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And I thought Coupon Queen was bad! (Kinda long)

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  • And I thought Coupon Queen was bad! (Kinda long)

    It took me a few days of unwinding from THIS character before I could write about this. There's also a Cursed Coworker involved, although the primary source of stress and aggravation was the customer.

    When we have no customers we are supposed to go help other cashiers bag people's stuff. Cursed Coworker (CC) is standing by my till when we see this woman with this unbelievably overloaded cart approaching. Not only is it overloaded but I can see a veritable sea of little pink stickers on things ... which mean the items are all discounted. This involves punching one extra button, for each item, to take off the discount.

    Now, I was wrapping up a transaction, and the normal procedure in this case -- as far as I'm concerned -- is for the temporary bagger to say "I can take you over at my register."

    Nope.

    CC says nothing. AND she wanders casually away.

    So Bargain Queen (BQ) rolls up to my register and starts unloading. I finish off the current customer and look towards the end. Among her purchases are these little four-packs of yogurt. She has multiple four-packs of yogurt. They are stacked up in fours ... AND each pile has a coupon on top. Along with the little pink sticker.

    So I call over a supervisor to make sure I can use the coupon on an already-discounted item. Sure, she says.

    So I start. I've gone through about three piles (that'd be 12 four-packs) and in each case the four-pack was 99 cents, down to 50 cents ... and of course the fourth on in each pile was free, because of the coupon. It's a slow, tedious process, so I slow down, in order not to fuck up.

    Then I hit a four-pack whose original price was $3.99. I tell BQ.

    BQ: "Oh, no, that's way too much!" Note: it was $2 with the half-price sticker. I do NOT know if I could have used that as the freebie and I was already frazzled and annoyed enough not to want to bother asking as she was still unloading piles of stuff from the cart, which apparently had a lot of similarities to Mary Poppins' famous carpetbag.

    BQ: "I know, I'll run and get one of the flavours that was 99 cents."

    Me: "Okay, I'll keep scanning." I also have to call for a "cold pickup", which we do for all perishables so they don't ... perish.

    I go on scanning. By the time she returns I have found FOUR MORE yogurt quartets that were higher than 99 cents (original price). I point them out to her. She goes into a flutter. Finally decides to take none of them.

    Now she wants to know how it affects her coupons. Well, now she no longer has enough four-packs to use all her coupons. IIRC she also returns one of the 99-cent four-packs because, of course, she doesn't have three more to go with it.

    I continue to scan stuff. Most of which (but not all) has little pink stickers on it. And she continues to unload ...

    The part of my register to my left becomes loaded literally to the point where I can no longer put anything there. So I start to put stuff in her bags because nobody has come by to help pack, in spite of the fact the pileup is impossible to miss (they're usually pretty good about this; don't know what was going on there.)

    Eventually the bags themselves start to block the space because they can't be put into her cart because SHE IS STILL UNLOADING STUFF.

    Boxes of chocolates.

    Me: "Ma'am, this one doesn't have a half-price sticker on it. Nor does this one."

    BQ (again in a flutter): "Oh, I don't know ..."

    Finally she decides to leave behind the boxes of chocolates without the stickers on them.

    FINALLY she has emptied the damn cart and pushes it to the end of the aisle. I think, "Lady, if you think for a minute I'm going to help you load these bags ... think again."

    Finally, about a century later, I total up her purchases and ask if she has her points card.

    BQ: "Oh yes ..."

    And she starts to dig in her purse.

    And she digs.

    And digs.

    And digs.

    Meanwhile there are now three customers behind her.

    Usually in such cases I say, "Ah, it's hiding on you" or something similar, to try to defang the embarrassment. This time I just stood there stone-faced.

    She's still digging in her purse, coming up with unrelated cards, handfuls of paper (receipts, notes, who knows ...) FFS, even I am better organized than that!

    Just as I'm trying to think of what to say (she can call the company when she gets home and give them the number on the receipt and they can add the points, for example) ... she finds the card.

    I swipe it, she pays, and trundles off with what sounds like a muttered, flustered "Thanks ..."

    I apologized profusely to the next three customers for the wait time. Despite my concerns for the environment, they all got their plastic bags for free. It was all I could do. I'd have used my staff discount card but I really don't want to be fired at this point.

    Secret shopper? Perhaps, although in all my years in retail I have never been warned about them in any store I've worked in.

    Ya know, I am REALLLLLY starting to appreciate the express line.
    Last edited by Pixelated; 02-08-2020, 02:30 AM.
    Customer service: More efficient than a Dementor's kiss
    ~ Mr Hero

  • #2
    Oh, not to worry, BQ will come see you in the Express as well, loaded as before. WITH coupons and markdowns. She's just happy to see you.

    Nope, still won't have a clue. Those don't come with little pink stickers, donchaknow...

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    • #3
      I've seen another coworker literally turn a heavily-laden customer away from the express lane ... so apparently it's acceptable. Also been told by yet a third CW that "loaded" customers are NOT to come through the express lane. I don't mind if I"m standing there doing nothing ... but I'll happily make an exception for BQ.
      Customer service: More efficient than a Dementor's kiss
      ~ Mr Hero

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