Foaming at the mouth with kid in tow.

[JesseCuster40]

Recently, we were having our registers audited because someone was apparently stealing. That means that each register belongs to one associate, and that associate alone. When that associate went to break, it meant that no one could check out in our department until she returned.

So this ensued:

I hear a man shouting in a very angry voice.

Bear in mind he has a young boy with him, maybe seven years old.

I walk over to the registers and see him in heated discussion with another of our associates, who is explaining the new policy of one cashier only. This guy has a handful of pharmacy stuff that he wants to buy.

Cue floor-thumping tantrum. VPA is Very Patient Associate.

SC: This is bulls***! Every time I come back here to check out there's no one here, this is f**cking bullsh**!

VPA: Well, I apologize sir, it's a new policy, just started today.

SC: You mean I have to go up front and wait in those f**king lines?

VPA: The cashier here is on break, she'll be back in about ten minutes.

SC: [Begins to storm off with merchandise in hand, then thinks better of it and throws it on the counter in a huff. Storms off. See ya.]

Me: What was that about?

SC: He didn't like our new policy.

I feel sorry for the kid, seeing his dad (or maybe grandad) go through a fury like that. God only knows what he's like when he's at home. What is the matter with people? Seriously.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I remember someone doing that while I worked at the pet centre. This guy with his young son, only around 8ish, came up to my till and demanded to know why the store was out of tomato plants. Yes, I know that isn't my department, but you know how SCs operate; if someone is at a till, they're fair game. I asked him politely to wait til I called the manager. He did so and when the manager came, I left them to it.

Barely five minutes later, I heard the SC bellowing, "Don't fing patronise me, you fing c! I'm never fing coming to this shouse store again!" Cue him storming out with son in tow.

By the way, the idiot manager used to patronise everyone so that wasn't surprising; it was the swearing in front of the son that I thought was bizarre. Now I see it isn't as strange as I once thought. XD

[Shangri-laschild]

It stopped suprising me after the day I was driving and encoutered someone like that. I some guy pulls up next to me on my left and motions for me to roll down the window. I figure maybe something's up with my car or he has a question so I roll mine down. He then leans over his kid to cuss me out for apparently cutting him off.

People like that don't care at all if they are doing it infront of their kids because they don't see it as them doing anything wrong.

[trunks2k]

Recently, we were having our registers audited because someone was apparently stealing. That means that each register belongs to one associate, and that associate alone. When that associate went to break, it meant that no one could check out in our department until she returned.

That sounds like a poorly implemented system to me, and on the surface of things I'm not surprised they have problems with people stealing. Each associate should have a till assigned to him/her for the shift and has to put the till in the register and sign on. On break, the till is removed and put in a sealed bag (so nobody else can get into it without others knowing) and securely stored. This ensures only one person ever uses that till, and it's balanced at the end of the shift.

In a proper system, the actual registers should never have to be restricted to one user.

[workerbee222]

Yes, each cashier should have his/her own drawer. When she goes on break, the drawer is locked up, and here's the key to the system working: The cashier covering breaks brings her drawer to the register and continues to ring up sales.

That's assuming the store has enough employees to assign someone to cover breaks.

Whenever people complain there aren't enough cashiers, I want to ask if they, the complainers, have ever done the job. It would seem, looking at the situation from the outside, that it wouldn't be that difficult to haul stuff across the scanner. In practice, I personally found the job hard physically, and since I had no aptitude for it, actually quite taxing every time something went wrong. And things go wrong a lot.

I did it for about four months, and I was physically and mentally exhausted at the end of every shift.

[marasbaras]

I had a guy get upset with me for telling some punk kids to "shut the fuck up" while they were making a lot of noise in an R-rated movie.

Why was he upset? Because I used the word "fuck".

I told him "if you don't want your kid to hear such shitty language, don't bring him to a fucking R-rated movie".

He just stood there not knowing what to say.

[trunks2k]

Yes, each cashier should have his/her own drawer. When she goes on break, the drawer is locked up, and here's the key to the system working: The cashier covering breaks brings her drawer to the register and continues to ring up sales.

Well the latter part is irrelevant to good security process. Basics is that employees should NEVER EVER EVER be sharing drawers (especially the underwear type ). The implications in the OP is that it had been happening. Whoever allowed that to happen should have been fired, especially in corporate chains since small mom & pop stores may not have the money to really implement that sort of thing.

Whenever people complain there aren't enough cashiers, I want to ask if they, the complainers, have ever done the job. It would seem, looking at the situation from the outside, that it wouldn't be that difficult to haul stuff across the scanner. In practice, I personally found the job hard physically, and since I had no aptitude for it, actually quite taxing every time something went wrong. And things go wrong a lot.

I did it for about four months, and I was physically and mentally exhausted at the end of every shift.

