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first post desu. hi. i'm fleur. 'tis not my real name, but whatever. I like it. I also like Franchesca. :] I work in a teeny grocery store in a somewhat small city in southeast michigan. yayy. I don't get many SCs *touch wood* but I do have a short temper so it sort of balances out. this is what I remember at the moment from the last three months.
so this kid and his girlfriend come in my line. they were maybe 18, 19 years old. now, I'm 18, so nothing against teenagers/young adults – when they're fairly intelligent. this kid decided to use his dad's debit card (at least i'm assuming it was his dad's) without knowing the PIN number, and without calling his dad to check the PIN BEFORE he swipes the damn card.
so i've just rung up all of his stuff, $30 or so worth of food or whatever, he says he only has $25 cash and a debit card. he swipes the card, tells me it's debit, then proceeds to stare at the machine. “shit,” he says, “i don't know the PIN.”
I practically facepalm but i'm pretty good at hiding my emotions when I need to, so I sit pseudo-patiently while the kid takes out his cell phone, calls his dad, gets voicemail, repeats twice, then apparently calls another number, gets his dad, argues for a couple minutes, then asks me to suspend the sale because it's been five minutes at this point and there are four people behind him. I am one of TWO open registers at this point and poor shelly on the other register has three or four people as well.
so I suspend the sale while dumbass argues on the phone about the debit card – or I try to. I find out the hard way that a suspension needs a supervisor password so I grab the phone (i'm pretty sure I was visibly annoyed at this point), call whoever's at the front desk, and wait for a sup to come enter her password.
the INSTANT I get the suspension verified, the kid gets the PIN (ten minutes after payment attempt #1) and asks me to re-run the sale. ARGH.
what a pain in the ass. thankfully the customers behind him were all annoyed at him instead of at me.
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had a couple in a while ago that came up, looking like they had sticks up their asses. the wife went “we usually go to the [other store in same chain] out in [other city], we thought this one would be the same. you won't see us again, this store is no comparison.”
“no comparison,” echoed the husband.
I thought (all together now): “see you next week.”
seriously, lady? I don't give a shit where you do your grocery shopping. I get minimum wage to stand here, scan your shit, take your money, and listen to people like you whine about how unfair minor differences between locally-owned grocery stores are. shut up and get out of my lane.
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this one happens a lot. this particular episode is from today.
register phone : *rings*
me: *is ringing up customer* hello, this is fleur.
whoever's at the front desk: hey fleur, do you wanna go on your break?
me: sure, thanks. *turns off light and finishes scanning current customer through*
douchebag comes into line and starts unloading heaping cart of overpriced groceries onto the belt.
me: uh, sir, i'm closed.
DB: *ignores*
me: (in louder voice) i'm closed, sir, E or K can help you on the registers to either side.
DB: *ignores*
me: *furiously rings customer through at warp speed, not speaking unless I need to know whether their card is debit or credit*
most people are pretty nice when I tell them i'm closing, usually they just haven't noticed the light is off. I accidentally go into closed lanes myself sometimes, the enormous ditz that I am. but I always apologise once I realise my mistake. I get at least three people a week who pull this shit, and I can't just ignore them without risking a reprimand from one of the managers (and that's never nice because it could be manager P, who is an ASS)
grr.
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this one isn't really so much suck on the customer's part as the store's, but sometimes customers get pissed off and sucky because of it, so...
anyway. we have those weekly sales with the little advertising papers and whatnot, so from week to week different items are on sale. I can never remember which items these are until maaaaaybe monday (our sales end on tuesday) so I just go with the register.
a lot of the time (more or less every week) there will be three or four sale items that ring up incorrectly, or don't ring up at all. there will be signs (i've learned to despise the phrase “there was a sign on the shelf” with a passion), or the price tag will be different than the price on the screen, that is if there even is a price tag, or sometimes the customer will just bitch and moan about it. you know that kind of customer – the ones that watch the screen, barely blinking, as if they think that missing ONE ITEM ring up will ruin their entire lives.
some people go apeshit over the fifty-cent difference between the normal price and the sale price. “OMGZ THOSE SOGGY CANNED GREEN BEANS WERE FOUR FOR A DOLLAR, NOT THREE FOR A DOLLAR~~~~1!!!!@!”
shut. up. the fuck.
and ohh my god sale limits. “X BRAND Y, TWO FOR A DOLLAR!” the ad will proclaim. then, in microscopic print, “with minimum $25 purchase. limit 4.”
and of course, we all know SCs don't read (fine print), so i'll have to rustle up an ad and point it out, more or less underlining each word with my finger as I read aloud, like I would to a child. then they throw a hissy fit, “but that's not what the sign said~~~” sort of bullshit. um, YES IT IS. each and every red sale tag in the store says minimum $25 purchase, limit X. trust me, I know. I look at them myself. quit your bitching.
(the minimum purchase thing is this stupid program we have where certain things are only on sale if you buy $25 of other stuff first. it's called our Bonus Buys program and it only recently switched to $25 from $15, so there's a lot of whinging about that as well. it's actually a pretty good deal mostly, I just hate explaining it to people when they're whining that their precious vitamin D milk is $3.05 instead of $2.50.)
