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<bg>Recently I became hired as a FT cashier for the national chain of hardware stores with the the blue house silhouette. It's not what I want to do, but it pays the bills and keeps a roof over my head. The perks are that I'm 10 minutes away from home, can take my lunch there, have IHOP and Handles Ice Cream in the same plaza. I haven't worked retail in years but am back to the grind now. Unfortunately I'm starting to see those SCs here and there.<end bg>
Death By Embarrassment
It's the weekend and I'm working out in outside Lawn and Garden. There are a few racks of plants and flowers that are reduced, but since there are so many of them, the people in that department never bothered to mar down the prices for the reduced items. A lady comes through my line with 8 of the same plant. They all ring up the same price but she says they're reduced. Now if a few are missing the stickers and they all look less-thasn-healthy, I would simply mark them all down. In this case I said, "Let me get a manager to check on that.." So I send a manager back. A minute later he comes back, then the SC follows a few seconds later..
SC: "That wasn't nice of you to embarrass me like that, asking for a price check in line.."
Me: "Uh, m'am, I'm not just gonna take everyone's word for it. What if you and everyone else had this problem and said, 'the price is only a penny'? The stores would go out of business..."
At least she didn't say anything after that, but I had a funny story to tell me coworkers. The wrong response would have been for me to say, "If you wanted to save face, then you should have paid full price, but I'm doing you a favor here.." Still, I had to wonder what she expected me to do. I remember working at a grocery store and actually having to do a price check on condoms while in express, but even as a young kid I was subtle and quietly told the bagger, "uh, I need you to get a price check on these.."
Not a Thief, but Acted Like One
Our store is pretty trusting, esp with our No Hassle return policy. I have to keep my eyes open though. This woman in her 40s/50/s checks out in my line, also in Outside Lawn & Garden, with her mom. The Daughter is using a regular cart full of plants and such while her Mom is in a motorized cart from the store and also has items in her basket. Both carts were one long order.
I rang up everything in the first cart, the daughter told me the carts were together in one order, and because of the somewhat smaller space in the checkouts, I moved the larger cart further up so I could get access to the stuff in the motorized cart. At that time, the daughter takes the large cart out to the car to start loading stuff up. Granted the items hadn't been paid for, but I had this trust with these customers. What was the mom going to do? Distract me while she rolls away with everything else?
So I finish ringing up the items in the smaller basket. The Mom tries to pay with a store card, but it comes up declined! Now we're stuck. Turns out the mother had an issue a few days ago with a previous store card where it was reported stolen (she told this to me) but the card she just tries using was declined. I voided the order and told her to go to customer service. Again, I was trusting her to do this. I'm not supposed to leave my register anyway, so there was little I could do.
A little later the mother comes back. Custy Service was able to straighten things out and issue her a temporary store card on a receipt. She showed that to me along with the receipt for the items that custy service rang up, only they rang up JUST the items that were in her cart and not the items that were in the car outside that the daughter had put in!!! I kindly asked the Mom to call her daughter inside so that she could pay for the rest, but I knew it was gonna be a hassle. The stuff was already in the car so they'd have to get everything back out. The daughter comes in a little mad about this, and I explained that only some of the items were rung up and paid for.
SC's Daughter:" This is YOUR STORE'S fault for this.
Me: "No, the card doesn't belong to the store. This is your fault, and you walked out with unpaid merchandise..
SC: ::Grumble::
Coworker in that department: "Let me just call a manager over..."
So a few minutes pass, and one of the store manager's comes over, never seems to smile, but is a great guy. The car is right outside so they don't have to carry everything from the parking lot, and the manager is able to scan everything with their own pricing gun while the stuff is in the car. The customer comes back in and yells at me out loud:
SC: "...and SHAME ON YOU for saying that I walked out with UNPAID MERCHANDISE!!!"
Me:
I'm thinking, "uh, either put up and show me your receipt or shut up." I actually felt bad for her. I didn't mean to embarrass her. I wanted to say, "You're not a bad person m'am, but given the circumstances..." I consider stealing as intentionally walking out with something hidden without paying for it, but I had seen and scanned all her items. There was no time for reasoning though. If she comes in next time and starts giving me a hard time, I'm going to refuse ringing her up and have someone else do it. Let her get her way, but I'm getting my way by making her wait. Thankfully none of the managers brought anything up to me.
