Ike 'victims' like to beg other Ike 'victims'?

[SG15Z]

Sigh, why do I put up with this job!

Privacy!!!1!!!!111!!

So I check this guy out and he writes his check. I then proceed to write down hi DL# and DOB, then well....

Me: ...And do you have a phone Number? (I know I worded it wrong, Oh well)
SC: You know I don't have to give you my Number.
Me: ...
SC: Legally I don't have to give you my phone number. Privacy and all, though now cell phones can be looked up so nothing is private anymore.
Me: Yeah and legally I don't have to accept your check. Company policy and all.

I mean seriously I don't have to. Refusing to give me your phone number when asked during payment with a check is kinda suspicious. And don't give me that whole soliciting crap. Hello?! Kroger? We have millions of phone numbers and we don't solicit any of them! I mean seriously has anyone had a problem with a Grocery Store constantly calling them for unimportant reasons? No sorry you have just failed please try again.


staring contest

This happens with 75% of our customers that use some form of plastic tender.

SC: (slides card during transaction when I'm not paying attention.)
Me: Your total is $xxx.xx!
SC:....
Me:....
SC: (looks at pinpad) It says please wait for the cashier!!!!1!eleventy!!
Me: Sigh

Hello?!!! You need to tell me how your paying. When have you ever gone shopping slid your card and the register automatically knew what you were doing and completed the transaction. No! You have to tell the cashier your paying with a card so they can press the magical button that you don't think exists so that the transaction can be completed and you can go home and watch CNN talk about how the world is going into the shitter while you sit on the couch stuffing yourself with Oreos.

Pre-Ike Gas woes
So my fellow FES on one paticular pre-Ike day where it's busy as hell, goes out to Fuel Center to relieve them for break. Well during that time they ran outta Diesel (again) and the people at the pumps where furious. They where banging on the kiosk window demanding to have diesel at that moment.

And later a lady cuts in front of like 5 people waiting in line. My fellow FES tells her she needs to wait in line. She refuses and begins pumping. Before she even gets a dollars worth my fellow FES takes the pumps puts it back in the holser and tells her that she is leaving now in a tone that scared the other drivers. So she did.

So yeah it was crazy that day. I can't even count the number of fights we had to break up out there. Next hurricane, we're gonna have at least two other people besides the fuel attendant to keep every thing in order, cause it got nuts out there.

But...but!

I'm at UScan. It's a day before Ike hits. All lanes are open with lines down the aisles. Guy approches me at my little podium area.

SC: I need to cash this. (he has a coinstar voucher)
Me: Sorry sir you need to wait in line.
SC: But I'm not buying anything!
Me: I don't care sir. This is not a register. In order to cash that back here I would have to enter into one of these lanes which would mean I'd be cutting you in line. I'm sorry but you'll have to wait in line like everyone else!

I mean seriously I could care less if you aren't purchasing anything or not. You still need to wait in line to use services offered at these terminals and that includes coinstar vouchers. So sorry but I ain't putting you in front of my other customers. That would be suicide!

I'm hungry

Dear sir,

You approached me today at the Starbucks. You explained to me all the horrible conditions your dealing with thanks to Ike. You have no electricity, running water, perishable foods, a way to cook non-perishables. You're hungry, thirsty, uncomfortable thanks to no A/C, and you haven't had a shower since the power went out. So you have come to me begging for food. Well I'm sorry, but I can't. First I'm not allowed to give you anything for free. 2) All my food in starbucks hasn't had time to thaw from the freezer yet, so I can't sell it anyway. 3) I too have no power, water, or food at home and am living in poor conditions border lining on homeless and I still have to pay for my shit and go to work 12 hours a day for the last 5 days now. I'm just as tired and frustrated as you are. So please explain to me why I should feel sorry for you and give you free stuff. Please tell me I'm very interested in what wonderful story you'll come up with so I can then post it here on this site and have others laugh at you.

I know I'm so evil sometimes.

[lupo pazzesco]

You obviously don't have to answer, but is this a Houston Kroger's? Because I swear to gods you just described my experience at Kroger yesterday. Had at least THREE people come up to me, swearing up and down that Ike ruined their lives, and if I could only give them something to help out, etc, etc.

Now, I do have power and running water. What I DON'T have is a job, since my store has no power or water, etc. WTH is wrong with people trying to capitalize on misfortune. (I think I mentioned this on my thread in Sightings about the crazy Christian lady...) It makes me ill.

