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So I recently moved to stocking on night crew. I had hoped this would mean I escaped the majority of SCs, and while there are fewer overall (so it's not a constant battle against the desire to choke someone), the ones we do get are extra-special to make up for it. And then there's dealing with the leftovers from day shift...
How much does one stupid act cost?
A few nights ago I was assigned the baking/cooking aisle, but didn't get to start on it for over an hour. Why? Because sometime during the day, someone dropped a half-gallon carton of milk in that aisle and busted the seam along the bottom. While it didn't burst or splash milk everywhere, it did develop a slow leak. And apparently their solution to this was to just set this leaking carton of milk down on the shelf and wander off.
The sugar shelf, that is.
And since sugar is sold in paper bags, it soaked all that milk right up, leaving a sticky sugar paste coating everything, and a number of bags ruined. How much did that cost us in the end? Well...
5-lb name-brand bags: 4 @ 3.69 = 14.76
10-lb store-brand bags: 5 @ 5.07 = 25.35
Half-gallon of organic milk: 3.19
Comes out to $43.30. And $51.60 if you count my pay for the hour the cleanup took.
You can't honestly expect to get this done now...
At least once every two nights, someone will come into the store and ask if we can run a Western Union for them. Seriously people, it's 2:00 in the morning, at a grocery store. Even if the office was open, if there were any people other than stockers in the building, and if the till was still in the drawer, everyone with training for and access to the Western Union machine left 3-5 hours ago.
Have some sense about what's available
Another thing you're not getting at 2 in the morning: full service on the checkout lanes. Again, the only people in the store are stockers, plus one person assigned to keep an eye on the SCO. I know what you're thinking.
You think, "Hey, nobody's shopping right now! I can get in and out in about 20 minutes since there won't be any lines!"
Except then you wind up getting nearly $500 in groceries (yeah, we get at least one of those each week in the early morning hours) and throw a fit when you're asked to use the SCO. Bonus points if someone caves and opens a register for you, then you complain about having to bag groceries yourself.
And dipping into Cursing Out Coworkers a bit...
On that note, something I'd like the usual overnight SCO person to realize. There is absolutely no reason to call three of the five stockers up to run registers. None of the lanes are supposed to be open at night, not to mention three of them, they don't even have tills in them! We just have to hope everyone's paying with cards when we do that, because there's nowhere to put cash or checks, and no way to give change.
Yeah, we had a "regular" walk out and leave a full buggy behind because SCO was too hard for him and nobody else was opening one of the till-less lanes. She's lectured me about offending regulars before. Without fail, every person she's demanded I drop everything and serve on a lane has been short-tempered, entitled, and abusive.
And speaking of entitlement
And the night before last, around the same time as that last walkout and overnight SCO lady trying to get three lanes open, we had three young people come shopping, all looking about high-school aged. The two girls were loudly carrying on and shouting through the store the whole time they were in there, making messes and being a general nuisance. The guy was so drunk he could barely walk.
So they finally check out, and night SCO lady has J up there helping ring people out (because we had like four at once - yeah, her thing is making sure nobody coming in at night waits in line, ever) when the guy comes up with two bottles of wine. SCO lady tells J to not sell to them because guy is drunk, but for some reason J sells it to the girls anyway. At which point the girls start demanding a manager because they want to complain about how rudely SCO lady treated them. For refusing to sell alcohol to their drunk friend.
How much does one stupid act cost?
A few nights ago I was assigned the baking/cooking aisle, but didn't get to start on it for over an hour. Why? Because sometime during the day, someone dropped a half-gallon carton of milk in that aisle and busted the seam along the bottom. While it didn't burst or splash milk everywhere, it did develop a slow leak. And apparently their solution to this was to just set this leaking carton of milk down on the shelf and wander off.
The sugar shelf, that is.
And since sugar is sold in paper bags, it soaked all that milk right up, leaving a sticky sugar paste coating everything, and a number of bags ruined. How much did that cost us in the end? Well...
5-lb name-brand bags: 4 @ 3.69 = 14.76
10-lb store-brand bags: 5 @ 5.07 = 25.35
Half-gallon of organic milk: 3.19
Comes out to $43.30. And $51.60 if you count my pay for the hour the cleanup took.
You can't honestly expect to get this done now...
At least once every two nights, someone will come into the store and ask if we can run a Western Union for them. Seriously people, it's 2:00 in the morning, at a grocery store. Even if the office was open, if there were any people other than stockers in the building, and if the till was still in the drawer, everyone with training for and access to the Western Union machine left 3-5 hours ago.
Have some sense about what's available
Another thing you're not getting at 2 in the morning: full service on the checkout lanes. Again, the only people in the store are stockers, plus one person assigned to keep an eye on the SCO. I know what you're thinking.
You think, "Hey, nobody's shopping right now! I can get in and out in about 20 minutes since there won't be any lines!"
Except then you wind up getting nearly $500 in groceries (yeah, we get at least one of those each week in the early morning hours) and throw a fit when you're asked to use the SCO. Bonus points if someone caves and opens a register for you, then you complain about having to bag groceries yourself.
And dipping into Cursing Out Coworkers a bit...
On that note, something I'd like the usual overnight SCO person to realize. There is absolutely no reason to call three of the five stockers up to run registers. None of the lanes are supposed to be open at night, not to mention three of them, they don't even have tills in them! We just have to hope everyone's paying with cards when we do that, because there's nowhere to put cash or checks, and no way to give change.
Yeah, we had a "regular" walk out and leave a full buggy behind because SCO was too hard for him and nobody else was opening one of the till-less lanes. She's lectured me about offending regulars before. Without fail, every person she's demanded I drop everything and serve on a lane has been short-tempered, entitled, and abusive.
And speaking of entitlement
And the night before last, around the same time as that last walkout and overnight SCO lady trying to get three lanes open, we had three young people come shopping, all looking about high-school aged. The two girls were loudly carrying on and shouting through the store the whole time they were in there, making messes and being a general nuisance. The guy was so drunk he could barely walk.
So they finally check out, and night SCO lady has J up there helping ring people out (because we had like four at once - yeah, her thing is making sure nobody coming in at night waits in line, ever) when the guy comes up with two bottles of wine. SCO lady tells J to not sell to them because guy is drunk, but for some reason J sells it to the girls anyway. At which point the girls start demanding a manager because they want to complain about how rudely SCO lady treated them. For refusing to sell alcohol to their drunk friend.
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