I swear, some of these WIC customers are getting on my nerves!!

[CarcinogenCrunchies]

In my state, you can buy almost any brand of something on WIC, as long as it's of the type required. Sometimes you run into an anomaly - tuna, for example. You can still buy the name brand stuff, but it has to be in a can. I'm guessing it's because the bagged stuff is more expensive. You also can't buy flavored or reduced fat peanut butter, because that's considered a "spread" and not natural peanut butter. With cheese, you used to have to get a block but now you can get shredded, sliced, string cheese sticks, etc. as long as it's natural cheese.

Our registers tell us when something is acceptable, and there's no way to override it short of having the back office people change it in the system. So even if there's a mistake and something SHOULD be accepted, they're just out of luck for that visit. Most managers will give it to them free, of course.

[Broomjockey]

buy flavored or reduced fat peanut butter,

Flavoured peanut butter...

BLASPHEMY! HOW DARE THEY DEFILE PEANUT BUTTER BY ADDING... flavouring... *spits*

[Salesmonkey]

Food-bearing plants and seeds for such plants may also be purchased.

That's bloody brilliant. I mean, you can spend $1.00 to buy a squash, but if you buy a squash plant you're really buying all the squash it makes all summer long.

[AriRashkae]

Flavoured peanut butter...

BLASPHEMY! HOW DARE THEY DEFILE PEANUT BUTTER BY ADDING... flavouring... *spits*

I used to buy one called Chocolate Silk. I miss it so much.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Flavoured peanut butter...

BLASPHEMY! HOW DARE THEY DEFILE PEANUT BUTTER BY ADDING... flavouring... *spits*

My peanut butter has flavor . . . if I make a sandwich out of it and add sliced banana to it (hey, don't laugh. It was good enough for The King.)

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

My peanut butter has flavor . . . if I make a sandwich out of it and add sliced banana to it (hey, don't laugh. It was good enough for The King.)

You have to fry it. The King ate 'em fried. Can't you just hear your arteries hardening?

[DGoddessChardonnay]

You have to fry it. The King ate 'em fried. Can't you just hear your arteries hardening?

No but I did hear my tummy become very happy earlier when I made SteakUmms. Sauteed onions marinated in real butter is out of this world.

[bean]

Our registers tell us when something is acceptable, and there's no way to override it short of having the back office people change it in the system. So even if there's a mistake and something SHOULD be accepted, they're just out of luck for that visit. Most managers will give it to them free, of course.

Actually, our registers really don't tell us at all if something takes or doesn't take. It's a guessing game what does and doesn't get accepted when they pay with EBT. They're SUPPOSED to show an F next to EBT accepted items, but rarely do due to the way our scan coordinator sets up most of our items. Grr. The only way to know for sure is to have them run their EBT card and play a guessing game with the remaining total... that's pretty much the only thing I HATE about our registers.

We can actually override individual items. Items you can theoretically eat on site are forbidden, but I had a customer pretty much declare world war 3 on me because her deli prepared potato salad wasn't being accepted by the registers for EBT. I'm ashamed to admit that I finally caved in and overrode the register, only because I knew the MOD was a wimp and would have had me do it anyway (he's had me do it before, and I asked him later about it and he said he would have had me override it anyway). A week later a very specific document showed up in our cash office showing what can and cannot be purchased with EBT, one of the forbidden items is anything that can remotely be consumed on site. Cold or hot. I'm assuming the store took a hit on her friggin potato salad. $30 of potato salad at that... 5 or 6 pounds of the crap. That's all she purchased.

We can get HUGE fines by the state for denying an EBT customer anything if they complain enough, and can lose our ability to take EBT if they raise enough of a stink, so we usually cave.

[AccountingDrone]

I just KNOW that the WIC SC would flip out, but I sort of wish they would establish specific WIC shopping stores that take nothing but WIC and is stocked with only WIC authorized products ... so these idiots would be able to shot without harassing poor clerks with WIC issues ... and that they can not use WIC outside these stores, so anything they buy from real stores they KNOW they have to pay cash.

*sigh*

Can you tell I got stuck behind one yesterday when I emerged to pick up my meds and decided I needed a gallon of milk? Holy shit on a stick, every product was the wrong item, and she was trying to get a rotissery chicken.

[simplyanother]

There are places where there are WIC stores. Some places--people HAVE to go to the WIC store to get their items.

I don't like the idea. I'd rather go to one store and get all of my groceries, and do seperate transactions for WIC items, then do that--then have to go to the WIC store, then to the other store...

I've used WIC before, and I've only ever screwed up once on an item (grabbed the wrong thing). The cashier was really pissy (mean) about it. That was 7 or 8 years ago, and I'm still traumatized (no, not really). I just made sure pay better attention, and never EVER went through her line again. heh


People who try to scam the system, are irritating, people who don't pay attention are annoying. But, meh, I can wait a few minutes while the person in front of me redeems her wic.

[NateTheChops]

I cross my number 7s when I write. !

On a slightly unrelated topic, wow. I can't believe I found someone else in the world who does this! I spent years being ostracized in school for writing 7's this way.

I didn't see too many WIC vouchers at Rite Aid, but people brought them in to TJ Maxx for clothes and things like that.

[Megg]

I do it too, Nate. Maybe we can start a support group or something!

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I do it too, Nate. Maybe we can start a support group or something!

We have one . . . it's called *drumroll*

Customers Suck!.

And I've seen my share over the years of people who just don't get it right. . . .

Way back when (during the 90's) our local WIC office handed out cards with eligible items listed on them to both the customers and to the stores who participated in the program. That way, we knew EXACTLY which items were allowed on the program and every year (around July) we would receive a new set of cards that listed the current items allowed (they'd sometimes make changes and add/delete some things.)

I've seen people constantly get confused on the cheese . . . so many times I became immune to it and would simply call someone from the Dairy department to bring up the 16 oz package of Kraft Deluxe. I've seen people come through with the wrong sizes on cereal (our WIC program only allowed certain brands and the boxes had to be 12 oz. minimum size.) Half the time, they'd come through with the 9 oz box of Cheerios, so I'd simply swap it out for the next size up.

And then we have those who would deliberately grab the wrong items entirely . . . one woman in particular raised a stink because she couldn't get Froot Loops and Sugar Smacks (or was it Frosted Flakes) on WIC. I showed her the copy of the list I had at the register and went over it with her and she still wanted to argue over it. Even used the standard line "Well, Food Kitty lets me get this."

So, starting with this SC and countless others since then (until I had to leave WD) I'd simply ask them "Do you remember the employee's name and I'll have my supervisor call the store and verify that."

Funny nobody ever could come up with a name . . .

And since I've been with the Kitty, I've seen more changes although I'm not on register nearly as much as I was back at WD . ..

First part of the summer, we started receiving a new brand of gallon size milk, which we'll refer to as NB (or New Brand) which is at a lower price point than our Store Brand milk. So now only the NB is available on WIC.

Bad part is: our stores don't order their milk .. . the computer at HQ does this for us and the Dairy Guy gets whatever they send. He (or she) can make adjustments for orders that come later in the week (ours ends up trying to up the orders for NB), but I digress slightly.

So knowing how "intelligent" our HQ is, guess which milk they never send enough of . . . .and we now end up having to override the register for a WIC order if they come through with the other brand b/c the allowed brand is sold out.