The Line Cutters

[mjr]

They have that at the cash registers at my store, and customers always whine about having to "go through a maze!" No matter what we do to control the chaos, we cannot win.

I don't see how it's a maze. You get to the end of one "row", and you don't have to guess which way to go.

I wonder how these people would function in amusement park lines.

[MoonCat]

Ugh, throwing things on the floor, stomping off screaming? Don't these people feel embarrassed about their own behavior??

Guess not.

[coffee_drinker247]

Line cutters are some of the worst SC' s any cashier or manager alike will have to deal with. It's also really unpleasant for the (usually) nice customer they have cut in front of, when the line cutter gets all shitty with you for calling them on their rudeness.

The most common line from these types of SC' s I get is "But I just want *insert random item or question here* "

Yeah, we know you "just want." Everybody in line "just wants" too, but do you see them cutting in line? Back of the queue impatient entitlement whingers

Oh my god, SO TRUE! I can't tell you how many times this happens to me at work. At our cashwrap, people can just walk up to the side (behind the cashwrap are our fitting rooms). So a lot of times people will come up and stand on that side of the cashwrap and loudly demand a fitting room while I'm in the MIDDLE of ringing someone else out (who was there first). Saturday, the same day I had the Line Cutter SC, I also had two different SCs push past everyone else waiting in line to shout a question in my ear while I was busy ringing people out. I don't think people realize how rude it is to just walk up and start asking the person at the register a question while I'm trying to provide a pleasant checkout experience for the customer who is actually purchasing things. It's so rude and i have experienced this phenomenon everywhere I have worked. I was in the middle of talking to someone while ringing them out when this lady just blasts through and stands practically inside the cashwrap next to me and shouts a question about where something is in the store, and I'm like really, you couldn't ask the person wearing a radio walking around the sales floor or wait a second for me to finish ringing someone out? UGH. And someone else came up to the side and shouted a question at me while I was counting change which made me mess up and have to recount, wasting more time.

When people do this and ask for a fitting room or ask where something is in the store, I either get on over the radio and ask someone else to help them while I'm ringing (we all know this drill, lol, the whole, "Can someone help this person who is in my face?" rally cry over the radio) or if, gasp, everyone else is busy helping other people who were there first, then I just tell them, "Okay give me a minute and I'll be right with you."

I just don't understand the level of impatience people have. Have you guys noticed how much SCs will exaggerate how long they've been waiting? Two minutes is ten, ten is a half an hour, etc. Like it's sooo dramatic. I blame the fast food industry for catering to people who want things quickly and then the retail industry following suit and copping the same "quick service" mentality. So now people expect that they don't have to wait more than 30 seconds to be greeted and served but also with open arms and warm smiles. The number one complaint I've heard anywhere is that "wait times" are "too long." Impatience astounds me. I get that waiting in line is frustrating, and that wait times of an hour or more are annoying. But what good does it to to bitch and moan? Does it make time go faster?

And then yeah the people who think that if they just whine enough and ask to talk to a manager they will just get what they want. Luckily in my company we have very few rules that can't be broken, so on one hand - we can do what they want to make them happy and there are very, very few policies for people to get pissed off about in the first place, but then it sucks because when something does go wrong or an SC demands something, they get what they want and they can still be rude as hell about it and you've lost the battle.

I'm always between a rock and a hard place because as a manager, I want to reward my good customers with great service and a fun and friendly place to shop. I want to go out of my way for them. I will call all the store in the district to get them to send a specific item to my store for that customer to pick up when she is being super friendly and wonderful about needing a certain item for her wedding and I wanted to go out of my way to get her the right items. I am a bride too and I totally understand. I try to practice empathy in my daily life and I can tell the people who do as well, and then the people who don't. But then you get the demanding b*tch who wants you to call around and ask for an item and it's so aggravating because I don't want to bend over backwards for someone who is acting like a d*ckwad about it. I think it's also all about how you speak and your tone of voice.

People have also been wrongly told by "industry experts" that if you are demanding to customer service and retail employees you will get what you want. Like there is some kind of sercret to getting what you want or something. Yes, the secret is: Being nice! Just because you're a customer, doesn't mean you get to act like a dick.

On a lighter note, just had to share my actually happy-ish story from today that I was worried at first would be an SC one: This older lady came in with a bag and a receipt and said she was in the other day and bought some shoes and didn't realize they rang in at full price, and she thought they were clearance. So she showed me the shoes and turns out they were correctly at full price, the clearance ones she was thinking of were similar but not the same shoe. So I asked her if she wanted to keep those or switch them for the clearance ones and get a partial refund and she was like, "Oh, no it's fine, I just swear I thought they had a clearance sticker but I guess I was thinking of these shoes instead." I felt so bad I gave her a coupon for being so nice (one of the things we are lenient about which I like, I can take $5 or give coupons to people who are awesome just because or when I feel like it lol). She was so sweet about it but at first I was preparing for a battle or to go in circles but she merely accepted my answer without complaint and decided to just keep the shoes.

