NO! I have no more backup!

[Imogene]

So, FES S goes on break today, I get an elderly customer immediately, who doesn't understand the way we do ribbon. She keeps trying to get me to cut ribbon that is sold strictly by the spool, and is also trying to get less than a yard on anything we sell by the yard. Meanwhile, I notice the line growing very quickly, and call L to her register, she shows up, and I'm still dealing with the same customer, going round and round and round. Next customer in line tells L we need to open more lines, to which L says something along the lines of, "We're short staffed today, we have no more cashiers available."

I get customer's ribbon cut finally, and she hands me a bouquet of flowers, all stems that are NOT on sale.
I start ringing these, and she gets angry suddenly, "Those're on sale!"
"No, no they're not. Only the Spring label flowers are on sale to the best of my knowledge."
"But, they're in the same area as the signs..."
"And the signs clearly say Spring or Summer, they do NOT say Home Collection."
"But, they're in the same area!"
Lucky me, L is working both sides of the store today, due to our understaffing. "L, only the Spring label are on sale this week, right?"
"Right. And the Summer, the ones you're scanning are not on sale."
"Thank you."
I turn back to customer. "Did you still want these?"
"They're on sale!"
"No, ma'am, they're not. Do you still want them?"
"Yes."
I continue ringing, and finally get this woman done, and she just stands there, for another two minutes, arranging her purse.
Next customer looks at me, and whines, "You need to open another line."
"Ma'am, I know I heard L tell you we have no one else to put on a register." Short of calling S back from her break, which will only make her angry, because, by the time she gets back, I'll have the line cleared out.

[Polenicus]

Why don't you just go into The Back and get another employee out of cryogenic storage? All GOOD shops have a few employees on ice for emergencies!

[LifeCarnie]

Next customer looks at me, and whines, "You need to open another line."
"Ma'am, I know I heard L tell you we have no one else to put on a register." Short of calling S back from her break, which will only make her angry, because, by the time she gets back, I'll have the line cleared out.

Jedi Mind Trick!!

I personally love expert opinions offered by people with no practical experience.

[depechemodefan]

I bet he/she wanted to say, "I'm so sorry for you having to wait. I'll let you get that stuff your buying for free."

[Bright_Star]

I used to hear "You need to open more registers" all the time during really busy times at Wal-Mart. It would really be bad during late October through mid January. I mean, how could we possibly open MORE registers when every single register that we had WAS open?? Are we supposed to call Home Depot & have them come over & build us a couple more registers? & where do we get the extra cashiers for these new registers? Stick our hands up our butts & dig in that Mo-Fo till we pop out a couple of grungy new cashiers?
Jeez.

[Peppergirl]

Great - so you get rid of the 'must put all my stuff away before moving' idiot, and get rewarded with someone whining to open another line.

Nice.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

We had all of one person covering all of hardlines today. Three people working in softlines.

So if backup cashiers were needed, the only people who could respond would be one or two softlines people.

My company, like just about every retailer out there, touts a "fast, convenient checkout" while doing fuck-all to provide it.

[darknight73]

corp. gives us more and more to do every week (aside from giving pony rides on our backs around our store to customers to increase customer satisfaction) but i digress- i go into our local mall and i see 4-5 people standing in a verizon, sprint, etccc cell phone kiosk (20 sq ft) selling phones. that is the number of people we have running our stores (1700 sq. ft) on any given day. i always tell people we have more employees on order but warehouse is out of them.

[RetailWorkhorse]

(aside from giving pony rides on our backs around our store to customers to increase customer satisfaction)

I will not say it, I will not say it, I will not say it......screw it.

Does your company supply the riding crop or can I bring my own?

[Imogene]

Does your company supply the riding crop or can I bring my own?

I have my own, which FES S, when she found out I own one, tried to steal from me for Rocky Horror last weekend (Fetish night)... I showed it to her while waiting in line, and she tried to abscond with it.

[jerkface11]

Start keeping a stack of applications at your register. When someone complains that you need another line open hand them one.

[PhotoChick]

We had one of those once. I'm playing head cashier (cause we didn't have a space for me) and helping one of the new girl ring something up. Every register in the joint was open (even in garden, which was rare and two at returns) and all hand were on deck. We got really slammed cause it was the first weekend of football and the Raven's played early and the Redskins played late. So everyone came in between. Some woman started complaining to me. I told her all of our cashier were on registers. Then she told me I should be on a register. I simply looked around then looked back at her and said "And where am I supposed to get an extra register?" She just walked away.

[rerant]

Why don't you just go into The Back and get another employee out of cryogenic storage? All GOOD shops have a few employees on ice for emergencies!

That comment just killed me!

[mattm04]

I have got that once. Every register we had was open. Since they predicted a major snow storm everyone felt the need to come out. The snow never showed. Despite seeing every register open and we were even sending customers with small orders to the side registers to ring them out, it was not good enough for one SC who refused to move in line until a manager apologized to her. Se ended up shutting down one lane for about three mins.

SC: I want a manager
Cashier: Let me page one (about 3 min later MOD shows)
MOD: Hi, can I...
SC: Your lines are too long.
MOD: we have every register open, their is nothing we can really do in this...
SC: You don't know hot to treat customers you worthless human (SC walks out leaving groceries behind)

[powerboy]

Are we supposed to call Home Depot & have them come over & build us a couple more registers? & where do we get the extra cashiers for these new registers? Stick our hands up our butts & dig in that Mo-Fo till we pop out a couple of grungy new cashiers?
Jeez.

You mean that is not how you did it at your Walmart


Joking