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Working at a drugstore has its challenges. You're dealing with people who are usually there because they need something to medicate themselves as it is, and unfortunately for you, as the cashier, they can't open or use said meds until after they've paid for them.
Working at a mall also has its challenges. Many people "shop" there just because they are waiting for their wife's haircut to complete, or their oil change, or perhaps they're just there because it's hot out and they don't have A/C at their house. Plus, on Friday Nights, there's some unwritten rule that teenagers own the mall at that time.
Now, unfortunately for me, Friday Nights are very thinly scheduled. It's almost always only me and a supervisor, and due to the time of the week, the supervisor has to do some end-of-week errands like bean counting for reports and the like, so they aren't able to be on the floor much if at all. I'm on my own.
You've got two types of teens when they shop at a mall CVS: Bad ones and worse ones. They are rude, obnoxious, cheap, immature, and sometimes smelly. Now, I might be speaking as a hypocrite here, since at the time I was working at CVS it was back when I was 16. But, let me tell you, if anything snapped me into maturity it was working with these idiots...
The Potato
My first story of this theme is not really sucky. In fact, to this day when I look back on it I smile and sometimes still burst out laughing due to how ludicrous it was. Picture this...
Kid's in emo-like garb but his personality doesn't really fit the bill. He's outgoing, loud, energetic, and tries to attract attention. He shows up to my counter with his friends and is buying your typical stuff. I give him his total, and he starts fishing in his pockets. He takes out his keys, cellphone, a pen, a potato, and finally his wallet.
Yes, you read right. A potato. Out of his pocket. Now, this kid took out his potato as if it was anything else. He didn't try to grab attention to it. He continued giving me his cash, and I took it and returned his change. As I'm doing this, I'm just staring at this potato, sitting on the counter with the rest of his belongings, and I start to grin. It's just the most random thing I ever saw.
After I'm finished with the transaction, he grabs everything but the potato he put on the counter in his hands, puts most of it back in his pockets. He then grabs the potato, marches out of the store proudly, and announces to the mall walkers outside of the store, "I'VE GOT A POTATO!" waving it above his head.
At that point, I lost it. I spent the rest of the night chuckling about the craziness that laid before me that night. Thanks, whoever you are, your plan worked. I laughed. I wonder where he is now, 10 years later...
Shampoo Football
The posses that enter the store are often just there to buy sodas, snacks, and sometimes condoms. They sometimes throw random pranks, such as asking you which maxipads are most absorbant just for the sake of embarrassing you. I have a mind of steel though, and I simply deal with the prank by speaking matter-of-factly and professionally. Unfortunately that only makes them laugh more, since my deadpan delivery of my answers is better than any other reaction. Oh well, they eventually get bored and walk away.
5 of these kids walk into the store, and whenever I see 5 loud teens I get antsy. Some could be creating a diversion to steal stuff, or they might be planning an especially good prank. After they enter, I don't see them coming back to the front. One of the few adults comes to my counter and asks me a few questions. As I'm answering, I see something catch the corner of my eye. I instinctively look over but don't see anything. As I continue to answer her questions, it happens again. And again. The next few times I can see it's green, and I see it's being tossed from aisle 7 and over the shelves to aisle 6. I can't abruptly stop my conversation with this woman to figure out what's going on, so I just have to wait until she's finished with her questions. Eventually I hear my supervisor over the PA: "Attention shoppers, please refrain from playing football with the shampoo in the aisles!" The woman gives me a look of WTF and I shrug, saying, "It's Friday Night." She finally starts to leave.
At that point I see the 5 kids pushing eachother to run faster out of the store, snickering and hearing, "Come on, let's go let's go, we can't let him see what we did while we're here..." I roll my eyes and say, "This ought to be good." I walk over to Aisle 7 and find that much of the floor and shelves are covered in shampoo, with a half-empty bottle of Pert on the ground. Our floors are carpetted. FML.
The supervisor asked me to put a "slippery floor" cone in the aisle and hopefully that would suffice until closing time in an hour. What a bitch. Those kids came back months later to do the same thing, but this time I caught them red-handed and took it upon myself to give them a store ban (I didn't have authority to do so, but when I told the supervisor, she congratulated me)
The Spree
Flash back to when I was 14, at the mall with my best friend. We were on the escalator just behind this very tall, blond kid who was wearing a mesh shirt, a jacket, and long baggy pants. Nothing odd about that, except it was the middle of August and 95 degrees (F) outside. The kid slowly turned to us and said, "Yo, kids, do you want to be part of a shooting spree? Gonna happen in 5 days."
My friend and I turn to eachother and then back at him and just say, "Uh, no."
