What once was yours is now mine, so LEGGO!

[RealUnimportant]

I get this so, so very often, but if I posted about these kinds of idiot every time I encountered one, this board would get dull fast... This is therefore just a generic rant about certain types of SC rather than a single story.

What is it with people thinking that just letting you see their method of payment is sufficient to make a purchase? Bad news sucktomers, you don't get to simply "show me the money", you have to actually give it to me as well. I understand your confusion; there's this big sheet of glass between us, and until this week the turntable to ferry your payment through it was possibly not as obvious as it could have been. I mean, you tend to put your hands down in the right spot, but you're not letting go for long enough for me to retrieve your sacrificial offerings without breaking your fingers in the process.

However now we have a shiny new counter, and there's not one but two very differently coloured troughs carved in its surface to indicate where & how you can shove your money towards me past the security forcefield. You do have to make some effort though, insomuch as you have to push the money forwards towards the shield of doom. I cannot reach through & take it, my arms are too thick & don't bend in enough places.

You are making a purchase, which means you are exchanging your money for our goods & services. We will not release said goods & services until payment is received no matter how much you whine, beg, plead, or are "in a hurry" - this last is in fact a greater reason for me to wait for you to find your purse/wallet, and not the special secret "gief it to me nao" password, as you seem to believe it to be. And anyway, you've been queuing for arglebargle minutes - why didn't you get your payment out then?!

Standing there staring at me (or the wall, your friend, your phone, etc.) with no obvious method of payment will not make the card machine activate. Unless & until I know how you're paying, I cannot turn it on on the "off chance" you're using a card, as if you then pull a tenner out of your pocket I now have to cancel that whole transaction & start it afresh, and the card machine is very single-minded; once I've told it to expect your chip&pin, it gets very upset at me if it's denied its silicon snack. This in turn will lead to a greater delay in processing your order, so be sure to let me know as soon as you know how you're paying, & we can both get out of here with our dignities intact.

Finally, I get that you're in a hurry; your train is due soon, and you need a ticket. The thing is, if you keep paying more attention to the arrivals board than you do to me, then you're going to miss the train because I still don't know where you're going or how you're paying to get there, so you STILL won't have a ticket and you've just wasted all that hyperactivity looking back & forth between the arrivals board & the tracks...

Ah well, it could be worse - there's no works this weekend, & I'm getting nearly 4 days' pay for one extended shift tomorrow!

[Kristev]

4 days pay? How did you achieve this?

[Lace Neil Singer]

There's machines at my local train station that can process customer tickets; however, the idiots still can't cope with the technology and still end up not getting their tickets. I was once waiting behind this woman who was hitting the machine; I asked her what the matter was, and she said, "This damn machine won't give me any change or my tickets!"

I had a look and what was wrong was that she hadn't put in her destination; the machine was waiting for her to say where she wanted to go before it gave her her tickets and her change.

[sms001]

'grats for the paid holiday Real.

And I've encountered the 'won't let go' type at the c-store. Except instead of being stupid, or ignorant, it was usually done as a "joke." hahaha. I'll offer you my payment, but then keep a firm grip on it. wtf? Are you seven years old? It happened so often that I got to the point where I'd release the bill and pull the correct change from my till and then just wait, saying nothing. Idiots.

[RealUnimportant]

Quoth Kristev

4 days pay? How did you achieve this?

Double time, almost exactly double-length shift due to overtime. We have a policy that you can either get a day in lieu or double pay for bank holidays, and although I usually ask for the extra time off last year I utterly failed to use all my available holiday, so I figure this year I'll just be taking the extra pay. It's not like I can't use it... And it's not like I get anything extra for working today either!

Lace, that is ridiculously common - I get asked "is that my train" when I have no idea where they're going, too!

[thehuckster]

I used to have those folks at CVS, only there it was even more annoying because they don't even have to hand it to me, but use the little self-serve swipe machine right under their nose.

[RealUnimportant]

Oh gods yes, the only people who will consistantly pass me their payment is people who should be holding onto their card to put it in the very card machine they're invariably staring at...

[EricKei]

When I saw the title of the thread, I thought it was gonna be about SC's effectively trying to steal from you >_>

I do love the people who don't know where they're going, tho. Classic. I got that at DaddyJim's Pizza from time to time (people who don't know where they are/where to deliver the food). Topped only by the people who would wait until 5 minutes into the call (lots of ahhhs, uhms, and "HEY! Ask Johnny who's upstairs and all the way across the house what he wants! No, don't go over to him, just yell, even tho his door is closed") to decided that they didn't WANT pizza, after all...

[Bardmaiden]

Ah the fun of people who don't realise that you have to pay to travel upon a train. My b/f used to do the behind the counter job but he moved to where I live and onto the trains so he gets the grief of people who don't want/can't pay up close though being tall he tends not to get quite as much as other conductors.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Quoth RealUnimportant

Oh gods yes, the only people who will consistantly pass me their payment is people who should be holding onto their card to put it in the very card machine they're invariably staring at...

I've been seeing a number of customer who somehow forget that we have the self-swiping EFT machines and will try to hand me their card. Usually it's when I'm asking for their store discount card they get confused and try to hand me their debit/credit card.

I'm telling them now that I'll only take their card if I also get the PIN number so I can have what money is in their account. At least it gets a good chuckle.