Produce Puzzlement and a Cloistered Cashier Manager

[bean]

I've seen explcit Tare functions on Produce/meat/deli scales, but not on actual cash registers. It's assumed that everything that would require a container gets weighed before it comes up front.

You must not work in a store that has a salad bar or bulk foods section. That or you work for HEB, which requires customers to go as far as weighing our their own produce and getting stickers for produce.

All of these have TONS of containers to choose from. When using those particular PLUs, the register asks us for a tare. Our registers are also menu driven, using a VGA monitor built in to the keyboard, with 8 "dynamic keys" to the right of the display, their function changes depending on which menu you're on. ANYTHING that's weighed shows a "Change Tare" function next to one of the dynamic keys. I have about 40 or 50 tare weights memorized at this point.

We have bulk grocery items, bulk olive bar, salad bar, food bar (hot items)... plus we have "chopped veggies" (plu 4976) in my store that have several containers to choose from, they're generally stir fry type items. All of them have their own containers.

Even the common IBM registers that Kroger, Safeway, and Walmart use have a dedicated tare key on them. We use some funky NCR "RealPOS" registers running Windows XP. Our registers are incredibly easy to learn due to being menu driven, but holy crap do they love to crash...

[EricKei]

I've seen explcit Tare functions on Produce/meat/deli scales, but not on actual cash registers. It's assumed that everything that would require a container gets weighed before it comes up front.

[EvilEmpryss]

The boxes will usually say how much the produce inside weighs (the shippers need that info for planning cargo loads). A tare function would need an empty box to set the base weight, though. That leads to someone scrambling around to find an empty box.

Still, I like KaySquirrel's plan: executive decisions like that are what managers are supposed to be for. The only reason I would be against that, though, is that the customer has room to do two things: load extra produce in the box and insist that the box is actually heavier than it really is, thereby getting a discount for the produce. Not much, but it seems some SCs will quibble over a penny.

[mikoyan29]

This is a stupid question...but don't your registers have a tare function?

[bainsidhe]

Also, how did she know it was 6kg of peaches if it was a weighed item?

I once had a few college students come through my line with a lot of bananas. I mean a lot of bananas. They had an entire shopping cart overflowing with yellowy-goodness, as well as bananas underneath the cart and someone else carrying a few bunches. So I started scanning the bananas, bunch by bunch by bunch...

And I had to ask what they were for, how could I not? The young woman off-handedly says "Badminton". ~Blink~ *pause* ~Blink Blink~ Then she realized why I was giving her a blank stare. She started laughing and explained her group sells the bananas at the badminton game.

And that, folks, is my banana story.

[EvilEmpryss]

*sigh* Unless there was a discount for buying in bulk, why not put 1 kg of peaches on the scale and punch it in 6 times (or even 12 times for two boxes)? Duh.

And if there *was* a discount for bulk, then the manager was right there to do a price override. But nooooo people gotta make things difficult.

[Snowbird]

Ugh, that just sounded painful. Why didn't he just grab some plastic bags, load the peaches in them and weigh each bag? He wasted so much time, as did she, but it sounds like he's the professional at that between the two of them. What a pain.

[MrSmiley]

This is the story of a grocery store and one of the frequent "high maintenance" female customers, who I'll call Jill for no reason whatsoever. She always requires extra work when she comes in, but is a "good customer" in that she buys a lot of items, often in bulk. It's also the story of a manager, who I'll call Jack. Jack, despite being in charge of cashiers and having "help the cashiers out when they're busy or need help" as part of his job description, doesn't like to leave his office. He does seem to get work done in there (with the door closed), but it's never done as quickly as anybody else seems to get it done. He also has a habit of making up rules on the spot for how things need to be done, and then not following them himself if it's too inconvenient. Most employees try to ignore Jack as much as possible without threatening their jobs.

This day it was all about peaches. Now normally the produce department receives boxes of their fresh produce which they then unload into the designated areas, allowing customers to pick up, bag and weigh how much of each item they want. Well today, customer Jill comes into the store and decides that she'd like some peaches... specifically 2 boxes full. So she picks up the boxes which haven't even been unloaded into the produce area and goes to shopping. This isn't a problem by itself I suppose, though it causes the store to run out of peaches for the other customers during the afternoon. That isn't the suck though.

So after doing the rest of her shopping, Jill comes to the front counter and tells the cashier she has 2 boxes of about 6kg each and wants the cashier to punch it in. Unfortunately these tills don't have any way to type in a weight, the actual item has to be weighed on the scale. Jill knows better and spends about 15 minutes telling the cashier how it needs to be done, and even suggesting alternatives. None of which work because the actual item has to be weighed on the scale. Jill of course doesn't want to do this, because then she'd be paying for the 6kg of peaches as well as the weight of the cardboard box they're stored in. Still, to appease Jill, the cashier needs to talk to the other 2 cashiers working as well as phone Jack, none of who know any other way to weigh the item. Jack, who gets grouchy every time he has to leave his office, comes to the front to talk to Jill and and together they decided they don't have to actually weigh the box of peaches... just some item that weighs 6kg on it's own, which they can do twice.

So Jack starts looking around the cashier tables, trying to find odds and ends, stacks of papers... random items from behind the counter... trying to get it stacked to weigh 6kg on the scale. Unfortunately it's always a bit over or under, never quite getting to the proper amount. The line is moving slowly at the other tills, and some other customers are getting impatient, Jill is the first one to chirp up that she has an appointment and doesn't want to be late. The man behind her echos that he too needs to be somewhere and a few more people whine and complain.. Jack ignores them as he doesn't have to deal with them (and can yell at the cashiers for being too slow if he needs to later anyway) and continues savaging for items based on potential weight.

Actually, that's the end of my story right there. Where something took FAR longer than it should have because a customer didn't want to do things the way they were supposed to to "save time" and "because they knew better". And the manager took their side and made things even longer.

I could easily turn this into a Morons in Management rant against Jack, but as I said, most workers just try to ignore him and get an override on stupid orders from a more competent manager the same day or the next one. Jack's also the one in charge of making the schedule for the cashiers and "ensuring there's always someone available to cover someone else's breaks", designated breaks mind you... which have to be taken AT THAT TIME. This system more often than not includes him being one of the people who needs to take over one of the tills. However even though he's the one who sets the schedule, he never believes the other workers are leaving at the right time (they are) and never wants to leave his office to go out and help... even though he set it up.

I better stop here.