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Last night was a doozy...we had two attempted walkoffs when the registers crashed.
Round 1
Every so often, if a customer slides their card while items are being scanned, the pinpad will lock up. Usually when this happens it's no big deal, just use the pin on your nametag to reset the pinpad and when it reboots continue as normal (register still has the order open, so nothing is lost).
Note I said "normal". This was anything but.
Customer was a man with wife and kid in a stroller. The order was $117 and change, and the pinpad froze. Cue me (because I was closest at the time, and being in a purple shirt had a target on my forehead) and FEM coming over. She tried to explain what was happening while I tried to reset the pinpad. This is what happened in the minute or two it took to come back to life.
SC: duh
SCW: Wife
Me:
G: Newbie cashier
E: kickass FEM
SC: "What happened? Did you crash it so you could overcharge me and I won't know about it?!"
G: *glare, says nothing*
Me: "The register froze, it happens, it will just take a minute to come back up. Your order is still open, I just need to reset the card reader."
SC starts to leave the lane; he can't get far as there are a few elderly people having Old Home Week on the front end. Normally we would ask them to move, but anything barring this guy from going out the door is a good thing.
E: "Sir, you cannot leave with the cart."
SC: "I don't have time for this! My kid is having a meltdown!"
The kidlet was a bit fussy, but nowhere near 'meltdown' mode. My Keyring o' Shiny Things(tm) was dangling out of my pocket and he was mesmerized by it.
SC blusters some more, and then sends his wife to the car with the cart (we really need some security).
E: "Sir, the cart CANNOT leave the store." She stopped short of saying that is considered theft until payment is made.
SC: "SCW, go to the car now."
E tosses me the keys, herself and a floater manager book it out the door. SC turns his ire on myself and G. I manage to ignore him and tell G to do the same, but to have the desk call the cops if he raises a hand to either of us. Which thankfully never happened. Eventually things are solved, but not without SC threats of "I'm never coming here again/this is bad customer service/etc." (at that point I had been summoned back to selfscan, so didn't see the resolution) Which leads me into...
Round 2
SC: duh
Me: Hi!
E: kickass FEM
FSM: floater manager of the day
A woman with about $200 worth of food comes through selfscan. She uses three gift cards for payment; the first two go through, but the third has a bad magnetic stripe and nothing I do will make it read. E comes over to see if she can help. The SC is very rough-looking (unkempt, vaguely odiferous) and is acting strange...I think I recognize her as a general troublemaker (bannable from any other store and she probably has been). Cashier D (not a huge guy, but moderately intimidating if you don't know him) has picked up on the situation and is also lurking nearby.
E: (sotto) "So what's going on?"
Me: (sotto) "This card's giving me an invalid stripe error [which usually only happens if a card isn't active]." Red flag, E wants to call the 800-number to see if that card actually was activated. Three brand-new (one still on the hanger tab) $100 gift cards, sketchy-looking SC...
SC: "Oh my god what's happening? I have to go now, I don't have time for this!
E takes the card over to the desk to check the balance; D moves next to me just in case things get weird.
The card's good, but won't read for whatever reason. The only thing I can do is reverse tender (put the money back on the two cards that went through), only then will it let me save the order so it can be processed at the desk.
E: "The card reader's not working right; we need to put the money back on the cards you paid with and go to another lane."
SC: "Whaaaat? You're saying I didn't pay? I need to leave!"
Lather, rinse, repeat. Now FSM is here as well. They're both explaining it to SC in the simplest possible terms, SC is deciding to complicate it as much as possible (FSM guessed later that she was trying to confuse us into letting her leave).
The first card reversal works. SC can't find the second card (which is needed to do this) and flips out.
SC: "I don't have time for this! I have to leave NOW! Why do you need the card? I have to leave!" Takes the cart and tries to leave. Luckily the cart is the one with a bad wheel and takes my entire weight to move when full, so she can't budge it more than a few inches.
SC: "I threw the card away! I crunched it up and threw it away!" Cue E and FSM looking through trash cans (ick).
When the payment reversal failed for the second card (the one nobody can find), the entire register shuts down. Not just the program, but the whole thing dies (while I can see the program forcing a shutdown, the whole thing should not die) O_o
FSM freaks out a bit because she doesn't know what happened to the payment that couldn't be reversed. I reboot the register, hoping that somehow the transaction would be accessible. It's not. SC is taken over to a cashier lane, E and FSM are the only two people she will deal with.
Ultimately, everything works out (when the transaction didn't complete, the money was not actually deducted from the second card...which SC had dropped in one of the shopping bags). So the store gets the money and all's well...not before another "This is horrible, I'm never coming here again!" tirade.
E reiterates later that management needs to exercise the legal right to ban troublemakers. I'm very tempted to write a letter to Corporate about the need for a guard in the store (at least at night when the crazies descend).
