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Is the apocalypse finally at hand?? (I hope) [kinda long]

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  • Is the apocalypse finally at hand?? (I hope) [kinda long]

    We were absolutely slammed today. I don't know WTF was going on. Fairly mild for Thanksgiving (in October in Canada) and then today ... By the time my break rolled around, I went upstairs to the break room and told a coworker that I was pretty sure I was going to10 slap a customer before the day was over. We had a fairly lengthy lineup ALL DAY LONG.

    Three of the memorable ones:

    1) This woman was not being deliberately difficult, but I just did not have the time (or the ability) to explain things to her. She was an elderly woman, who turned out to be very hard of hearing, and also English was not her first language, although she was competent enough in it.

    I should note that I was at register #5, which is very close to the click-and-collect area. So there's a lot of noise from there. It seems to be right under one of the speakers for the store's music system, which often makes me wish Canada had looser gun laws ... And then there are the masks, the sneeze guards, and the general racket of the store itself. Also keep in mind that many of these comments were said more than once, as I had to continually ask her to repeat herself.

    I rang her stuff through and then asked for her points card.

    Customer: "How many points I got?"

    Me: "I don't know, you have to tap your card."

    Customer: "I never get no points!"

    Me: "You have to tap your card on the machine, ma'am."

    Customer: "I shop here all the time and I never get no points!"

    *lather, rinse, repeat*

    I finally took the card out of her hand and tapped it.

    Me: "You have [X] number of points, ma'am."

    I tell her her total.

    Customer: "I can use points?"

    Me: "No, you don't have enough. Your total is $XX.XX."

    Customer: *stares at me blankly*

    I repeat her total.

    She continues to stare at me. "What?"

    This went on two or three more times until I finally literally shouted her total at her. By this point what I wanted most was for her to be GONE.

    She paid and then ... "How much money I got?" (meaning on her rewards card)

    Me, by this time totally out of patience with the whole situation: "None. You have to have XX number of points before you can start using them. You're close, but not quite there yet."

    She shook her head, clicking her tongue in dismay, collected her groceries and wandered off.

    Unfortunately, it's impossible to convey how bad this interaction was with text. The number of times I had to repeat myself, the number of times I had to ask HER to repeat HERself, the language barrier, the fact that I absolutely did not have the time to explain to her how the rewards card worked and the noise level at that register (it's the same or worse at 6 and 7) ...

    2) Customer unloads her groceries and I start ringing them up. She stares at the monitor with ferocious intensity. This doesn't bother me as a lot of people like to ensure their groceries are being rung up at the right price, and who can blame them?

    Suddenly ...

    Customer: "That's half off!"

    That was a bag of a sort of trail mix. She'd had several similar bags but they had all had bright pink stickers on them, indicating they were 50% off. This bag had no sticker.

    Customer: "It was on the shelf with the others!"

    I call the line supervisor over.

    LS: "Does it have a sticker?"

    Me: "No."

    LS: "Then it's full price." And she walked away.

    Customer: "*Hmph* I don't want it then."

    No big deal; I void it and move on.

    Then we get to the produce ...

    And she's got a small bag of ... clementines? I dunno. I hate these things because invariably not a single one has a code sticker on it. Oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruits, apples, pears ... all have code stickers. But not these things.

    I'm not sure what they are and she doesn't know. Most customers know the price. That doesn't help. I need a code number.

    I ask the cashier behind me. She gives me a code. It doesn't work. I call LS over again. She gives me a different code and I ring them in.

    Customer: "No, those are 99 cents a pound!"

    Now, we are in Canada. I do not have the faintest fucking idea WHY most of our produce is listed in the ads and on the floor at so much per pound but it rings up in metric (I think I've bitched about this here in the past). So I dig out a small binder and start leafing through it. A different supervisor notices me.

    DS: "What are you looking for?"

    Me: "The conversion chart!"

    Meanwhile, the LS had sent a guy to me while I was still dealing with this woman. Guy had two sacks of potatoes. By this point he had also had enough and put the one sack bag in his buggy (both were the same so the cashier would only need to scan the one bag twice) and prepared to go elsewhere. I apologized as he backed out of the aisle. And yes, the line supervisor absolutely should not send a new customer over until they're sure the previous customer is finished, but you can't get that through their heads.

    I call the original LS over again because the conversion chart tells me that these things are definitely NOT ringing in at 99 cents a pound. She tells me to call somebody in produce so I put out a call.

    Customer: "Oh, just take them off. I don't have time for this!"

    I voided them as well, she paid, I handed her her receipt in flat silence and turned to wipe down the belt as she was finishing loading her cart.

    3) Now THIS one was the high point of my day. A father with an adorable little girl (ALG) in tow.

    I had stepped out of my "cubicle" for something and stepped back in, closing the door behind me (everything is made of clear plexiglass but it's still a door).

    ALG: "She's locked herself in!"

    Me: "Yep. That means I can never ever leave!"

    ALG stares at me in horror. "But ... there's no BATHROOM in there!"

    Talk about hitting the most important point right off the bat ...
    Customer service: More efficient than a Dementor's kiss
    ~ Mr Hero
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