More Wal-Mart follies!

[blas]

Bf and I were at Wal-Mart for our weekly mullet hunt Wal-Mart grocery shopping venture.

The self checkouts were PACKED. I mean packed. Almost every cashier at regular registers were standing at the end of their aisles trying to wave customers over, but everyone insisted on waiting for the self checkout lines to die down.

*what does that say about our Wal-Mart cashiers? I've refused to go to any of them since I had one too many bags of items or one too many items forgotten and a few cashiers insisting on bagging frozen items with cleaning supplies and boxed items with sloppy wet meat*

One self checkout was down for whatever reason. I could see that someone was fixing it from another room, because the screen kept changing. Bf and I let a lady with only two items go ahead of us.

That self checkout that was down went back to the main screen and the "on" light turned on. The lady in front of us started to walk towards it, but the self checkout monitor cashier yelled "It DON'T work!". The lady ignored her (which, yes, is kinda sucky) and started to scan her items. It worked.

The self checkout monitor saw this, and threw her arms up and rolled her eyes and walked away, took a deep breath and walked back, and asked the lady "Is it working alright?" to which the lady answered, "Yes."

I admit, at all my retail jobs, there were times that I wanted to throw my arms up and scream at the top of my lungs. I wanted to throttle people. I wanted to go outside and scream and throw things. But did I ever do it in front of customers? N. Somehow, I always managed to keep my cool. If customers insisted on not heeding my warnings, I just let them make asses of themselves so I could quietly laugh inside.

I thought it was rather rude of her to throw her arms up and sigh...but at the same time, I did kind of feel her pain.

[Bright_Star]

My goodness...you must never have worked at Wal-Mart, right? IF you did then you'd clearly understand why the self checkout monitor reacted like she did.
It takes a LOT of gumption for a cashier NOT to say something smart to a customer who's been sucky & then have to do that all through the day. It takes a lot of energy & that's why there's so much turnover when it comes to cashiers. Few people I know are gonna put up with that kind of nonsense all day everyday for years on end.
So next time you go into Wal-Mart understand what the cashiers have to put up with & act accordingly. I should know- I used to be a Wal-Mart cashier.

[blas]

Oh trust me, Brightstar, I can understand WHY she did it. I just feel she shouldn't have with all those customers watching her.

Many times at the gas station, I told customers that the ATM machine was broken, and they'd just shrug, lift up the "Out of order sign" and then proceed to slide their card in and out in and out in and out and scream that it didn't work and why didn't I tell them.

I've been there, done that, and I can understand her frustration. I just felt that it was unprofessional with such a huge audience around her.

[Kogarashi]

My goodness...you must never have worked at Wal-Mart, right? IF you did then you'd clearly understand why the self checkout monitor reacted like she did.
It takes a LOT of gumption for a cashier NOT to say something smart to a customer who's been sucky & then have to do that all through the day. It takes a lot of energy & that's why there's so much turnover when it comes to cashiers. Few people I know are gonna put up with that kind of nonsense all day everyday for years on end.
So next time you go into Wal-Mart understand what the cashiers have to put up with & act accordingly. I should know- I used to be a Wal-Mart cashier.

I've been a Wal-Mart cashier myself (my favorite position was self-checkout monitor), and I still think the cashier was a bit out of line. That's not very professional behavior in front of the customers, regardless of how much suckiness she had to put up with so far. She could've found a more polite way to say that the machine didn't work, and a much more polite way to react when the customer ignored her and when she went back to check on the customer. I agree with blas that it's much easier to just laugh inside than to try to correct customers determined to make fools of themselves.

And, knowing me, I might've been that customer myself in that situation, because I know what the Wal-Mart self-checkouts look like when they're back up and running, so I know if it should scan my items or not. Admittedly, I would've at least responded to the cashier's initial, "It DON'T work!"

[myswtghst]

This is one of the biggest reasons I love working on the phones. At least my customers can't see me shrug, flick off the phone, or any number of other gestures. And if I mute the phone, I can say whatever I want, without them hearing me.

[edible_hat]

Many times at the gas station, I told customers that the ATM machine was broken, and they'd just shrug, lift up the "Out of order sign" and then proceed to slide their card in and out in and out in and out and scream that it didn't work and why didn't I tell them.

I had the opposite of that today. We keep the out of order sign on top of the ATM, when the machine is out of order we stick the sign over the card reader or screen. Today someone asked if the ATM was out of order "because I can see a sign that says so, but the screen says to swipe my card". He wasn't sucky because the sign's normal placement does make it slightly ambiguous.

[Becks]

Edible, I think that means it's time to find a new spot for the out of order sign when the ATM actually works.

Just saying.

[Can I Help Your A$$?]

but the self checkout monitor cashier yelled "It DON'T work!".

I feel for her, but that's just fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Edible, I think that means it's time to find a new spot for the out of order sign when the ATM actually works.

Just saying.

How bout just turning it backwards so they can't see the words?

[Becks]

How bout just turning it backwards so they can't see the words?

Nah, that's when SCs actually read. They can read backwards, you know.

Upside down, too.

[Pedersen]

And if I mute the phone, I can say whatever I want, without them hearing me.

Careful with that one. I've been on a support call where the technician hit mute, but I could still hear him perfectly fine. It was noticeably quieter, at around a whisper level, but I could hear him just fine.

Moral: Mute buttons don't always work

[Imogene]

They can read backwards, you know.

Upside down, too.

I can do both of those, and will still be reading at my normal speed. I've scared people by doing so, too. In interviews, particularly.

[Broomjockey]

I can do both of those, and will still be reading at my normal speed. I've scared people by doing so, too. In interviews, particularly.

I can almost go at my normal speed for that, but I'll sometimes hit a snag when my brain refuses to sometimes flip b or d or p and just be

[Estil]

The self checkouts were PACKED. I mean packed. Almost every cashier at regular registers were standing at the end of their aisles trying to wave customers over, but everyone insisted on waiting for the self checkout lines to die down.

Oh don't tell me they too make the cashiers do that stupid blue lining crap. :P Both that and the self checkout deal we also have are no better than at my store. What's even more annoying is when fellow cashiers do that stupid blue lining stuff (standing in front of the register) while their checklane belt is FILTHY and/or other lanes need bagging help. Both of those have priority over blue lining; always.

[Becks]

I can do both of those, and will still be reading at my normal speed. I've scared people by doing so, too. In interviews, particularly.

I can do that, too. I'm special in many ways.