more WIC follies

[Bella_Vixen]

This first story happened a few weeks ago.

I was at work, cheerfully ( ) cashiering, when a couple got into my line. They completely unloaded their cart, and finally handed over their WIC checks. This is not going to go well. (It's much faster to hand me the checks first, because I have check numbers and dates to enter in before I can actually starting ringing items.)

After having to send one or the other of the couple, or their friend that they brought along, numerous times to get the proper something or other that was called for on the check, I had the woman sign the check, and then asked to see the signature card.

Drama time.

They didn't have the signature card. Apparently, this is MY fault. The case worker or whatever the person is never gave them one. Again, this is MY fault. Then they take turns screaming at me, because I had the woman sign the check before I asked to see the signature card, as per the rules. That apparently makes me racist, in their minds. The man asked if the woman's state issued ID would be OK, and was told no, again as per the rules.

I call over the SD girl, and she tells them the same thing. She is then called racist, also. They demand to know what can be done about the now "useless" check that was signed, and didn't like the answer: they had to call the case worker at WIC and find out from her. They snatched the check back, and left their other groceries, shouting that they were going to "go to another store where they understand and deal with black people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"


Second story happened about a week after the first.

Things were going well, until we got to the peanut butter or beans part.

For the most part, the checks are the same, but circumstances can alter cases. Mostly, it is 18 ounces of peanut butter OR 16 ounces of dried beans/ 4 cans of beans. Sometimes you can get both, but it is written obviously different.

As you may have guessed, they had a check that allowed only the peanut butter OR a bag of beans, but clearly not both.

More drama.

The woman was insistent that she could, in fact, get both, when the check clearly said:
*1 jar 18 oz or less peanut butter
OR 16 ounces of dried beans/ 4 cans of beans

She started yelling that she ALWAYS gets both. I informed her that she cannot have possibly done so at our store. She swears she has, and at our sister store, and at WalMart, etc. etc. etc.

I call the SD girl to try to explain to the woman, but woman was still yelling. We called the MOD, who also tried to explain. Still couldn't get through.

All this time, her boyfriend is trying to get her to calm down and shut up. He told her that I was right, and they don't need the beans anyway, but she insists that it is the principle of the thing. And kept saying that I was incompetent.

And on and on and on.

She finally gave up without the beans, and left, saying that she was never going to shop here again, etc., still going on about my stupidity.




We have to be very careful and diligent when we handle WIC checks. We actually had to take a multiple page test for WIC. We have little to no margin of error when it comes to them, and we cashiers (at my store) can be suspended for mistakes.

[snugglegirl05]

When I was a cashier back in the mid 1990's I dealt with a couple of customers who tried to get peanut butter & cereal that was not WIC approved.

The peanut butter one customer tried to get by using her WIC card was a name brand peanut butter. She told me that *other store* always allowed her to get that peanut butter. So I called for a manager. The manager told her she could not get the name brand peanut butter. So she told him the same thing she told me. The manager told her she had to get the WIC approved peanut butter. She said no. The manager told her the store could get fined for accepting that WIC card & so he was not going to approve the transaction. She left.

The cereal another customer tried to get was Coco Puffs. She told me that this was the only cereal her kid would eat. I told her Coco Puffs was not a WIC approved cereal. So she asked for a manager. The manager came & told her the exact same thing. She told the manager what she told me. Manager got her the approved WIC cereal.

[Bella_Vixen]

They make things so easy now...the booklets come with PICTURES of most of the acceptable items, and yet people still can't get it right sometimes.

[trailerparkmedic]

I feel your pain--I got called a racist for not letting a woman get Velveeta with her WIC check.

[chainedbarista]

wow, bunch of damned ingrates; free food and they still complain. how about you get NOTHING and you like it? (thank you, caddyshack)

wic is a sticky thing; too bad you can't report them so they can get schooled on what they can get. perhaps wic should sent them home with a pamphlet full of pictures that show them what they want since reading, as we all know, is too much of a challege for scs to begin with.

[HawaiianShirts]

Mrs. Shirts signed on with WIC for a little while so we could get some more nutritious food for her and the little one. I think it's a great program, and we were really happy for the little bit of financial help it offered while we qualified for it. I actually found the instructional pamphlet a little insulting, though. I remember looking at it and saying, "Pictures? Really? I think I know what a gallon of milk looks like."

And most stores have the WIC-eligible items labeled with special, usually color-coded "WIC-Eligible" tags.

Yeah, the rules are strict, but we never found it that difficult (except the fruits and vegetables because we weren't totally sure which ones qualified and which did not in a store with a very large produce section).

It's sad that people have to go and ruin a helpful thing like WIC by being idiots.
Even worse when they try to blame the grocery store employees for their own idiocy.

[bainsidhe]

It's been a year since I worked grocery/retail and dealt with any WIC transactions, so I can always hope things have changed since then. The list we used was always needlessly complicated. 2 dozen offerings for bread, twelve types of cold cereal and another ten for hot cereal, etc. I like that they offered variety, but it made things so confusing and sometimes very difficult to calculate just which brand & size of product qualified. I much preferred a limited menu, just because both cashier and customer were less confused.

Someday my state will get the debit-type WIC cards to replace the paper checks. For those retail workers out there, I hope that day is soon.

[Draco]

See, I prefer the WIC checks personally. Yeah, it's a little bit of a hassle (I do work for a supermarket chain, btw), but I'd much rather see people get what their kids need than have a Food Stamp-esque selling problem. The checks are a lot harder for them to pawn off on others.

Good program, decent method of purchase that minimizes abuse, but sometimes users seem like the dumbest people on the planet. As Shirts said, the instructional pamphlets are "insulting" in their direct simplicity. People STILL don't understand.

*sigh* Make things more idiot proof and they go and make better idiots.

[Grape The Cat]

Sorry you had to deal with those idiots, BV. In my local store they have big red WIC approved tags near all the WIC stuff.

[XCashier]

Quoth trailerparkmedic

I feel your pain--I got called a racist for not letting a woman get Velveeta with her WIC check.

Why would she want that muck when real cheese (WIC approved) tastes better?