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A few months ago, I posted about the 5-cent-per-bag law that The County requires us to charge, and the absurd lengths customers will go to get out of paying the amount of money that I, an hourly-wage jockey, make in approximately (does the math) 8 seconds.
Today, I saw that insanity reach a new low.
I was working the 3:30-midnight shift as the self-checkout attendant. For the most part, that consists of standing at a podium, staring at a screen to make sure people aren't price-switching, and helping them when they can't understand big-city words like "quantity" and "bag". Towards the end of my shift, I had one of the worst types of customers we get at self-checkout; the kind who has a full cart and has completely ignored the "15 items or less" sign hanging in plain sight at entrance to the SCO queue. Per corporate decree, we're not allowed to tell these people that they can't use the SCO, but we can (as I do) inform them that they'll probably get done a lot faster if they use one of the regular checkout lanes. Of course, this stubborn insistence on using the SCO is almost always coupled with a complete inability to read the instructions on the screen, and it took this woman nearly 20 minutes to ring up her stuff versus the 3-4 minutes it would have taken her to go through the checkstand. (I could start a whole other thread on my beefs with SCO customers, but that's a story for another time.)
After she's done spending ages ringing in her stuff, and struggling with her produce, and me having to override her about 20 times because she can't handle putting her stuff on the bagging scale in a timely manner, she hits me with this;
"I was here last month and I bought two bags, and when I used them last week they broke. Can you give me new ones?"
Hell no I'm not, lady.
For one, Our paper bags are, by law, considered single-use. You use them to cart your stuff home, and that's that. We're not responsible for their upkeep in perpetuity.
For two, the fee isn't something we chose to create. It's a County ordinance. We could potentially be fined if the county chose to sting us and catch us giving away bags.
For three, despite the fact that the fee is mandated by The County, it's not a tax. We get to keep that money. And it might not seem like a lot of money, but it adds up to several thousand dollars a day that we get to take in, and as this is an employee-owned store, I have a vested interest in making sure we don't lose any money that could potentially benefit my retirement account.
For four; it's five goddamn cents. What were you planning to do with it - buy a piece of Bazooka Joe bubble gum? (I don't know if they even make that anymore, but it's the only thing I can think of that I know costs five cents.)
The legislature here in Stateslyvania is considering enacting the bag law statewide and raising the fee to ten cents, saints forfend, so hopefully there'll come a time soon when out-of-towners can stop being shocked by the bag law.
I'm not sure it'll come before the customers drive me out of my mind, though.
Today, I saw that insanity reach a new low.
I was working the 3:30-midnight shift as the self-checkout attendant. For the most part, that consists of standing at a podium, staring at a screen to make sure people aren't price-switching, and helping them when they can't understand big-city words like "quantity" and "bag". Towards the end of my shift, I had one of the worst types of customers we get at self-checkout; the kind who has a full cart and has completely ignored the "15 items or less" sign hanging in plain sight at entrance to the SCO queue. Per corporate decree, we're not allowed to tell these people that they can't use the SCO, but we can (as I do) inform them that they'll probably get done a lot faster if they use one of the regular checkout lanes. Of course, this stubborn insistence on using the SCO is almost always coupled with a complete inability to read the instructions on the screen, and it took this woman nearly 20 minutes to ring up her stuff versus the 3-4 minutes it would have taken her to go through the checkstand. (I could start a whole other thread on my beefs with SCO customers, but that's a story for another time.)
After she's done spending ages ringing in her stuff, and struggling with her produce, and me having to override her about 20 times because she can't handle putting her stuff on the bagging scale in a timely manner, she hits me with this;
"I was here last month and I bought two bags, and when I used them last week they broke. Can you give me new ones?"
Hell no I'm not, lady.
For one, Our paper bags are, by law, considered single-use. You use them to cart your stuff home, and that's that. We're not responsible for their upkeep in perpetuity.
For two, the fee isn't something we chose to create. It's a County ordinance. We could potentially be fined if the county chose to sting us and catch us giving away bags.
For three, despite the fact that the fee is mandated by The County, it's not a tax. We get to keep that money. And it might not seem like a lot of money, but it adds up to several thousand dollars a day that we get to take in, and as this is an employee-owned store, I have a vested interest in making sure we don't lose any money that could potentially benefit my retirement account.
For four; it's five goddamn cents. What were you planning to do with it - buy a piece of Bazooka Joe bubble gum? (I don't know if they even make that anymore, but it's the only thing I can think of that I know costs five cents.)
The legislature here in Stateslyvania is considering enacting the bag law statewide and raising the fee to ten cents, saints forfend, so hopefully there'll come a time soon when out-of-towners can stop being shocked by the bag law.
I'm not sure it'll come before the customers drive me out of my mind, though.
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