me, which you did, I like getting overtime on my check.. so take as long as you like" (not word for word, but pretty much the same point).

Tomorrow (er, today) we're expecting nearly 300,000 in sales. We're lucky to break 100k on a normal thursday, and we even close 3 hours early.

Wish me luck.

[lupo pazzesco]

My mom works at K-mart. She's the early morning crew, and generally, her shift is SUPPOSED to be 6 am to 12, sometimes 1 pm. That said, in the days I've been home, sometimes she won't come home from work until after 3, sometimes 4. On top of that, the people she's been dealing with, just from the stories are hitting new levels of SC-ism and EW-ness.

Don't get me started on grocery stores, either! I went to pick up what we needed for our ham dinner tomorrow the other day. I was looking through the hams, and this guy muscled me out of the way so he could grab 5. I didn't think it was worth fighting over, as there were about 30 in the display, but geez. He kept giving me dirty looks, too, like I was going to steal the hams he wanted! I shrugged, and when he turned around to put a ham in his cart I snagged the one I wanted and turned to go, but not before he gave me an evil death glare of doom.

Good luck today, and take care. People get real crazy when it comes down to zero hour before Christmas!

[Plaidman]

We average 2000 Day shift, 3000+ swing shift, and 1800+ grave yard on fridays.

Seeing as we'll be the only place open for miles, I shudder at what our sales will be tomorrow.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

We did about $82,000 in sales Tuesday, $95,000 yesterday, and it was pretty damn busy today too. That "huge winter storm" forecast for today has been a whole lot of nothing.

I'll bet it's probably dead at the swamp now. It always seemed to get really dead on Christmas Eve afternoon. I guess by that time people return home to start their Christmas festivities.

[bean]

I was scheduled 11am-7pm. Store closed at 7, in theory I was supposed to pull my drawer at 6:45 or so.

Yeah, that didn't happen. When I got there we had 19 (out of 20) registers going, including coffee bar, customer service, and the smokehouse... and I swapped out with someone that was going home. Everyone that showed up after me had to wait for a register to open up - the one we didn't use is a mobile cart that we use outdoors for flowers, grilling, etc and it locks up a LOT. And the lines were fucking horrible, I was on #1, so I had all of the customers coming from produce, wine, seafood, and the catering table.

I finally got off the floor at about 7:15, got into the cash office and had to wait for a calculator to open up.. then wait for supes to verify my till and deposit. Clocked out at about 7:45. I checked my hours after I punched out, if I want to avoid overtime on Sunday I'll have to somehow trim 45 minutes off of my shift.

In all, I rang a bit over 14,000 myself. And my drawer was only a penny off (Canadian penny found its way into my drawer). The store did nearly 300,000 for the day - and we closed 3 hours early. On a busy weekend we might do 300,000 on Saturday and Sunday combined.

No real SCs to speak of, some of them were in a bad mood, but didn't try to take it out on me. A lot of them were in good moods even though they were waiting in lines that were 5-10 people deep at times. Lots of hugs exchanged with both coworkers and regular customers.

In all, at least the closing shift ran pretty smooth. Also, I only got 2 hours of sleep last night (if that), and was barely able to keep my eyes open for most of my shift even after a couple of energy drinks.

I'm really, really looking forward to my bonus for December, we've had insane numbers all month. I should get it on my Jan 22 check.

Oh yeah, a nice surprise.. we got paid today instead of Friday.

[Rapscallion]

We always get paid on a Thursday, so no problem for us. Pretty much a very quiet day for us in the office - we ended up startled when the phone rang. Quite a good snowball fight at High Noon. There was supposed to be a prize for best fancy dress. Santa was picking bulk in the warehouse, and there were a few other odd costumes. I'd forgotten to do anything, so I occasionally said, "Brr, it's cold," or, "I'm freezing," and pretended to be a human being. One of the buyers realised he'd done nothing too late and claimed to be a defrocked priest.

Oh, I nearly forgot the raffle - all the stuff our buyers are bribed with over the year goes into a raffle for the entire workforce. I got a large tin of quality street, a tin of biscuits (traded a bottle of cider for that), and some Montezumas chocolates (traded a bottle of beer).

I'm in wholesale, so our real panicking work was the last few weeks. Wednesday and Thursday were particularly easy for us.

Rapscallion

[XCashier]

This whole week was an interesting one for me, to say the least.

Friday morning, I woke up with a muscle spasm on the right side of my neck. Very painful. I checked on WebMD, followed their advice, tried to work through it. Working in a fabric store while in severe pain and unable to turn your head or even look up is very difficult. I ended up going to UrgentCare Sunday and getting muscle relaxers and generic Vicodin, as well as a page of exercises to do. It was getting so bad I had to call in sick Monday. I was off Tuesday anyway, and resting those two days helped enormously.

That aside, we went through bouts when we were insanely busy and bouts when we were dead. Christmas Eve, we were mostly dead (insert Princess Bride joke here), and were easily able to keep up with restocking fabric, doing remnants and other minor duties. Up until fifteen minutes to close, when one customer came in, brought a dozen bolts up to the counter, wanted a cut from each of them, and kept going back and forth between the table and the fabric rack bringing back more and putting others back. She finally checked out about ten minutes after close, and when I went to put the fabric back, I found lots of bolts lying on top of racks, misplaced or turned upside down. Well, we hustled, one coworker and I got the fabric put back where it belonged while the others did the store reset for the after-Christmas sales and the other closing duties, and we got out of there pretty much on time.

It wasn't all bad. My neck pain's almost gone, I've gotten most of my mobility back, and some folks brought cookies for the break room. And I got my check early. All is well.

[Skeksin]

Mostly dead is slightly alive. Now with all dead there is only one thing you can do. Go through his pockets and look for loose change...

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Well---it's finally over, just about. At least as far as I'm concerned. The last showing of A Christmas Story is almost over, and then I'll have one more drink and then off to bed. I have to be in to work at 5 tomorrow morning. I'm always kinda sad to see Christmas go, because that means I have about 4 months of cold and boredom staring me in the face.

But on the other hand, I'll have time. Time to do things I had been putting off all year, like upgrading my checking account and getting an eye exam and new glasses. I won't be dragging ass after I come home from work any more.

Plus I'll be getting a little bit of a "bonus" on my check next week. No deductions for health insurance, vision, dental, etc, because the employee contribution amounts are calculated assuming there's 26 pay periods in the year. This check would be the 27th. So that'll be about $100 extra I wouldn't get otherwise. That, combined with the money and gift cards I might get from relatives and friends, will let me do a little shopping after the new year.

As for tomorrow, I'll guess salesplan will be about $75,000 or so. The day after Christmas is always big at the swamp.

[bean]

I was hoping my review would happen before the new year. It hasn't, yet, but supposedly I get back pay to the date I turned in my version of the review (yes, we have a strange review process).

In any event, I found out I have a huge December bonus on my next check - a hair over $224.00. And the check after that has the year end bonus on it, which should be an extra $500 or so.

Working against me on the review... my drawer wound up +$40.00 the other day. Someone requested cash back on debit, and I forgot to give them the money. I got a written warning over it, but not a writeup.