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And here's a few things I've been too tired or lazy to post.
Shoplifters
So coming back from my break, our LP guy pushed past me on a sprint to the front door, with about half the management team jogging along behind him. I'm not entirely sure what was going on, as they didn't drag anybody back inside, but about half an hour later, a cop showed up, and stuck around for a while. Cop and LP spent most of their time in the management office, but were also on floor some of the time. And while I didn't get to see any more action, K (who I'm still trying to get to join, or at least describe to me what happened in full) got to witness four more shoplifting attempts while I was either busy elsewhere or on lunch.
I only got to see the outcome of the last one as I came back in from lunch, with two officers (with two patrol cars out front at this point) escorting a woman outside as she protested that she "ain't got no money ta feed mah kids!" Later found out from K and the ASM that the woman had crammed a large cloth shopper's bag full with meat shop items and tried getting out the door with it. There was also talk of LP tackling someone.
How dumb do you have to be to see two police cars in front of a store, and then decide to go in and try to steal anyway?
SCO doesn't do WIC
At the end of a rush, getting close to closing, all the main cashiers have just finished out their lines. So three lanes are sitting empty and open. So of course, someone decides to bring four WIC vouchers to the SCO. Now, if you've never tried this (and if you haven't, I thank you), WIC is an immense pain on SCO. Here's how it works:
And of course, if they do anything wrong, like trying to scan two vouchers on one ticket (not allowed), it's easier to just cancel the order and start over again. The end result of all this is that running a WIC on SCO means I have to give that customer my full attention and can't run any of the other five lanes. So I just tell them no.
SCO and sedatives don't mix
Okay, I don't know what was going on with this woman. She had a small child with her (violation number one, really - never bring kids to SCO), and... was either somehow mentally challenged, heavily sedated, or hadn't slept in days. She couldn't follow simple directions, couldn't find anything she needed, couldn't make up her mind what she did or didn't want (and wound up leaving half her items off the final order anyway). I showed her how to use the SCO at first, then came back a few minutes later to find her standing there holding the same item she had when I left and staring at the screen. Her toddler daughter was doing better than her, just because she was actually trying to use the SCO.
In the end, I grabbed a cashier who had nothing else to do to bag for me and just rang everything with my hand-held scanner to get her out of there. Then she had to make repeated phone calls to get her payment right, void items off, add them back on, and try three times to get her card right.
Math and reading are hard
Right as I come in the door (Late thanks to parking lot idiocy), I get to deal with this mess. Okay, so. This guy is buying some deli items and a shrimp tray on a Food Stamp. However, his shrimp tray is the wrong price. It's ringing for about $30 when it should be more like $20. So, T, the guy manning SCO as I came in, voids the shrimp tray off and enters it in as a keyring at the correct price. For those unaware, a "keyring" is when a price is entered as a generic department item, rather than with a barcode. For example, "$5 Produce", "$10 Deli", or, in this case, "$20 Seafood".
This is where the problem really got fun, and the moment I stepped in. The guy had $10 of other food, mostly deli, which he paid for with FS. But then it said he still owed another $20. I pointed out that the system assumes Meat and Seafood keyrings to be prepared or cooked food, which isn't allowed on FS. So I void off the keyring and re-enter it as a price override (which keeps the original barcode but changes the price), which does fit in FS. Then just to simplify things, I void off the partial FS payment and tell the guy to go ahead and redo his payment.
This begins a five-minute argument about the total, because the customer is somehow convinced that he paid $20 and owed $10, rather than the opposite. So he kept insisting that if I voided the payment, I would have voided off $20, not $10. Then he somehow added that up to $40 and started complaining that it was only supposed to be $30 in the end. Finally, I just told him I would void the entire order and have him re-ring it so he could be sure. So we did that.
And then he decided he didn't want the shrimp anyway.
I try so hard to not abuse the stereotype here...
So a middle-aged blond lady and her elderly mother come through SCO. And let me go ahead and say that I am fully aware hair color has no bearing on intelligence, and anyone can be brilliant or idiotic regardless of appearance. But damn did this woman fit all the stereotypes. After helping her with the typical SCO problems (which she spent standing there giggling and asking extra-dumb questions), I ran a coupon for her - 15% off the total order. I think she wasted it on just a $30 purchase, but whatever. Then it was her mother's turn, and at the end of the order blondie calls me back over.
SC: Hey, that coupon I used, do you still have it?
Me: I put it in the drawer with the rest of them, why?
SC: Oh, like, can my mom use it too?
Me: Um... no. That's not how coupons work. Once you've used it, you've used it.
SC: Oh no, I wanted to use it again!
SC's Mom: It's just three dollars, honey, we don't need to use it.
SC: But I wanted to know how much 15% of three dollars was!
Me: ...45 cents.
SC: Oh wow, that's a lot! I could get a pack of gum with that!