It's like every so often, you get the one person who restores your faith in humanity and helps you keep going!

[coffee_drinker247]

Love your name Coffee!

Thanks so much! Everyone makes fun of me for constantly drinking coffee...so yeah. Hahahaha. That is crazy that that lady did that to you guys! Glad you guys at least said something. I'm not shy about saying something either and neither is my FI. He has told kids to go to the back of the line before who tried to cut us and things like that. And yeah, the Kohl's people might not have been allowed to say anything, I've been in situations like that when I was younger as a cashier...but being one of the bosses now I feel as though I have more power to stand up for people. What this woman did was outright wrong and she knew it and still continued to bitch. She should have been the one apologizing to the other girl but didn't. Ugh...she just seemed like one of those horrible people that's always just mad at life in general.

[coffee_drinker247]

Ugh, throwing things on the floor, stomping off screaming? Don't these people feel embarrassed about their own behavior??

Guess not.

MoonCat, yep, I'd say so...and not to mention this was the behavior that she was displaying that sent the message to her daughter that it was okay to act like this. Her daughter was about ten. Generally the types of people who shopped at *ahem* Cl*ire's were not always the classiest people. Most of them were women who didn't have a lot of class to begin with, so they would take it out on us lowly "shop" girls. Lol. Our store was always a zoo...I can't believe I spent four years of my life managing one. What was I thinking?

Definitely in a way better place now, much better environment but it's still retail... plenty of funny stories for here, anyway! I love my co-workers and my job so it's all gravy, but the issue of customer service in general is one that I like to discuss. A place like this is amazing and cathartic! So glad we're not the crazy ones, and that there are retail employees everywhere being awesome customers wherever they go!

It would be amazing if upper management in any company would actually spend some time IN the stores, waiting on people on a daily basis. In all my years of working in retail, I've only ONCE had a district manager who spent as much time in the stores as he did in his office. He came once a week and he actually rang people out on the register cheerfully and happily. He was awesome, and took the time to get to know all the staff and interact with them in a friendly manner. He had expectations but he was just such a nice man. But other than that, everyone else has been almost worthless and more of a nuisance and a hinderance than anything. I don't think any of them were stupid people or anything like that, I just think they were spread way too thin, and when you visit a location like once every few months, it's not going to help. Half the time they didn't know what they wanted done in the stores - the people who WORK THERE EVERY DAY know better about what needs to be done and when! So it was always really annoying and then they would always change their minds or tell us to do something that didn't make sense for our store and our business. At my current job, it's not as much like that (my company takes a much different approach to these things, it's all based on how we think things should be done, luckily).

[LesserSouthernFroglet]

The trouble with these entitled line cutters is that they get on their high horses and act all offended about it, and keep getting away with it.

I've seen it suggested elsewhere to call them out - make them check with every other person waiting patiently to see if they mind going first as well. After all, they're not just cutting on the first person in line, but everyone else behind that first person as well. I would love to see this in action.

Anybody throwing a temper tantrum worthy of a two-year-old should be banned. Seriously, throwing down displays? What a maroon.

[sms001]

I've seen it suggested elsewhere to call them out

yeppers. 'cause it's not just the frontend or the managers letting them get away with it - it's everyone else in the situation too. I understand that shy people can't, and no one should if the jumper looks dangerous, but more of us need to start schooling these ashholes when we see the situation occur.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

What needs to be done is have a zig-zag line form like it is at banks. This way, the next customer gets waited on right away. No guessing as to which line is the fastest.

This probably wouldn't work at any store where the clientele has a certain level of entitlement.

Such as, for example, my own. We run the lines this way on Black Friday Thursday, and there's still line-cutting and people complaining that they don't know where to go. Because the arrows taped on the floor and the displays set up at strategic points to move people along the line are confusing or something.

[Evannah]

I hate line cutters because 9 times out of 10 they simply cannot see how rude they're being, and somehow everyone else is being rude. And then you get the ones who know it's wrong but think they can still do it and get away with it. I have dealt with many a line jumper, both as a cashier and a customer. The last time it happened, I was the customer. Some elderly couple cut in front of me, I said "Excuse me I was first!" but I was seen as the rude one...