Round 1
Every so often, if a customer slides their card while items are being scanned, the pinpad will lock up. Usually when this happens it's no big deal, just use the pin on your nametag to reset the pinpad and when it reboots continue as normal (register still has the order open, so nothing is lost).
Note I said "normal". This was anything but.
Customer was a man with wife and kid in a stroller. The order was $117 and change, and the pinpad froze. Cue me (because I was closest at the time, and being in a purple shirt had a target on my forehead) and FEM coming over. She tried to explain what was happening while I tried to reset the pinpad. This is what happened in the minute or two it took to come back to life.
SC: duh
SCW: Wife
Me:
G: Newbie cashier
E: kickass FEM
SC: "What happened? Did you crash it so you could overcharge me and I won't know about it?!"
G: *glare, says nothing*
Me: "The register froze, it happens, it will just take a minute to come back up. Your order is still open, I just need to reset the card reader."
SC starts to leave the lane; he can't get far as there are a few elderly people having Old Home Week on the front end. Normally we would ask them to move, but anything barring this guy from going out the door is a good thing.
E: "Sir, you cannot leave with the cart."
SC: "I don't have time for this! My kid is having a meltdown!"
The kidlet was a bit fussy, but nowhere near 'meltdown' mode. My Keyring o' Shiny Things(tm) was dangling out of my pocket and he was mesmerized by it.
SC blusters some more, and then sends his wife to the car with the cart (we really need some security).
E: "Sir, the cart CANNOT leave the store." She stopped short of saying that is considered theft until payment is made.
SC: "SCW, go to the car now."
E tosses me the keys, herself and a floater manager book it out the door. SC turns his ire on myself and G. I manage to ignore him and tell G to do the same, but to have the desk call the cops if he raises a hand to either of us. Which thankfully never happened. Eventually things are solved, but not without SC threats of "I'm never coming here again/this is bad customer service/etc." (at that point I had been summoned back to selfscan, so didn't see the resolution) Which leads me into...
Round 2
SC: duh
Me: Hi!
E: kickass FEM
FSM: floater manager of the day
A woman with about $200 worth of food comes through selfscan. She uses three gift cards for payment; the first two go through, but the third has a bad magnetic stripe and nothing I do will make it read. E comes over to see if she can help. The SC is very rough-looking (unkempt, vaguely odiferous) and is acting strange...I think I recognize her as a general troublemaker (bannable from any other store and she probably has been). Cashier D (not a huge guy, but moderately intimidating if you don't know him) has picked up on the situation and is also lurking nearby.
E: (sotto) "So what's going on?"
Me: (sotto) "This card's giving me an invalid stripe error [which usually only happens if a card isn't active]." Red flag, E wants to call the 800-number to see if that card actually was activated. Three brand-new (one still on the hanger tab) $100 gift cards, sketchy-looking SC...
SC: "Oh my god what's happening? I have to go now, I don't have time for this!
E takes the card over to the desk to check the balance; D moves next to me just in case things get weird.
The card's good, but won't read for whatever reason. The only thing I can do is reverse tender (put the money back on the two cards that went through), only then will it let me save the order so it can be processed at the desk.
E: "The card reader's not working right; we need to put the money back on the cards you paid with and go to another lane."
SC: "Whaaaat? You're saying I didn't pay? I need to leave!"
Lather, rinse, repeat. Now FSM is here as well. They're both explaining it to SC in the simplest possible terms, SC is deciding to complicate it as much as possible (FSM guessed later that she was trying to confuse us into letting her leave).
The first card reversal works. SC can't find the second card (which is needed to do this) and flips out.
SC: "I don't have time for this! I have to leave NOW! Why do you need the card? I have to leave!" Takes the cart and tries to leave. Luckily the cart is the one with a bad wheel and takes my entire weight to move when full, so she can't budge it more than a few inches.
SC: "I threw the card away! I crunched it up and threw it away!" Cue E and FSM looking through trash cans (ick).
When the payment reversal failed for the second card (the one nobody can find), the entire register shuts down. Not just the program, but the whole thing dies (while I can see the program forcing a shutdown, the whole thing should not die) O_o
FSM freaks out a bit because she doesn't know what happened to the payment that couldn't be reversed. I reboot the register, hoping that somehow the transaction would be accessible. It's not. SC is taken over to a cashier lane, E and FSM are the only two people she will deal with.
Ultimately, everything works out (when the transaction didn't complete, the money was not actually deducted from the second card...which SC had dropped in one of the shopping bags). So the store gets the money and all's well...not before another "This is horrible, I'm never coming here again!" tirade.
E reiterates later that management needs to exercise the legal right to ban troublemakers. I'm very tempted to write a letter to Corporate about the need for a guard in the store (at least at night when the crazies descend).
. One of these days I will have to chronicle the adventures of Mytical .. if I can keep from going sane while doing so. Cause if I went sane, I'd forget night shift ever happened. 
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