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Please allow me to vent.
So, background: Our holiday people have been let go, so when it gets busy there are fewer people to handle it. On top of that, one cashier just quit and another was fired, and a front-end supervisor is gone for whatever reason (wouldn't blame her if she quit). This past week, due to arctic blast, people stayed home, and today it warmed up. They decided to get all the stuff they didn't buy before. It was like Christmas all over again. It was so crazy that the phone operator spent most of her afternoon cashiering while answering phonecalls. One customer got hung up on several times and was royally ticked. I don't blame her. And I had agreed to work 9 hours instead of 4 because I like my boss. I regretted that decision all day because my carpal tunnel is flaring up badly in addition to my usual pain. I took 10 pills in the space of 8 hours: anti-inflammatory, OTC pain med, and a prescription opiate. Ugh.
Our customers are blind. If you looked around while shopping or at the front lanes, you could've seen how busy and understaffed we were. And yet, people kept asking me if it was a bad day or being surprised that a mall store should be so busy on a Saturday. I know some could see it on my face, and they had to be the ones who asked how I was and I struggled to be civil. I was definitely not the standard of friendliness as I struggled through pain and being just overwhelmed by the crowds constantly coming at me, not to mention struggling to keep bags stocked or even just to open the darn things, and having a 1 1/2 foot counter. I was on the hated small lane. Anyway, I feel I shouldn't take it out on people, but I just couldn't be cheerful enough and I wouldn't be surprised if I got complaints.
Get off the phone so I can help you. Now usually this doesn't bother me if the customer is on what sounds like an important multi-tasking call and acknowledges me. I understand; we all live in a time-crunch and sometimes have to shop on a lunch break and take care of some situation. But I needed to communicate that this lady's soda was leaking and I couldn't sell her the completely-sliced-open dog treats. Well, I managed to get her off the phone and struggled to get a salesfloor person to grab more soda. I ended up leaving the front lanes, hoping I wouldn't get yelled at, to get the dog food. There just was no one to help and the two items were at opposite ends of the store. When I got back and got it all worked out, she was nice about it and was sympathizing with me, asking if the store was having a bad day. I told her yes, and as an example, blurted out "I can't feel my left hand and this is crazy up here!" She wasn't really offended, maybe surprised, though, and said, "They won't let you go home??" I told her that it wasn't probable. At the end she thanked me sincerely for making sure she was taken care of. I forgave her for the phone. So this is where the problem might come in: Some lady up ahead heard my blurted statement and turned around with a kind of horrified look on her face. She will probably complain on the survey. Good thing she doesn't have my name. I really shouldn't have said it. Supervisor was amused, though.
$41 in coin change at the end of the night, right before my poor coworker, who works two jobs, was to go home. I noticed that her customer was taking a while to check out, and I assumed it was coupons or something. I also didn't know CW was leaving; I thought her light was off because of whatever they were trying to work out. Finally, CW asked me if we could take a bag of coins. I thought maybe she meant a few dollars, not 41, so I said yeah, but they had to be counted out. When I saw how much was there I went over and started to help. I got a small bin and as we counted we dumped it in there for me to take care of later. At one point CW turned around and let me know she was supposed to go at 9:00 and I felt bad. As soon as I could I took over because the lady wanted some other stuff she didn't know she had enough money for, and CW was already 20 minutes over. I kept the light off. Of course right then we had our mall-door-is-closing rush because people can't plan ahead, and this was shortly after a few cashiers had gone home. There was me and another cashier, and the supervisor was taking down drawers and couldn't hop on. The line at the other register was like 15 people deep because I kept turning people away as I sorted through all that change; I couldn't leave it out. The line was to my left, kind of behind me, and people kept looking over at what I was doing and I ignored that. So akward. One lady asked the sup "There's only one register open?" and I heard him simply say "Yep." That was it; he was not going to get roped into an argument. I almost laughed because I am sick of the complaints at us when the district manager determines payroll. He told me later that another lady complained that we should call people up from the floor [we had been all night!] and he replied, "This is what they scheduled for me." I asked what she did and he said she just harrumphed and walked away. We are going to get so many complaints about today.
You're not special; don't walk up to a lane with the light off. So finally I got free to actually ring people up and as it got to leaving time, I turned off my light. I finished up with my last custy right at 9:30 when some lady tried to come to me. I immediately told her I was closing, which made her mad, but she didn't throw a fit. She went to the mile-long line. I may have taken her on another day, but at this point I'd been there 8 hours and 45 minutes and I was just done. Plus, she'd assumed she could pass up all those waiting people over there. Just...nope.
