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TRIPLE suck at the store tonight!

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  • TRIPLE suck at the store tonight!

    First, I had a guy who was looking for an item in health and beauty care that he said we haven't had on the shelves in a couple weeks. He's not very happy because according to him, another worker told him that we would have more in in a couple days and we still have zero on the shelves. So I took the tag from the shelf for the UPC and told him I would go in the back and look it up on the computer to see what was going on and that I'd be back in a couple of minutes. So I go back and first take a look to make sure we don't have any on the carts in the back. Then I look it up on the computer. I come back out and he's up in arms with the greeter, going "Where IS she???!" and "I can't get anybody to help me! She said she'd go check..." blah blah blah. So I nicely explained to him that the computer showed more on the way, but it doesn't say WHEN they will arrive. It could be any day. He scowled, shook his head several times and said, "That doesn't help me now."

    What is WITH these people who think we just teleport into the backroom??? OBVIOUSLY it's going to take a few minutes, as this is a large store and my department is up front! Everybody is so impatient these days.

    Second, I had a lady who needed the perfume case unlocked. She settled on a spray (a very low cost item that is kept in the case with the expensive stuff for whatever reason) and said "This is $3.99, right?" "Right, $3.99." "Okay. Thank you. Have a great day." A minute later I get a call from the self checkout attendant. "Could you check on the price of some perfume? It's ringing up at $3.99, but the lady says she thought it was either $1.99 or $2.99."

    Um...no. Nice try!!

    Lastly, I had a hellacious nightmare of a time running a lane tonight when they called me up for backup. See, I don't have numbers of my own to log on to a register. It's a long process where they have to fingerprint you and everything and the systems guys who do it are only in in the morning, and I work second shift so it's never happened. The front end managers log me on under their numbers and name. So tonight the supervisor up there logs me on and probably not even a minute later it logs me off. So I call her and then wait for her to come over. She arrives and tries to log on but it won't let her, she needs the store director to come over. Of course, she's at the opposite end of the store. And I have a huge line of people staring at me, which I definitely do NOT like, as someone with social anxiety issues. So she finally makes it over after some waiting and logs on under her numbers. Not even a minute later...I get kicked off again. So I call the front end sup, the first lady who had logged me on. She's up running a register at guest services, along with the store director. She tells me that she will tell the store director next to her to come over. So we wait some more while she finishes helping a customer at guest services. The huge line continues to stare at me as we wait and I become more and more tense, expecting someone to start yelling. Then the store director walks out from behind guest services...and turns the other way, towards grocery and walks off. WTF WHERE IS SHE GOING??? I watch for a moment, yep, she really is leaving. I hear the huge line muttering. I call up front end sup, who is still at guest services. I tell her store director left without helping me. "I'll get ahold of her," she says. I hear her page her. More waiting. Then the phone at the register rings. Now the reason I didn't answer it is because...well, I don't understand the phone system up at the lanes, but whenever I answer the phone it's not actually a call for me, it's always for someone else or I pick it up and I can hear conversation between other employees. So I didn't answer, I let it ring a couple times and suddenly multiple people in the line felt the need to go, "HELLO!!! Pick it up!!!"



    How freaking rude can you GET?? Honestly, you couldn't just say, "Is that your phone?" or "Is that her calling you?" You had to be incredibly rude and snotty about it. Well, fuck all of you! By the way, when I picked it up, do you think it was a call for me? NOPE. Besides, I had my own department phone on me if they needed to call me, which they would not, they would just come up and fixed the problem. What good would calling me have done? There was a REASON I did not pick up the phone, but to them I'm just the idiot cashier girl and the delay is somehow totally my fault. I was close to being in tears I was so embarrassed and frustrated.

    ANYWAY, once the store director FINALLY made it over, she goes, "What did you DO to make it log you off??" Like it was my fault. Then she types in her numbers and goes, "THERE, now it won't do it again!!" Um, yeah...sorry!

    Anyway, they're saying that now other managers in the store will be able to get login numbers for me so that this doesn't happen again, now that some changes are being made and they will be able to do the whole fingerprinting deal instead of just the morning guys.
    Last edited by Despina83; 07-26-2013, 05:18 AM.

  • #2
    Yikes!

    I think even someone w/o social anxiety issues would be a little tense under those circumstances; glad you held up. Ever find out why you kept getting logged off?

    lol. Lovin' the perfume lady. Maybe if the checkouts were a little farther away her 'memory' would have dropped it to .99?

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    • #3
      Quoth sms001 View Post
      Yikes!

      I think even someone w/o social anxiety issues would be a little tense under those circumstances; glad you held up. Ever find out why you kept getting logged off?

      lol. Lovin' the perfume lady. Maybe if the checkouts were a little farther away her 'memory' would have dropped it to .99?
      OK, that store is outsmarting themselves on security with the registers.

      1) I wouldn't be shocked if it logged you out because the same id was logged in elsewhere. This might explain the behavior.

