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I'm starting to not mind working an opening shift, as not only do I get the chance to do stuff when I get off work, but it's not as busy and the oddest encounters seem to happen before noon. Most of our customers can navigate a self-checkout with minimal difficulty, but if everyone understood these miracles of the computer age I wouldn't have to watch them. It sometimes does provide great entertainment...
"Ensti Eeh!"
I get flagged down by one of the newer cashiers, A. She's being harassed by a customer of a certain ethnicity (known around these parts for scamming and generally being pains in the neck)...and is in the middle of a transaction.
A: "Dreamstalker, I don't know what this woman's looking for and I need to take care of my customer. Can you help her?"
Wearing a purple shirt as I am that day, I'm kinda stuck. Little did I know this was not going to be easy...I lead SC back into the store, trying to stop her from pawing me on the way.
SC has a very thick accent; normally I'm pretty good at deciphering them but not only was it unusually loud on the front end, it so happened that she asked me directly underneath one of the ceiling speakers.
C: "Where ensti eeh?"
Me: "I'm sorry, I can't quite hear you, what are you looking for?"
C: "Ensti eeh! Eeh!"
I can decipher 'instant' at least (I think) so use that as a starting point.
Me: "Instant what?"
C: "Eeh! Boh-le!"
OK, instant something (not eggs as was my original guess) in a bottle.
Me: "Do you use it for cooking or baking?"
C: "Boh-le! Bake!"
Me: "Our baking items are in aisle four, I can't be more specific without knowing what you want."
Lather, rinse, repeat.
C: "Why you no find? This happen every time! Every time! You no find!"
Me: (so you can speak clearly...) "Ma'am, I can't quite understand what you're looking for. I'll be right back. Stay right there."
I run into K, and then find that C has followed me to the podium. So closely, in fact, that as I try to indicate to K where I think the customer is I nearly hit her in the face. K has the drawer open and is making change; a customer should not be that close to the cash.
C: "Where manager?"
K: "What are you looking for?"
C: "Ensti eeh!"
Here we go again...
Somehow, K manages to work out that she's looking for instant yeast. Which we don't carry; what we do have is in the baking aisle. Which is where I pointed her before.
K: "She needed three people and a manager to find yeast?"
Me: "I told her where the baking stuff was, she wasn't being even remotely clear about the yeast part."
K: "Until she thought she could get you in trouble, I see."
Me: "You should have heard before."
C stalks through the self checkouts a few minutes later, without the yeast. And then tries to tear a strip off me again...if you can't communicate what you want, don't get pissy if you can't find it. To top it off, she tried to use some random coupons for items she didn't even buy...this is why I sweep all the discarded coupons and receipts off the registers at least once every five minutes, so people can't try funny stuff with them.
Customer Standard Time
So I'm over at one of the units helping a woman who accidentally keyed in 11 cantaloupes. No biggie, just void it out, fetch the cantaloupe and re-enter it. Except in the process the belt shoved it back under the receipt printer...so I get to extricate it (I can't stop the belt as long as it senses something on it, so have to work against the belt while making sure nothing I'm wearing gets caught in it).
Grumpy guy at the next kiosk: "He-LOOOOO! Can I get some help here? I've been waiting for hours!" (one minute at most)
Me: "Sir, I will be with you in a moment, I'm helping another customer right now."
GG: "I'm a customer! I need help!"
Me: "Sir, I am helping someone else right now. I will be with you when I finish."
GG: "This store is terrible, there's never anyone to help me [yes, he said 'me'], never a manager anywhere, the registers are always broken, blah blah."
As luck would have it, the register he's on has a BIG sign on it (over the bill acceptor to boot) "NO CASH, DEBIT OR CREDIT CARDS ONLY". What does he want to pay with? If you guessed cash you get an internet. He even ripped the sign off the bill mechanism, and is going off "why isn't this working?"
Me: "Sir, this lane can only accept debit or credit cards. No cash."
GG: "Where does it say that? This is ridiculous! I hate this store, I've been waiting for hours and nothing works, I don't know why I waste my time here, blargle rant bitch moan..."
(if you hate this store so much, why do you waste your time here? oh that's right, so you can waste ours)
GG wants to pay with cash. He has cards in his wallet, I can see them, but by Dog he wants to pay with CASH. So I print out a save-order receipt, give FEM a signal to watch the guy and make sure he pays at the station. Only...I can't sign on. I don't know who's signed on there, so need FEM to force sign it off.
GG: "What's taking so long? God I hate this store, nothing works. You better not be making me pay with a card so you can tack on a few extra charges!"
(oh no you DIDN'T)
Finally I can get in.
GG: "You better not charge me a penny more! That's the only reason why everything's taking so long!"
Me: (scans receipt, he can see that I do nothing else) "$xx.xx."
