"No, I'm not open, I just get paid to stand here and do nothing."

[BowserKoopa1]

In the past few days, I have had quite a few customers, not sucky ones, come up to my register, which they see me standing out in front of (not all the time) and with my light on.
They say things like, "Oh, can I check out here?" or "Are you open?" or "You're light was on, but I didn't know you were open" Uh, yeah, practically every customer knows that when the light is on, that lane is open.
In the past, I have said a few times in a pleasant but slight hint of sarcasm tone, "No, I'm not open. I just get paid to stand here and do nothing." But to avoid getting in trouble, I don't say this anymore.
Why oh why don't customers use their briains?! Oh yeah, because alot of them don't have one!

[artifical sweetner]

i think its bc so many times you approach a clerk and they snap IM CLOSED (yea end of the shift i getcha...)

so i guess they want to avoid that

[Raven]

I work two jobs, the second at a large DIY store - I get the same thing. What I really love is when they come up behind a customer I'm ringing up and ask it. If the current customer's paying attention, I usually get a nice sympathetic eye roll out of them.

[bean]

We JUST got lights at our registers last week - but up until now, we would put a sign that said "Next lane please" on our belts when we were closed. We've always stood in front of our registers when we're open and between customers. People would still ignore the signs and walk up, but were generally understanding when we'd point at the sign in plain sight on the belt and say "Sorry, I'm closed".

The other day a woman walked up to my register while I was cleaning, with the sign on my belt and the light off, moved the sign out of her way, and started piling things on my belt. I had to tell her 4 friggin times "Ma'am I'm closed, I can't check you out", followed by my last customer telling her the EXACT SAME THING twice, before she even looked at me, stopped, and started pouting, then went to the next cashier and whined that I wouldn't check her out (said cashier laughed at her and told her I was just a bagger cleaning the register after the last customer, thank you so much!). If she had ASKED and not moved my sign out of the way I probably would have checked her out.

2 days ago I had my light off - I walked off while my bagger was finishing up an order to answer the phone and handle a line at the service desk. Another cashier paged me back to my register 5 minutes later - there was a line 3 deep with 2 carts worth of groceries on the belt. WTF? Who the hell unloads 2 baskets worth of groceries when there's no cashier behind the register?! Are you fucking serious?!! When I walked up the customer jokingly said "Changing of the guard huh?" and I looked her dead in the eye and said "No, reopening a closed lane just for you". She looked uncomfortable.

Finally, our express setup is friggin retarded. We have 4 express registers, but there's 2 in front with 2 behind each other, with a very narrow pathway to squeeze between the neighboring register (you can't fit 2 carts through there). Every now and then a customer will assume "HEY THERE'S REGISTERS IN THE BACK WITH NO LINE!"... sorry, no, there's 1 line for the 2 registers on each side, why do you think you keep hearing cashiers yell "NEXT IN LINE PLEASE?" and why do you think there's a sign on each side that says "Line forms here"? Someone jumped in front of *6* people in line the other day while I was ringing someone up, I told him "Sir, you'll have to get in line" he snapped "What, you can't check out ONE ITEM?". I didn't want to argue, so I checked him out, and he demanded to know why I was refusing to check him out, then saying "You're trying to go home early aren't you?!". I pointed at the (now 9 deep) line behind him scowling at him and one person flipping him off and cussing loudly and said "You jumped in front of that line". He turned bright red and ran off before someone could physically hurt him (and yes, I've seen a physical fight break out at the registers before when someone jumped the line, cops got involved for that one).