So, background: Our holiday people have been let go, so when it gets busy there are fewer people to handle it. On top of that, one cashier just quit and another was fired, and a front-end supervisor is gone for whatever reason (wouldn't blame her if she quit). This past week, due to arctic blast, people stayed home, and today it warmed up. They decided to get all the stuff they didn't buy before. It was like Christmas all over again. It was so crazy that the phone operator spent most of her afternoon cashiering while answering phonecalls. One customer got hung up on several times and was royally ticked. I don't blame her. And I had agreed to work 9 hours instead of 4 because I like my boss. I regretted that decision all day because my carpal tunnel is flaring up badly in addition to my usual pain. I took 10 pills in the space of 8 hours: anti-inflammatory, OTC pain med, and a prescription opiate. Ugh.
Our customers are blind. If you looked around while shopping or at the front lanes, you could've seen how busy and understaffed we were. And yet, people kept asking me if it was a bad day or being surprised that a mall store should be so busy on a Saturday. I know some could see it on my face, and they had to be the ones who asked how I was and I struggled to be civil. I was definitely not the standard of friendliness as I struggled through pain and being just overwhelmed by the crowds constantly coming at me, not to mention struggling to keep bags stocked or even just to open the darn things, and having a 1 1/2 foot counter. I was on the hated small lane. Anyway, I feel I shouldn't take it out on people, but I just couldn't be cheerful enough and I wouldn't be surprised if I got complaints.
Get off the phone so I can help you. Now usually this doesn't bother me if the customer is on what sounds like an important multi-tasking call and acknowledges me. I understand; we all live in a time-crunch and sometimes have to shop on a lunch break and take care of some situation. But I needed to communicate that this lady's soda was leaking and I couldn't sell her the completely-sliced-open dog treats. Well, I managed to get her off the phone and struggled to get a salesfloor person to grab more soda. I ended up leaving the front lanes, hoping I wouldn't get yelled at, to get the dog food. There just was no one to help and the two items were at opposite ends of the store. When I got back and got it all worked out, she was nice about it and was sympathizing with me, asking if the store was having a bad day. I told her yes, and as an example, blurted out "I can't feel my left hand and this is crazy up here!" She wasn't really offended, maybe surprised, though, and said, "They won't let you go home??" I told her that it wasn't probable. At the end she thanked me sincerely for making sure she was taken care of. I forgave her for the phone. So this is where the problem might come in: Some lady up ahead heard my blurted statement and turned around with a kind of horrified look on her face. She will probably complain on the survey. Good thing she doesn't have my name. I really shouldn't have said it. Supervisor was amused, though.
$41 in coin change at the end of the night, right before my poor coworker, who works two jobs, was to go home. I noticed that her customer was taking a while to check out, and I assumed it was coupons or something. I also didn't know CW was leaving; I thought her light was off because of whatever they were trying to work out. Finally, CW asked me if we could take a bag of coins. I thought maybe she meant a few dollars, not 41, so I said yeah, but they had to be counted out. When I saw how much was there I went over and started to help. I got a small bin and as we counted we dumped it in there for me to take care of later. At one point CW turned around and let me know she was supposed to go at 9:00 and I felt bad. As soon as I could I took over because the lady wanted some other stuff she didn't know she had enough money for, and CW was already 20 minutes over. I kept the light off. Of course right then we had our mall-door-is-closing rush because people can't plan ahead, and this was shortly after a few cashiers had gone home. There was me and another cashier, and the supervisor was taking down drawers and couldn't hop on. The line at the other register was like 15 people deep because I kept turning people away as I sorted through all that change; I couldn't leave it out. The line was to my left, kind of behind me, and people kept looking over at what I was doing and I ignored that. So akward. One lady asked the sup "There's only one register open?" and I heard him simply say "Yep." That was it; he was not going to get roped into an argument. I almost laughed because I am sick of the complaints at us when the district manager determines payroll. He told me later that another lady complained that we should call people up from the floor [we had been all night!] and he replied, "This is what they scheduled for me." I asked what she did and he said she just harrumphed and walked away. We are going to get so many complaints about today.
You're not special; don't walk up to a lane with the light off. So finally I got free to actually ring people up and as it got to leaving time, I turned off my light. I finished up with my last custy right at 9:30 when some lady tried to come to me. I immediately told her I was closing, which made her mad, but she didn't throw a fit. She went to the mile-long line. I may have taken her on another day, but at this point I'd been there 8 hours and 45 minutes and I was just done. Plus, she'd assumed she could pass up all those waiting people over there. Just...nope.
If I had sixty dollars' worth of loose change, I'd select a Best Buy card in a heartbeat.
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