GG, surprisingly, pays up, but then scrutinizes his final receipt. I see him go over to the desk, FEM says something and he slinks out shortly after. Unfortunately he remembered his groceries.
I swear, the next time someone whistles or points to get me to notice them I'm going to smack someone. There's a big "Need Help" button on the screen for a reason. If the kiosk itself doesn't notify me (or for some reason I'm already watching the customer), I have no reason to think anything's amiss.
It's SELF Scan
I'll help out older customers who really don't know how to/can't see well enough to use the self-checkouts, but you don't get help just because you waaaant it. A chimp could operate our self-scans (and probably follow the instructions better).
So I'm helping P out on her register, and commiserating about the idiots in the morning (I plan to point her here at some time soon).
There's a guy on one of the self-scans just...staring. I and FEM are both trying to ignore him for as long as we can (sometimes, that will serve to train them in the ways of ringing up your own shopping), but he starts whistling, clicking his fingers and acting like a jerk. I see ASM, who is also trying to ignore the guy, and eventually decide to go over; I'm not sure how long he's willing to act like a dick and don't feel like dealing with other customers when he doesn't let them check out.
So he unloads his cart onto the belt (causing the machine to flip out) and...stares.
Me: "Do you have a Storecard?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: ....
Him: .......
Me: "Scan your card here please."
Him: "Don't you do that?"
Me: "Sir, this is a *points* SELF-SERVE register. I'm only here for help if the machine locks up. You scan your own shopping."
So I scan his stuff (which takes twice as long as he won't let me actually take stuff off the belt so that what I scanned will go through properly), and pointedly back away when finished "Please touch the red button that says Finish."
Him: "What's my total?"
Me: "Touch the Finish button and you will be told how much you owe."
At that point coworker A manufactures an incident at the farthest kiosk from this one, and I escape.
Bonus, the guy tries to make off without paying. Is caught by FEM. I didn't hear his excuse, but am guessing it was along the lines of "She didn't ring me up!"
Oh, so THIS is why we don't have any bags.
My store is rationing plastic bags. I have no idea if this is connected to the ban in town, but now cashiers have to ask for bags when they open up, and each bag rack can have no more than one ream at a time. I think SM thinks that one box will last 11 registers the whole day.
Hahahahahaha...right. We have lots of people who will use the self serve bag racks to double or triple bag their crap where the cashier or bagger can't see or refuse them, and also the crazy can collectors will just steal them. Now that I actually know we're rationing bags, I have management OK to confront them about it.
"Ensti Eeh!"
I get flagged down by one of the newer cashiers, A. She's being harassed by a customer of a certain ethnicity (known around these parts for scamming and generally being pains in the neck)...and is in the middle of a transaction.
A: "Dreamstalker, I don't know what this woman's looking for and I need to take care of my customer. Can you help her?"
Wearing a purple shirt as I am that day, I'm kinda stuck. Little did I know this was not going to be easy...I lead SC back into the store, trying to stop her from pawing me on the way.
SC has a very thick accent; normally I'm pretty good at deciphering them but not only was it unusually loud on the front end, it so happened that she asked me directly underneath one of the ceiling speakers.
C: "Where ensti eeh?"
Me: "I'm sorry, I can't quite hear you, what are you looking for?"
C: "Ensti eeh! Eeh!"
I can decipher 'instant' at least (I think) so use that as a starting point.
Me: "Instant what?"
C: "Eeh! Boh-le!"
OK, instant something (not eggs as was my original guess) in a bottle.
Me: "Do you use it for cooking or baking?"
C: "Boh-le! Bake!"
Me: "Our baking items are in aisle four, I can't be more specific without knowing what you want."
Lather, rinse, repeat.
C: "Why you no find? This happen every time! Every time! You no find!"
Me: (so you can speak clearly...) "Ma'am, I can't quite understand what you're looking for. I'll be right back. Stay right there."
I run into K, and then find that C has followed me to the podium. So closely, in fact, that as I try to indicate to K where I think the customer is I nearly hit her in the face. K has the drawer open and is making change; a customer should not be that close to the cash.
C: "Where manager?"
K: "What are you looking for?"
C: "Ensti eeh!"
Here we go again...
Somehow, K manages to work out that she's looking for instant yeast. Which we don't carry; what we do have is in the baking aisle. Which is where I pointed her before.
K: "She needed three people and a manager to find yeast?"
Me: "I told her where the baking stuff was, she wasn't being even remotely clear about the yeast part."
K: "Until she thought she could get you in trouble, I see."
Me: "You should have heard before."
C stalks through the self checkouts a few minutes later, without the yeast. And then tries to tear a strip off me again...if you can't communicate what you want, don't get pissy if you can't find it. To top it off, she tried to use some random coupons for items she didn't even buy...this is why I sweep all the discarded coupons and receipts off the registers at least once every five minutes, so people can't try funny stuff with them.