Shoplifters
So coming back from my break, our LP guy pushed past me on a sprint to the front door, with about half the management team jogging along behind him. I'm not entirely sure what was going on, as they didn't drag anybody back inside, but about half an hour later, a cop showed up, and stuck around for a while. Cop and LP spent most of their time in the management office, but were also on floor some of the time. And while I didn't get to see any more action, K (who I'm still trying to get to join, or at least describe to me what happened in full) got to witness four more shoplifting attempts while I was either busy elsewhere or on lunch.
I only got to see the outcome of the last one as I came back in from lunch, with two officers (with two patrol cars out front at this point) escorting a woman outside as she protested that she "ain't got no money ta feed mah kids!" Later found out from K and the ASM that the woman had crammed a large cloth shopper's bag full with meat shop items and tried getting out the door with it. There was also talk of LP tackling someone.
How dumb do you have to be to see two police cars in front of a store, and then decide to go in and try to steal anyway?
SCO doesn't do WIC
At the end of a rush, getting close to closing, all the main cashiers have just finished out their lines. So three lanes are sitting empty and open. So of course, someone decides to bring four WIC vouchers to the SCO. Now, if you've never tried this (and if you haven't, I thank you), WIC is an immense pain on SCO. Here's how it works:
- Customer starts order on the SCO lane, but can't scan anything yet. Not even the shopper card.
- I take control of the order on the SCO podium, make it a WIC order, and send it back to the lane.
- Customer scans their WIC items for that particular voucher, and no more.
- Customer ends order on the lane.
- I take control at the podium again, re-total, and process the WIC check, which the customer signs.
- Repeat for each individual check.
And of course, if they do anything wrong, like trying to scan two vouchers on one ticket (not allowed), it's easier to just cancel the order and start over again. The end result of all this is that running a WIC on SCO means I have to give that customer my full attention and can't run any of the other five lanes. So I just tell them no.
SCO and sedatives don't mix
Okay, I don't know what was going on with this woman. She had a small child with her (violation number one, really - never bring kids to SCO), and... was either somehow mentally challenged, heavily sedated, or hadn't slept in days. She couldn't follow simple directions, couldn't find anything she needed, couldn't make up her mind what she did or didn't want (and wound up leaving half her items off the final order anyway). I showed her how to use the SCO at first, then came back a few minutes later to find her standing there holding the same item she had when I left and staring at the screen. Her toddler daughter was doing better than her, just because she was actually trying to use the SCO.
In the end, I grabbed a cashier who had nothing else to do to bag for me and just rang everything with my hand-held scanner to get her out of there. Then she had to make repeated phone calls to get her payment right, void items off, add them back on, and try three times to get her card right.
Math and reading are hard
Right as I come in the door (Late thanks to parking lot idiocy), I get to deal with this mess. Okay, so. This guy is buying some deli items and a shrimp tray on a Food Stamp. However, his shrimp tray is the wrong price. It's ringing for about $30 when it should be more like $20. So, T, the guy manning SCO as I came in, voids the shrimp tray off and enters it in as a keyring at the correct price. For those unaware, a "keyring" is when a price is entered as a generic department item, rather than with a barcode. For example, "$5 Produce", "$10 Deli", or, in this case, "$20 Seafood".
This is where the problem really got fun, and the moment I stepped in. The guy had $10 of other food, mostly deli, which he paid for with FS. But then it said he still owed another $20. I pointed out that the system assumes Meat and Seafood keyrings to be prepared or cooked food, which isn't allowed on FS. So I void off the keyring and re-enter it as a price override (which keeps the original barcode but changes the price), which does fit in FS. Then just to simplify things, I void off the partial FS payment and tell the guy to go ahead and redo his payment.
This begins a five-minute argument about the total, because the customer is somehow convinced that he paid $20 and owed $10, rather than the opposite. So he kept insisting that if I voided the payment, I would have voided off $20, not $10. Then he somehow added that up to $40 and started complaining that it was only supposed to be $30 in the end. Finally, I just told him I would void the entire order and have him re-ring it so he could be sure. So we did that.
And then he decided he didn't want the shrimp anyway.
I try so hard to not abuse the stereotype here...
So a middle-aged blond lady and her elderly mother come through SCO. And let me go ahead and say that I am fully aware hair color has no bearing on intelligence, and anyone can be brilliant or idiotic regardless of appearance. But damn did this woman fit all the stereotypes. After helping her with the typical SCO problems (which she spent standing there giggling and asking extra-dumb questions), I ran a coupon for her - 15% off the total order. I think she wasted it on just a $30 purchase, but whatever. Then it was her mother's turn, and at the end of the order blondie calls me back over.
SC: Hey, that coupon I used, do you still have it?
Me: I put it in the drawer with the rest of them, why?
SC: Oh, like, can my mom use it too?
Me: Um... no. That's not how coupons work. Once you've used it, you've used it.
SC: Oh no, I wanted to use it again!
SC's Mom: It's just three dollars, honey, we don't need to use it.
SC: But I wanted to know how much 15% of three dollars was!
Me: ...45 cents.
SC: Oh wow, that's a lot! I could get a pack of gum with that!
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