*nod* I loathe it when people complain about there not being enough lines open. Most of the time when it's busy, all available cashiers are being used. It's one thing to complain about chronically bad scheduling and as such there's not enough available cashiers much of the time, but it's a whole other really annoying thing to complain that a bagger isn't opening up a register.

Even more annoying when they act like being a cashier is incredibly easy. It's a repetitive task that is easy.... once you learn. Learning how to work the machine takes some time, particularly learning what to do in non-standard cases. But it's still physically and mentally exhausting. That's one job I NEVER want to do again.

[ArcticChicken]

Yeah, I hate that at my current store we share tills. One till in a register all day, with occasional pickups. If a till is too short all the people who were on it get audited for a week or so. I've be audited in occasion because the person doing pickups did my till while I was on break and forgot to write it down. Once she did it while I was already being audited. Luckily the managers know me pretty well, and they just assumed someone forgot to write down a pickup.

[Polenicus]

I had a guy get upset with me for telling some punk kids to "shut the fuck up" while they were making a lot of noise in an R-rated movie.

Why was he upset? Because I used the word "fuck".

I told him "if you don't want your kid to hear such shitty language, don't bring him to a fucking R-rated movie".

He just stood there not knowing what to say.

I bet you saved the theater some complaints with that. I bet he would have been all set to drag his kid to the manager and yell and scream that there was DIRTY LANGUAGE and *Gasp* SUGGESTIVE SCENES in the movie he took his INNOCENT, IMPRESSIONABLE son to.

... Oh, well, that's the outline. The actual rant would have a lot more '#@!~', '@^%$&@^', '%@%$#^^!#^' and of course '#!%^%#!$%^$^*&^(&@$%%$#$%$@^&&%#&^*#%^!%^$!!!!!'

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Even more annoying when they act like being a cashier is incredibly easy. It's a repetitive task that is easy.... once you learn. Learning how to work the machine takes some time, particularly learning what to do in non-standard cases. But it's still physically and mentally exhausting. That's one job I NEVER want to do again.

I have to agree here. When I was transferred to my current store, I went through front-end training and given cashier shifts (except for Wednesdays when I would assist the Scanning Analyst with ad changes.) It was a horrible experience at this store.

One thing that set off a red flag for me was the fact that the policy then was to log onto a till, and remain there until you were sent on break/meal time, then you went to another till and relieved the next person. There's no way (IMO at least) to keep cash integrity intact when everyone is running the same drawers.

Then I was told I was coming up excessively short . . . but it couldn't really be proven with everyone running all the drawers during the day. I did everything I could think of, including changing my operator password AND triple-checking the amount given to me as well as how much I returned in change.

Still, I came up short again and was put on watch, basically if I came up short again, then I could be suspended. I made it through the next 30 days without incident.

Then came up short again. But it turned out, another cashier was being watched as well and ended up terminated because of excessive coupons being used at the registers for small purchases (basically he was getting cigs and drinks for free after coupons.) He was also rumored to have been double-ringing the Coinstar slips as well . . .

Right after that, the store went to a one cashier/one drawer policy. And also by that time, I got off the front end and went into the HBA department and am very rarely called upon to run register now.

Besides, MA's there and she used to work in the office before she was put in the back to check in the vendors. So she'll go up front and run register and I can run to the back and check in deliveries . . .

I go home less tired mentally and physically from running backstock and checking in a few vendors than I did having to stand in one place, scan items repeatedly across the scanner and handle money.

So it works great for me.

[SpyOne]

I've never worked in a store with registers in the departments, but I have shopped at them.
It was SOP 20 years ago, and I would hardly be surprised if someone told me it still was, that the registers in the departments were only for customers who were buying one or two items all from that department.
That is, you could pay for your TV in Major Appliances, but if your kid also wanted a Matchbox car you were stopping in Toys, or at the Front Registers on your way out anyway, so you might as well pay for the TV up front.

Once in a great while, if you only had one or 2 items from another department to add to a large purchase, the associate would bend the rules. "Okay, that's the 26" Zenith TV, the RCA 4-head VCR, a Nintendo, these 3 games, and ... this Matchbox car and that bell for his bike. Will that be all?"

What I'm saying is, to "the cashier at this station is on break right now, and I am unable to open the cash drawer", I would have added, "I believe they can ring you up for these items at the Pharmacy register" (since you mentioned that's where the items came from).

[AdminAssistant]

At my store we shared tills. If a drawer was short/over more than $5, everybody on the register got 'wrote up' (it was recorded in a cashier awareness book, the cashier signed it, and it was filed away never to be seen again). I got to write myself up a few times. If the overage/shortage was more than..$20 or so, then I got to go through the register tapes trying to find the missing money. That was a fun game. Especially when someone decided to file away a $100 bill where the credit card slips go and the bill got stuck somewhere up in the register. *sigh*