Hang in there, and if you are in Houston and need something I might be able to help with, PM me. We can go from there. I'm Italian, I will at least feed you!!!

[SG15Z]

Thanks lupo. I do live in the area. Out in the northern Galveston County. I work in the Alvin store and we have had power since Monday unfortunately. Then again I'm really gonna like my next paycheck Thankfully I finally have power and water at home at last, but am still under one of those boil water advisories. Still it was nice to have a nice hot shower earlier

I did read your post and I feel for you. It's been a crazy week around the area. All I know is that I'm ready for things to finally get back to normal around here and people stop acting like maniacs.

[smileyeagle1021]

on the privacy thing I do feel your pain... people always ask why hotels need things like an address and phone number at time of reservation... umm, let's see, address is needed for the billing information, most people get that, but phone number is much more important...because it would be nice if the hotel were to close, let's say an earthquake hit (please, pretty please) that damaged the hotel and it needed renovations... I'd assume you'd like us to call you to tell you that we couldn't honor your reservation and would you like assitance in getting a reservation elsewhere.

and I'd like to ask, why is it that I never see that many SCs at Smith's but everyone says Kroger is the worst store on the planet?

[SG15Z]

Cause it is!

lol, well it's not just the SCs. And really SCs are encountered more often at SCO or Fuel center. But the real issue is corporate and the union. They both cause so many people to quit it's ridiculous. I mean come on, I became a FES and didn't get a raise. At all! In fact the only raise I get is the stupid .25 every 6 months. All thanks to the wonderful union. In fact I can come up with a pretty exhaustive list of things I hate about Kroger and why I wonder that I'm still working their, but I just don't feel like typing that much.

But SCs are a problem too, but I think they're more common at WM where "it's cheaper".

[One-Fang]

SC: (slides card during transaction when I'm not paying attention.)
Me: Your total is $xxx.xx!
SC:....
Me:....
SC: (looks at pinpad) It says please wait for the cashier!!!!1!eleventy!!

Can someone please explain this to my ignorant Kiwi self?

If I were visiting the US and swiping my card to pay for something, and the screen says "Please wait for cashier", then I'm going to assume it's waiting for the cashier to do something, not me. If she needs more info to do whatever that is, then she'd better ask for it.

How is it any customer's problem for doing nothing when the machine says "Please wait for cashier"? Even if that's how it normally works, there must be a fair few first timers who just don't realise "please wait for cashier" apparently means "please tell the cashier something - but we're not going to tell you what".

[Kogarashi]

I'm sorry you have to deal with so many hurricane SCs.

As for credit card payments there.... At Wal-Mart, if the customer swipes a CC while I'm still ringing things up, a *CRD appears in one corner of the small screen that shows me prices and totals and stuff, indicating to me what key I need to hit and, thus, how the customer paid. So when I tell them the total, if they don't follow up with a "Credit, please," I can ask, "On a credit card?" The only time that three letter code doesn't show up is when the transaction is tax free (replaced with *TAX) or, I think, when they're getting a gift receipt (replaced with *GFT). And when they swipe a debit card instead (and don't choose to run it as credit), it shows *DBT. I don't remember what the code is for gift/shopping cards. Something to do with SHP, I think. It's so rare for customers to realize that they can swipe their Wal-Mart gift cards at the pinpad.

[lordlundar]

Can someone please explain this to my ignorant Kiwi self?

If I were visiting the US and swiping my card to pay for something, and the screen says "Please wait for cashier", then I'm going to assume it's waiting for the cashier to do something, not me. If she needs more info to do whatever that is, then she'd better ask for it.

How is it any customer's problem for doing nothing when the machine says "Please wait for cashier"? Even if that's how it normally works, there must be a fair few first timers who just don't realise "please wait for cashier" apparently means "please tell the cashier something - but we're not going to tell you what".

Here's the proper order of how to make purchases:

1. Items are scanned in
2. Cashier gives total and asks for means of payment
3. Customer tells means of payment so cashier can queue it up.
4. Cashier gives okay to swipe card
5. Customer swipes card.

Now here's the order that happened:
1. Items are scanned in.
2. Customer swipes card
3. Cashier gives total and asks for means of payment
4. Customer cannot clue in that swiped card did not register and thinks it's the cashier's fault.
5. Customer proceeds to blame cashier.