Customer Standard Time
So I'm over at one of the units helping a woman who accidentally keyed in 11 cantaloupes. No biggie, just void it out, fetch the cantaloupe and re-enter it. Except in the process the belt shoved it back under the receipt printer...so I get to extricate it (I can't stop the belt as long as it senses something on it, so have to work against the belt while making sure nothing I'm wearing gets caught in it).
Grumpy guy at the next kiosk: "He-LOOOOO! Can I get some help here? I've been waiting for hours!" (one minute at most)
Me: "Sir, I will be with you in a moment, I'm helping another customer right now."
GG: "I'm a customer! I need help!"
Me: "Sir, I am helping someone else right now. I will be with you when I finish."
GG: "This store is terrible, there's never anyone to help me [yes, he said 'me'], never a manager anywhere, the registers are always broken, blah blah."
As luck would have it, the register he's on has a BIG sign on it (over the bill acceptor to boot) "NO CASH, DEBIT OR CREDIT CARDS ONLY". What does he want to pay with? If you guessed cash you get an internet. He even ripped the sign off the bill mechanism, and is going off "why isn't this working?"
Me: "Sir, this lane can only accept debit or credit cards. No cash."
GG: "Where does it say that? This is ridiculous! I hate this store, I've been waiting for hours and nothing works, I don't know why I waste my time here, blargle rant bitch moan..."
(if you hate this store so much, why do you waste your time here? oh that's right, so you can waste ours)
GG wants to pay with cash. He has cards in his wallet, I can see them, but by Dog he wants to pay with CASH. So I print out a save-order receipt, give FEM a signal to watch the guy and make sure he pays at the station. Only...I can't sign on. I don't know who's signed on there, so need FEM to force sign it off.
GG: "What's taking so long? God I hate this store, nothing works. You better not be making me pay with a card so you can tack on a few extra charges!"
(oh no you DIDN'T)
Finally I can get in.
GG: "You better not charge me a penny more! That's the only reason why everything's taking so long!"
Me: (scans receipt, he can see that I do nothing else) "$xx.xx."
GG, surprisingly, pays up, but then scrutinizes his final receipt. I see him go over to the desk, FEM says something and he slinks out shortly after. Unfortunately he remembered his groceries.
I swear, the next time someone whistles or points to get me to notice them I'm going to smack someone. There's a big "Need Help" button on the screen for a reason. If the kiosk itself doesn't notify me (or for some reason I'm already watching the customer), I have no reason to think anything's amiss.
It's SELF Scan
I'll help out older customers who really don't know how to/can't see well enough to use the self-checkouts, but you don't get help just because you waaaant it. A chimp could operate our self-scans (and probably follow the instructions better).
So I'm helping P out on her register, and commiserating about the idiots in the morning (I plan to point her here at some time soon).
There's a guy on one of the self-scans just...staring. I and FEM are both trying to ignore him for as long as we can (sometimes, that will serve to train them in the ways of ringing up your own shopping), but he starts whistling, clicking his fingers and acting like a jerk. I see ASM, who is also trying to ignore the guy, and eventually decide to go over; I'm not sure how long he's willing to act like a dick and don't feel like dealing with other customers when he doesn't let them check out.
So he unloads his cart onto the belt (causing the machine to flip out) and...stares.
Me: "Do you have a Storecard?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: ....
Him: .......
Me: "Scan your card here please."
Him: "Don't you do that?"
Me: "Sir, this is a *points* SELF-SERVE register. I'm only here for help if the machine locks up. You scan your own shopping."
So I scan his stuff (which takes twice as long as he won't let me actually take stuff off the belt so that what I scanned will go through properly), and pointedly back away when finished "Please touch the red button that says Finish."
Him: "What's my total?"
Me: "Touch the Finish button and you will be told how much you owe."
At that point coworker A manufactures an incident at the farthest kiosk from this one, and I escape.
Bonus, the guy tries to make off without paying. Is caught by FEM. I didn't hear his excuse, but am guessing it was along the lines of "She didn't ring me up!"
Oh, so THIS is why we don't have any bags.
My store is rationing plastic bags. I have no idea if this is connected to the ban in town, but now cashiers have to ask for bags when they open up, and each bag rack can have no more than one ream at a time. I think SM thinks that one box will last 11 registers the whole day.
Hahahahahaha...right. We have lots of people who will use the self serve bag racks to double or triple bag their crap where the cashier or bagger can't see or refuse them, and also the crazy can collectors will just steal them. Now that I actually know we're rationing bags, I have management OK to confront them about it.
!
It's crazy how entitled and greedy customers get. And oh yes, every single one of them would get huffy and disbelieving when you tried to explain that bags indeed cost something to provide. 
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