[Dreamstalker]

That happened to me at a craft store that has one line for multiple checkouts. They do have a barrier of sorts of displays, but the displays are on wheels and not in one solid wall. I was in line and had been for a few minutes when a giggly ditz and her long-suffering boyfriend shoved through the racks. I didn't see them in time to say anything...upon leaving, I did note that they had been in such a hurry that a jar of paint broke through their bag and decorated the sidewalk.

Our self-checkouts have a 'pay station' at the end of the last lane. This register has no scale (only the hand scanner) and no room to actually put anything so it's not used much beyond cashouts if one of the SCOs is deciding to not give cash, redeeming bottle slips or if a customer has one or two items and there's a line everywhere else. I generally don't stand there if I'm not actually using the register.

It's kinda funny to watch people try to cram a cartload of crap (which invariably includes something that's by weight) on the really tiny bag platform for the last SCO and end up pissing off whoever's on that self-check lane.

[XCashier]

I don't see how it's a maze. You get to the end of one "row", and you don't have to guess which way to go.

I wonder how these people would function in amusement park lines.

Anything they can complain about, they will. So somehow this:

_______________ exit
___________________|
|__________________|
|___|
enter

becomes this:

in their eyes. Oh, such inconvenience, making you walk an extra few feet!

[emax4]

I figure that if they use the single-line system at banks, the people are trapped because they can't go forward nor can they go backward if someone is behind them. Instead of ropes though, have thick walls high enough that no line cutter can climb over. Oh well, in fantasy anyway...

If someone cuts ahead of you, start putting your stuff with their and say, "Well they cut ahead, so they can most certainly pay for my items too", then nod at the cashier in agreement.

Or you can simply bring along your own group of Brazilian kids, tell them it's Disney World, and have them line-jump the offending line-jumper.

[coffee_drinker247]

You guys are all so funny and awesome...I love the responses that this thread has been getting! So glad to know that I was not in the wrong for telling that lady that the other girl was waiting in line. I'm not a pushover kind of manager and I did not appreciate being told that I needed to apologize to the woman for telling her she needed to continue to wait in line. Literally, our line is almost like the one diagram that XCashier mapped out, but without the first "zig" if you know what I mean. So it's just the black elastic bands connected the the poles with a sign at one end saying "Enter" and a sign at the other end saying, "Exit." So all people have to do is line up single file and wait for the next available cashier.

I'm really surprised that none of the other customers had said something but I think the girl that had been waiting was intimated by this loud, obnoxious woman so nobody else said anything. I was just livid that I had tried to do what was right, and this jerk was just so rude. I hate when SCs think that they deserve an apology for something that we didn't do and then they want you to simper and preen and be all apologetic, but they want to still treat you like crap. So like, why should I apologize? You're not going to accept the apology even if I did, and you're still gonna be rude, so why even bother? Like my co-worker said, "Good, we don't want you back anyway!"

I love when people threaten to go somewhere else. I'm like, "Okay, GOOD!" Like we're hurting for business so badly (hint: we're not) that I will just drop everything and drop to my knees and beg you to stay and give us another chance. I think some customers just take everything so personally on purpose just so they can complain and scam for free stuff or discounts. If the lady who came in about the shoes had gone the SC route instead of the Normal Person route like she did, she would have screamed that the shoes were indeed on clearance, and someone must have switched the tags to the other shoes on purpose, and because SHE had sworn that the full price ones were on clearance, we must refund her her $9 because of a clearance price that doesn't exist! It's sad that I can play out the opposite "alternate reality" scenario in my mind, haha. I guess that's what a decade of retail gets ya!

All in all, I love my job and I am thrilled with it. I get paid well, and most of my customers are wonderful. It's a fun place to work and I love my co-workers and my boss. But yeah every once in a while you get those "WTF" people!

I have some other fun stories, like I promised, I will post a few of those also!

[Legacy_of_Torment]

They have that at the cash registers at my store, and customers always whine about having to "go through a maze!" No matter what we do to control the chaos, we cannot win.

It's the same where I work too. There's always one who bypasses the line all together, because they just want to ask a question.

[NecessaryCatharsis]

People have also been wrongly told by "industry experts" that if you are demanding to customer service and retail employees you will get what you want. Like there is some kind of sercret to getting what you want or something. Yes, the secret is: Being nice! Just because you're a customer, doesn't mean you get to act like a dick.

I've found a different secret to getting what you want: want something reasonable. I can only think of 2 retail situations when I, the customer, left seriously pissed and never did get anything I thought was reasonable. Out of a lifetime of shopping I don't think that's a terrible track record and I never once had to yell or throw things or call someone a name to achieve it.