That explain it well enough?

[flybye023]

To be fair, a lot of stores in my area I can scan while the cashier is still ringing up and the machine does know what kind of card it is. Some other machines have a button that I can select whether it is debit or credit during the scanning and cue the computer accordingly.

Now, having said that, the store I worked at was one of those that the customer could scan during the transaction but the pinpad would display the "Please wait for cashier..." message. About 90% of the people would just wait patiently until I was done scanning. The other 10% would always interrupt me and report that they needed me to do something to which I would reply, "Yes, I need to finish scanning your merchandise." Which if I was lucky would get me a from the customer. Occasionally I would get a .

[BookstoreEscapee]

See, this is why I liked the B&N system. You can swipe your card all you want, but until the cashier finishes scanning and presses the "credit" button, the scanner won't do diddly squat. It will say "Welcome to B&N" until the button is pressed, then it will say "Please swipe your card" (or whatever it says). So if the customer wants to stand there swiping their card for no reason, the screen isn't going to change, and if they don't realize it's not doing anything, well, ... ** (You can swipe any card in the machine; the cashier has to press the correct button before you do it because the register doesn't know the difference between a member card, credit/debit, gift card, what have you.)

**depending on the customer, I would either tell them it wouldn't work until I was finished, or if it was an SC already, I would just ignore it and pretend I hadn't seen them do it. Then I would snicker in my mind when they had to get their wallet out again because they had already put the card away because they were too impatient to pay attention to whether or not it had actually gone through. I'm slightly evil that way.

[SG15Z]

Here's the proper order of how to make purchases:

1. Items are scanned in
2. Cashier gives total and asks for means of payment
3. Customer tells means of payment so cashier can queue it up.
4. Cashier gives okay to swipe card
5. Customer swipes card.

Now here's the order that happened:
1. Items are scanned in.
2. Customer swipes card
3. Cashier gives total and asks for means of payment
4. Customer cannot clue in that swiped card did not register and thinks it's the cashier's fault.
5. Customer proceeds to blame cashier.

That explain it well enough?

Yes that explains it very well. Basically I tell the total and they just stare at me. Then yell "It's waiting for you!!!!11!1!" All they have to say is that they slid their card, not yell at me because I can't read their mind.

[ADoyle90815]

In my store, you also have those club cards for a discount, but if a customer has problems with it and then decides to swipe their credit or debit card, it means that I have to finish the transaction, then give them their discount in cash at the end. Once that happens, they often turn into a SC because they want that discount now.

[Chromatix]

This may seem strange, but I'm one of those people who likes to know how much it's going to cost *before* I hand over my payment. It seems to me that plenty of other people are not so careful with their money.

[nomorecarts]

I'm sorry you have to deal with so many hurricane SCs.

As for credit card payments there.... At Wal-Mart, if the customer swipes a CC while I'm still ringing things up, a *CRD appears in one corner of the small screen that shows me prices and totals and stuff, indicating to me what key I need to hit and, thus, how the customer paid. So when I tell them the total, if they don't follow up with a "Credit, please," I can ask, "On a credit card?" The only time that three letter code doesn't show up is when the transaction is tax free (replaced with *TAX) or, I think, when they're getting a gift receipt (replaced with *GFT). And when they swipe a debit card instead (and don't choose to run it as credit), it shows *DBT. I don't remember what the code is for gift/shopping cards. Something to do with SHP, I think. It's so rare for customers to realize that they can swipe their Wal-Mart gift cards at the pinpad.

it can also be replaced by *CSM, which won't go away, even after the CSM has inserted their keys and punched in their number

the customer can swipe their gift cards, which are *SHP but we still have to scan the bar code

EBT(foodstamps) shows up as *DBT as well, the cashier doesn't even know if it's EBT if they don't recognize the card

also, you can slide your card any time, but it's not advisable if you have coupons, or aren't going to pay attention and notice your clearance items rung up wrong until after I tell you the total, or have the $40 rebate card for digital converter boxes, because I might forget since I do those last, unless the coupon is placed on top of the item it's for, because I have to scan the item before applying the discount, and if I hit the key without applying them you get to wait in the monster line at customer service, and I feel like an ass

[Kalga]

I believe she got confused because she didn't see the "Wait for cashier" before swiping her card; and then she thought that it accepted the card, and she had to wait for the cashier to do something else.