Death By Embarrassment
It's the weekend and I'm working out in outside Lawn and Garden. There are a few racks of plants and flowers that are reduced, but since there are so many of them, the people in that department never bothered to mar down the prices for the reduced items. A lady comes through my line with 8 of the same plant. They all ring up the same price but she says they're reduced. Now if a few are missing the stickers and they all look less-thasn-healthy, I would simply mark them all down. In this case I said, "Let me get a manager to check on that.." So I send a manager back. A minute later he comes back, then the SC follows a few seconds later..
SC: "That wasn't nice of you to embarrass me like that, asking for a price check in line.."
Me: "Uh, m'am, I'm not just gonna take everyone's word for it. What if you and everyone else had this problem and said, 'the price is only a penny'? The stores would go out of business..."
At least she didn't say anything after that, but I had a funny story to tell me coworkers. The wrong response would have been for me to say, "If you wanted to save face, then you should have paid full price, but I'm doing you a favor here.." Still, I had to wonder what she expected me to do. I remember working at a grocery store and actually having to do a price check on condoms while in express, but even as a young kid I was subtle and quietly told the bagger, "uh, I need you to get a price check on these.."
Not a Thief, but Acted Like One
Our store is pretty trusting, esp with our No Hassle return policy. I have to keep my eyes open though. This woman in her 40s/50/s checks out in my line, also in Outside Lawn & Garden, with her mom. The Daughter is using a regular cart full of plants and such while her Mom is in a motorized cart from the store and also has items in her basket. Both carts were one long order.
I rang up everything in the first cart, the daughter told me the carts were together in one order, and because of the somewhat smaller space in the checkouts, I moved the larger cart further up so I could get access to the stuff in the motorized cart. At that time, the daughter takes the large cart out to the car to start loading stuff up. Granted the items hadn't been paid for, but I had this trust with these customers. What was the mom going to do? Distract me while she rolls away with everything else?
So I finish ringing up the items in the smaller basket. The Mom tries to pay with a store card, but it comes up declined! Now we're stuck. Turns out the mother had an issue a few days ago with a previous store card where it was reported stolen (she told this to me) but the card she just tries using was declined. I voided the order and told her to go to customer service. Again, I was trusting her to do this. I'm not supposed to leave my register anyway, so there was little I could do.
A little later the mother comes back. Custy Service was able to straighten things out and issue her a temporary store card on a receipt. She showed that to me along with the receipt for the items that custy service rang up, only they rang up JUST the items that were in her cart and not the items that were in the car outside that the daughter had put in!!! I kindly asked the Mom to call her daughter inside so that she could pay for the rest, but I knew it was gonna be a hassle. The stuff was already in the car so they'd have to get everything back out. The daughter comes in a little mad about this, and I explained that only some of the items were rung up and paid for.
SC's Daughter:" This is YOUR STORE'S fault for this.
Me: "No, the card doesn't belong to the store. This is your fault, and you walked out with unpaid merchandise..
SC: ::Grumble::
Coworker in that department: "Let me just call a manager over..."
So a few minutes pass, and one of the store manager's comes over, never seems to smile, but is a great guy. The car is right outside so they don't have to carry everything from the parking lot, and the manager is able to scan everything with their own pricing gun while the stuff is in the car. The customer comes back in and yells at me out loud:
SC: "...and SHAME ON YOU for saying that I walked out with UNPAID MERCHANDISE!!!"
Me:
I'm thinking, "uh, either put up and show me your receipt or shut up." I actually felt bad for her. I didn't mean to embarrass her. I wanted to say, "You're not a bad person m'am, but given the circumstances..." I consider stealing as intentionally walking out with something hidden without paying for it, but I had seen and scanned all her items. There was no time for reasoning though. If she comes in next time and starts giving me a hard time, I'm going to refuse ringing her up and have someone else do it. Let her get her way, but I'm getting my way by making her wait. Thankfully none of the managers brought anything up to me.
I've had one parent laugh and say, "hey, whose side are you on?" So far, I'm not encountering the SCs that I expected I would encounter (knock on wood).
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