      2) Logging someone else in under manager's id because the signup process is too onerous is stupid beyond belief.It pretty much kills their audit trails if there is any problem.
      Life: Reality TV for deities. - dalesys

      Comment


      • #4
        Our registers have a training mode, but it's rarely used except for scanning inventory (making sure gen-merch items ring up correctly before putting them out, and getting an accurate item count for returning stuff). Usually, new cashiers get trained under someone else's numbers, which IMO is a bad idea. I had a new guy under my numbers last week and my IPM plummeted for that week; also something resulted in my drawer being counted excessively for a few days after.
        "I am quite confident that I do exist."
        "Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up." The Doctor

        Comment


        • #5
          Quoth mhkohne View Post
          2) Logging someone else in under manager's id because the signup process is too onerous is stupid beyond belief.It pretty much kills their audit trails if there is any problem.
          At a store I worked at you get written up if your register is more than a dollar off and two write ups within a certain time period leads to an automatic suspension.

          One day a manager decided to ring on my drawer instead of pulling one of his own. The register was over $5 off and they actually wanted me to sign a write up saying I had screwed up!

          Me: Uhmm, no. At least not unless *manager* signs it also anyway.
          SM: Do you actually think that *manager* caused the drawer to be off?
          Me: I've worked here for over a year and I have never been off by more than a few cents. You do the math.

          The store manager decided to rip up and throw away the write up and managers were no longer allowed to ring on employee drawers.
          You'll find a slight squeeze on the hooter an excellent safety precaution, Miss Scrumptious.

          Comment


          • #6
            Quoth Caractacus_Potts View Post
            Me: Uhmm, no. At least not unless *manager* signs it also anyway.
            SM: Do you actually think that *manager* caused the drawer to be off?
            "Gosh, I never thought of it like that! Of course I'm the one who screwed up. Managers are demi-gods in human form and incapable of error. Those stupid thoughts in the back of my head; that we're both human, that I work the drawer far more often than he does, that he has no vested interest in accuracy, my previous track record... all of those should be banished. Where do I sign?"

            Comment


            • #7
              Quoth mhkohne View Post
              OK, that store is outsmarting themselves on security with the registers.

              2) Logging someone else in under manager's id because the signup process is too onerous is stupid beyond belief.It pretty much kills their audit trails if there is any problem.
              I was thinking that, too. Fingerprinting? The only time I got fingerprinted for a job was the casino I worked in at Lake Tahoe.
              It's floating wicker propelled by fire!

              Comment


              • #8
                Crappy lane phone systems? Lanes with biometric input only, phasing out cashier numbers for everyone except self-scans? Incompetent store directors? Rude customers? For God's sake, this is an exact description of Retail Plantation. God help your soul if you should be an employee of that chain.

                I have a similar story to share about my time at the Retail Plantation as a cashier.

                The system was very similar: log on to the register with a three-digit cashier number, and swipe your fingerprint on the reader to make sure it's you. Nowadays, I hear it's all fingerprint-based. Anyway...

                Flashback to Christmas 2008. I was pulled off the lot from being a cart slave to cover hardgoods, which is basically six or seven different departments. (Did they pay me the extra money for working departments? If you think they did, you forget what site you're on!) Naturally, that was still a time when our store was doing a halfway-decent amount of business, and they'd just instituted the asinine policy that the floor slaves had to come up front when the lanes got backed up. Lucky me.

                I went up front to sign on to the lane and didn't have a fingerprint in the system yet. (As a matter of fact, I dealt with a similar line of hell as the OP--I was second shift, and the systems people only worked first shift. I was a cashier for six months, and it took me all of five months to finally get a fingerprint.) Similarly to the OP, the slave lead for the department had to log me in under her credentials.

                For a while, things were going fine. Then I got to a transaction with a bunch of gift cards--about 30 of them, if I'm remembering right. As was common with Retail Plantation's technology, the register got pissed off and froze after we'd swiped the third or fourth card. I called the team lead over, and she said I needed to get in touch with the store director so she could bring up the master override key. Great.

                I shut off my light to notify anyone else walking up that I was closed. Did that stop more people from lining up? Again, if you think it did, you forget what site you're on.

                Our normal store director was good on most days, but the second-shift lady was so incompetent that someone could've made a pallet of bricks the SD and nobody would've noticed a difference. I paged her. Then we waited. The lane phone rang, and it was for two lanes down. I paged her again, and we waited some more. My department phone rang, and it was someone wanting a price check--which I couldn't do, because corporate's asinine policy is to pull people out of departments to run lane when things get backed up. I paged her again three times in a row, which you're never, ever supposed to do unless it's an emergency--ever. Still no response.

                The lane phone rang again, and I didn't pick it up this time. Everyone looked at me like I was an idiot...but anyone standing on that lane could clearly see I was using the department phone to page this incompetent fool of a manager, who ended up getting me yelled at by a furious customer because she never showed up. Only after the service desk called her to put out the fuse that was this irate customer did she show up. Naturally, the customer got rewarded, and yours truly got a chewing out.

                Later that night, I found out the store director didn't respond to any of my pages because she was in the back office--get this--fucking playing Solitaire on the computer. Fucking solitaire. And I was the one who got chewed out, even though I was doing my job and she wasn't... If I'd have even thought of doing that on the clock, I would've been fired in a hot second.

                Good god, I'm glad I don't work there anymore. Better to be unemployed 10 years and live in a box than to be employed one day at the Retail Plantation.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Quoth Pagan View Post
                  Fingerprinting? The only time I got fingerprinted for a job was the casino I worked in at Lake Tahoe.
                  I suspect this is a biometric login procedure - you put your thumb or index finger on a pad at the POS and it logs you in.

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