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  • #1

    Power outage suck

    So yah we had a hurricane here almost a week ago and the power was out for a while. There are still some power problems and the power went out for about 30 minutes yesterday due to what we heard was a pole fire. I now work at a family owned hardware store chain. When the power goes out we then have to switch to writing out receipts by hand and cash or credit only. The one woman was pitching a fit because all she wanted to do was pay for her 4 screws and gtfo. We have to have people run and check prices on everything if it's not labeled. She said "They're $0.25 each, can I not just give you my money and go????" I told her we have to have people check prices to verify. She was like "Well someone was helping me and he knows how much they were, it was So and So. Hey So and So tell her the screws were $0.25 each" So and So tells me they were so I write her up and then she drops this little gem.

    " I work in customer service and I know how these things are supposed to work"

    Riiiiight. If I were to always take everything a customer says about prices as the truth, we'd be out of business.
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  • #2
    My sympathies, trying to work in near-dark with no register is a nightmare. I still remember one instance of a power outage back when I was a cashier.

    The good news - this was pre-computerized & barcode days, so items were almost always priced.
    The bad news - this was also pre-hand held calculator days, so we had to do it all on paper with real math.

    Madness takes it's toll....
    Please have exact change ready.

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    • #3
      Lol, when power went out at the grocery my daughter worked at, she was the most popular cashier, they didnt even bitch about waiting. cause she would do the math right on the bag and didnt need a calculator (I was mean and wouldnt let her use one throughout school until it got to algebra). So while everyone was trying to find calculators with working batteries (most of theirs used electricity) she was getting her line down. And the rare suspicious one checking her math always found it accurate.

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      • #4
        Boy this reminds me of long ago days when I was a cashier for an oh so brief period of time. Let's see....I think it was 1984. I don't even recall if the cash register was electronic or not, but I think it was. We had to separate out taxable items first, ring them up, figure the tax on a chart, ring the rest up and count the change by hand. I'm full of skills that aren't needed anymore
        https://www.youtube.com/user/HedgeTV
        Great YouTube channel check it out!

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        • #5
          Quoth Teskeria View Post
          Lol, when power went out at the grocery my daughter worked at, she was the most popular cashier, they didnt even bitch about waiting. cause she would do the math right on the bag and didnt need a calculator (I was mean and wouldnt let her use one throughout school until it got to algebra). So while everyone was trying to find calculators with working batteries (most of theirs used electricity) she was getting her line down. And the rare suspicious one checking her math always found it accurate.

          That reminds me of back in 2002 when I was studying for my GED....in the tests I took, I always scored better on the tests where calculators weren't allowed.

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          • #6
            I suppose I've been lucky in my past few jobs in that regard -- at the Office, no power meant no computers and no phones, so we couldn't work -- at the pizza joint, no power means no vent fan (or phones), so the gas ovens automatically shut off; thus, no pizza.
            "For a musician, the SNES sound engine is like using Crayola Crayons. Nobuo Uematsu used Crayola Crayons to paint the Sistine Chapel." - Jeremy Jahns (re: "Dancing Mad")
            "The difference between an amateur and a master is that the master has failed way more times." - JoCat
            "Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!" ~ Carl Jung
            "There's burning bridges, and then there's the lake just to fill it with gasoline." - Wiccy, reddit
            "Retail is a cruel master, and could very well be the most educational time of many people's lives, in its own twisted way." - me
            "Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, "Serenity" (2005)
            Acts of Gord – Read it, Learn it, Love it!
            "Our psychic powers only work if the customer has a mind to read." - me

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            • #7
              I can do change and mental math. My math skills sink when I have to write it out and prove it. I know it was the rule in school, but it really slowed me down.

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              • #8
                Quoth patiokitty View Post
                Wasn't Hurricane Leslie so much fun, PastryGal? The buses actually went off service for most of the day as a result, and power went out over most of the Avalon Peninsula...but my workplace made us stay as we ran mostly off of generators. Even though it sounded like the roof was going to be ripped off at any moment (I'm working at the Village Mall these days LOL)...and a few years ago the roof DID get ripped off in a storm!

                Where I live now I'm on the St. Clare's hospital grid so I'm one of the first areas to get power back on (thankfully, or my son would whine about not having anything to do LOL). We were out for maybe two hours and then we were good for the rest of the day and on into the next. And VOCM said something about the other outages afterwards were caused by salt on the lines? Yeah, and one of my co-workers said she actually saw a transformer blow as she walked by!

                But that's pretty typical of this area in hurricane weather LOL If I hadn't been working I would have been out with my camera taking pictures!
                I hate being on the second level of the village when it's windy, i can feel it move.

                We had to manually open and close the sliding door which could have gotten us into a lot of trouble. It would nearly come off the tracks from all the wind. If it were to fall on a customer they could sue the 2 people opening and closing the door and the store owner. We shouldn't have even been there. If a fire were to start, the alarms wouldn't go off either. OHS would have shit themselves. They stayed open until 6pm since by then it was too dark to see anything. It did sound quite often like the roof was going to come off.

                My house is on the same grid as my work and it was out for almost a day and a half. Was almost thinking I was going to lose everything in my freezer but it was good.

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                • #9
                  If living in the Big Easy has taught me one thing, it's that having a grocery store (or anything similar) stay open until the storm actually hits is pointless -- why? Because all of the water, usable batteries, diapers, and similar goods sold out two days before.
                  "For a musician, the SNES sound engine is like using Crayola Crayons. Nobuo Uematsu used Crayola Crayons to paint the Sistine Chapel." - Jeremy Jahns (re: "Dancing Mad")
                  "The difference between an amateur and a master is that the master has failed way more times." - JoCat
                  "Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!" ~ Carl Jung
                  "There's burning bridges, and then there's the lake just to fill it with gasoline." - Wiccy, reddit
                  "Retail is a cruel master, and could very well be the most educational time of many people's lives, in its own twisted way." - me
                  "Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, "Serenity" (2005)
                  Acts of Gord – Read it, Learn it, Love it!
                  "Our psychic powers only work if the customer has a mind to read." - me

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Quoth patiokitty View Post
                    Even worse is standing in the main entrance of the Village (near the buses) where there's a step class going on upstairs at the gym - everything rattles horribly and I'm waiting for the day something falls from the ceiling onto a shopper.

                    Stores staying open really don't surprise me much around here. It's almost like the bosses simply can't imagine not making some money. But then the customers can be a bunch of arses if they can't get what they want, regardless of the power situation. I know that the grocery stores were INSANE the night before Leslie hit us...I avoided the stores that night.
                    I actually went to the Sobeys on Topsail the day before to pick up a few bits and it wasn't crazy busy or anything. I was in and out in under 30 min.

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                    • #11
                      I am lucky. At the tobacco shop we use a calculator and cash drawer, no register. We usually know how much everything is. BUT when the power goes out we kick people out and lock the door. The owner says no power = no cameras. So no customers.

                      Not had a long power outage in a while... it teases every now and then.. power goes out and right back on.

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