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and to lighten up the mood of my first post... a cute little girl.
this girl, couldn't have been more than six, comes up with her aunt clutching a box of rainbow popsicles. she streeetches to put the box on the lane and then says in that sort of voice a little kid has, (a bit too loud, a bit too slow, and very carefully pronounced) “Can you please put this in a separate bag by itself with nothing else in it, cuz it's just for me and my aunt and nobody else, please.” (VERBATIM.) I just about died from how adorable she was. so of course I scan it and put it in a bag and hand her the bag, and she goes “thank you very much” and I almost died again.
so this was very refreshing, getting some of the three months of first-job frustration off my chest.
yayy.
so this kid and his girlfriend come in my line. they were maybe 18, 19 years old. now, I'm 18, so nothing against teenagers/young adults – when they're fairly intelligent. this kid decided to use his dad's debit card (at least i'm assuming it was his dad's) without knowing the PIN number, and without calling his dad to check the PIN BEFORE he swipes the damn card.
so i've just rung up all of his stuff, $30 or so worth of food or whatever, he says he only has $25 cash and a debit card. he swipes the card, tells me it's debit, then proceeds to stare at the machine. “shit,” he says, “i don't know the PIN.”
I practically facepalm but i'm pretty good at hiding my emotions when I need to, so I sit pseudo-patiently while the kid takes out his cell phone, calls his dad, gets voicemail, repeats twice, then apparently calls another number, gets his dad, argues for a couple minutes, then asks me to suspend the sale because it's been five minutes at this point and there are four people behind him. I am one of TWO open registers at this point and poor shelly on the other register has three or four people as well.
so I suspend the sale while dumbass argues on the phone about the debit card – or I try to. I find out the hard way that a suspension needs a supervisor password so I grab the phone (i'm pretty sure I was visibly annoyed at this point), call whoever's at the front desk, and wait for a sup to come enter her password.
the INSTANT I get the suspension verified, the kid gets the PIN (ten minutes after payment attempt #1) and asks me to re-run the sale. ARGH.
what a pain in the ass. thankfully the customers behind him were all annoyed at him instead of at me.
-----
had a couple in a while ago that came up, looking like they had sticks up their asses. the wife went “we usually go to the [other store in same chain] out in [other city], we thought this one would be the same. you won't see us again, this store is no comparison.”
“no comparison,” echoed the husband.
I thought (all together now): “see you next week.”
seriously, lady? I don't give a shit where you do your grocery shopping. I get minimum wage to stand here, scan your shit, take your money, and listen to people like you whine about how unfair minor differences between locally-owned grocery stores are. shut up and get out of my lane.
-----
this one happens a lot. this particular episode is from today.
register phone : *rings*
me: *is ringing up customer* hello, this is fleur.
whoever's at the front desk: hey fleur, do you wanna go on your break?
me: sure, thanks. *turns off light and finishes scanning current customer through*
douchebag comes into line and starts unloading heaping cart of overpriced groceries onto the belt.
me: uh, sir, i'm closed.
DB: *ignores*
me: (in louder voice) i'm closed, sir, E or K can help you on the registers to either side.
DB: *ignores*
me: *furiously rings customer through at warp speed, not speaking unless I need to know whether their card is debit or credit*
most people are pretty nice when I tell them i'm closing, usually they just haven't noticed the light is off. I accidentally go into closed lanes myself sometimes, the enormous ditz that I am. but I always apologise once I realise my mistake. I get at least three people a week who pull this shit, and I can't just ignore them without risking a reprimand from one of the managers (and that's never nice because it could be manager P, who is an ASS)
grr.
-----
this one isn't really so much suck on the customer's part as the store's, but sometimes customers get pissed off and sucky because of it, so...
anyway. we have those weekly sales with the little advertising papers and whatnot, so from week to week different items are on sale. I can never remember which items these are until maaaaaybe monday (our sales end on tuesday) so I just go with the register.
a lot of the time (more or less every week) there will be three or four sale items that ring up incorrectly, or don't ring up at all. there will be signs (i've learned to despise the phrase “there was a sign on the shelf” with a passion), or the price tag will be different than the price on the screen, that is if there even is a price tag, or sometimes the customer will just bitch and moan about it. you know that kind of customer – the ones that watch the screen, barely blinking, as if they think that missing ONE ITEM ring up will ruin their entire lives.
some people go apeshit over the fifty-cent difference between the normal price and the sale price. “OMGZ THOSE SOGGY CANNED GREEN BEANS WERE FOUR FOR A DOLLAR, NOT THREE FOR A DOLLAR~~~~1!!!!@!”
shut. up. the fuck.
and ohh my god sale limits. “X BRAND Y, TWO FOR A DOLLAR!” the ad will proclaim. then, in microscopic print, “with minimum $25 purchase. limit 4.”
and of course, we all know SCs don't read (fine print), so i'll have to rustle up an ad and point it out, more or less underlining each word with my finger as I read aloud, like I would to a child. then they throw a hissy fit, “but that's not what the sign said~~~” sort of bullshit. um, YES IT IS. each and every red sale tag in the store says minimum $25 purchase, limit X. trust me, I know. I look at them myself. quit your bitching.
(the minimum purchase thing is this stupid program we have where certain things are only on sale if you buy $25 of other stuff first. it's called our Bonus Buys program and it only recently switched to $25 from $15, so there's a lot of whinging about that as well. it's actually a pretty good deal mostly, I just hate explaining it to people when they're whining that their precious vitamin D milk is $3.05 instead of $2.50.)
-----
and to lighten up the mood of my first post... a cute little girl.
this girl, couldn't have been more than six, comes up with her aunt clutching a box of rainbow popsicles. she streeetches to put the box on the lane and then says in that sort of voice a little kid has, (a bit too loud, a bit too slow, and very carefully pronounced) “Can you please put this in a separate bag by itself with nothing else in it, cuz it's just for me and my aunt and nobody else, please.” (VERBATIM.) I just about died from how adorable she was. so of course I scan it and put it in a bag and hand her the bag, and she goes “thank you very much” and I almost died again.
so this was very refreshing, getting some of the three months of first-job frustration off my chest.
yayy.
Welcome to the board! 
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