Interesting experiment

[Dreamstalker]

The other day, all the selfscans were acting up at one time or another. At one point #10 crashed hard (for the...fourth time I think); MOD tells me 'just restart it'. Erm, if it's freezing at random shouldn't we shut it down until an actual IT person can look at it? ...ok, I'll reboot *sigh*

So I was standing at an obviously closed register, poking an unseen button and trying not to start swearing at it. The light is OFF. The screen is, at first, black. When it does eventually come to life it's a screen that is clearly not ready to do anything. It's going to take a minimum of five minutes after that to be customer-ready, and there's no way I can hurry it up.

Customers start lining up behind me, as if I'm just making a purchase I'm waiting to see exactly how many people congregate before one of them either gets a clue or gets pushy.

I had to tell no fewer than six people that it was closed. Most of them wandered off after waiting a bit longer and giving me a sorry attempt at the "I know what you're up to" look. One guy didn't believe me and started scanning stuff when it was still starting up, causing another crash and then he had the cojones to say I shut it down because I 'didn't want to help customers'.

[Jaspar]

Haha, people are awesome like that. I'll be clearing a paper jam, or re-booting, or whatever-clearly I'm doing *something* to the machine, so it cannot be fully working. Always, without fail, somebody will plonk their basket down and start trying to scan things. While I'm there. While there are 9 other fully operational machines available. Makes me cry a little inside.

[Dreamstalker]

I kinda like seeing how long I can stretch something like that out before either a CW or another customer goes off on the assembled line. I know they'll get laughed at if they try to complain to the desk about a register that is obviously broken. During that I had the dead parrot sketch going through my head and was sorely tempted to say to the next moron that asked "This register is no more! It has ceased to be!"...nobody would have gotten it though.

These SCs are only attracted to lights that are out and screens that are black...wait, if they're attracted to darkness, why are they shopping in a brightly-lit store?

[Teefies2]

I kinda like seeing how long I can stretch something like that out before either a CW or another customer goes off on the assembled line. I know they'll get laughed at if they try to complain to the desk about a register that is obviously broken. During that I had the dead parrot sketch going through my head and was sorely tempted to say to the next moron that asked "This register is no more! It has ceased to be!"...nobody would have gotten it though.

These SCs are only attracted to lights that are out and screens that are black...wait, if they're attracted to darkness, why are they shopping in a brightly-lit store?

I totally would have gotten that! But you're right, very few people today remember that sketch. It WAS one of their best ones! (Monty Python, late 70's, for those who don't know)

[Aethian]

I totally would have gotten that! But you're right, very few people today remember that sketch. It WAS one of their best ones! (Monty Python, late 70's, for those who don't know)

On one of their last shows the skit was much shorter.

This is a dead partot.
Yup.
....
Want to go back to my place?
Thought you'd never ask.

[PepperElf]

"This register is no more! It has ceased to be!"

If I had an employee say that to me...


well I'm not sure what I'd do. It's a toss up between saying, "It's just pining for the fjords!" or laughing my ass off.

[Grendus]

I used to run the self check at night, when it was the only register that was open (I know, that sucks, but it was management's decision, not mine). We used to get what I called pacers-people who didn't want to use the self check or didn't know to look for lights instead of lines but were too shy to ask, so they would walk up and down the storefront waiting for a register light to suddenly turn on our a line to form. I used to count how many laps they would do before they would ask where the open registers were. Think the record was six laps.

Retail can cause misanthropy. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[Dreamstalker]

I have one of those silly rubber wristbands that says "Misanthrope"; every so often I'll wear it to work and it never fails to put ASM in a better mood (hmmm, maybe I'll get him one for Xmas if I can find them).

I'll also get SCs who expect the attendant to do everything for them I think my personal record for a staredown before the light dawned was 3 minutes.