"Pfft, ok, whatever floats your boat." He immediately walks off at the top of the escalators and we never see him again that day. Yeah, we could have reported the threat, and we could have been scared, but this was before Columbine and the idea of a kid his age shooting up a mall sounded ludicrous, plus we were idiot kids who didn't know any better. Big surprise, nothing happened. I spotted this kid a few other times, and he was always a loner. I began to be a tad worried, looking at his demeanor, but even if I reported it, what would they do? It wasn't enough for a warrant. Nowadays I would have done something right away, but back then I was just a timid kid.
Flash forward to when I was working at CVS and I was relating this story to my supervisor during the few times she's actually out of the office and at the register on Friday Nights. As I do this, I hear a mousy voice ask, "Are you guys talking about Spike?"
I turn and see this petite teenage girl looking at me with a look of concern that I'd report him. "Uuuh, well, I don't know his name," I answered.
"Is he tall and blond?"
"Yes."
"Oh, he would never do anything like that. He's a teddy bear. He's just all talk. He's harmless, I promise you. He says shit like this all the time just to get attention."
"Um, ok."
I found it especially odd that, just by mentioning someone talking about a shooting spree she'd know immediately who I was talking about. I guess this guy talks about them all the time. It was finally time to talk to someone. I knew a security guard somewhat well, and asked him if he knew Spike.
"Oh, Spike. Yeah, he's a cool kid," he said. "He actually helps us out keeping the other hoodlums in line. He acts strange, and he probably has a few bolts loose in his head, but I'd agree with that girl that he's harmless."
I told him, "But it seems he talks about shooting up the mall all the time. Doesn't that concern you?" By this time Columbine already happened a couple years ago and everyone was talking about how to protect teens from this kind of violence.
The guard answered, "Well, it's something to consider, but we're not police officers. We're rent-a-cops."
"Sure, but that doesn't mean you can't call the proper authorities."
"They can't do anything. All I can tell them is some people heard him talk about these things. They can't open up an investigation based on that."
I was a bit miffed, but what could I do? It's been like 3 years since I first heard him talk about this and he hadn't done it yet. Maybe there wasn't anything to worry about after all.
A few years later, though, Spike was found in the back hallways with a sawed off shotgun contemplating his next move. He was promptly arrested and I never heard from him again.
Working at a mall also has its challenges. Many people "shop" there just because they are waiting for their wife's haircut to complete, or their oil change, or perhaps they're just there because it's hot out and they don't have A/C at their house. Plus, on Friday Nights, there's some unwritten rule that teenagers own the mall at that time.
Now, unfortunately for me, Friday Nights are very thinly scheduled. It's almost always only me and a supervisor, and due to the time of the week, the supervisor has to do some end-of-week errands like bean counting for reports and the like, so they aren't able to be on the floor much if at all. I'm on my own.
You've got two types of teens when they shop at a mall CVS: Bad ones and worse ones. They are rude, obnoxious, cheap, immature, and sometimes smelly. Now, I might be speaking as a hypocrite here, since at the time I was working at CVS it was back when I was 16. But, let me tell you, if anything snapped me into maturity it was working with these idiots...
The Potato
My first story of this theme is not really sucky. In fact, to this day when I look back on it I smile and sometimes still burst out laughing due to how ludicrous it was. Picture this...
Kid's in emo-like garb but his personality doesn't really fit the bill. He's outgoing, loud, energetic, and tries to attract attention. He shows up to my counter with his friends and is buying your typical stuff. I give him his total, and he starts fishing in his pockets. He takes out his keys, cellphone, a pen, a potato, and finally his wallet.
Yes, you read right. A potato. Out of his pocket. Now, this kid took out his potato as if it was anything else. He didn't try to grab attention to it. He continued giving me his cash, and I took it and returned his change. As I'm doing this, I'm just staring at this potato, sitting on the counter with the rest of his belongings, and I start to grin. It's just the most random thing I ever saw.
After I'm finished with the transaction, he grabs everything but the potato he put on the counter in his hands, puts most of it back in his pockets. He then grabs the potato, marches out of the store proudly, and announces to the mall walkers outside of the store, "I'VE GOT A POTATO!" waving it above his head.
At that point, I lost it. I spent the rest of the night chuckling about the craziness that laid before me that night. Thanks, whoever you are, your plan worked. I laughed. I wonder where he is now, 10 years later...
Shampoo Football
The posses that enter the store are often just there to buy sodas, snacks, and sometimes condoms. They sometimes throw random pranks, such as asking you which maxipads are most absorbant just for the sake of embarrassing you. I have a mind of steel though, and I simply deal with the prank by speaking matter-of-factly and professionally. Unfortunately that only makes them laugh more, since my deadpan delivery of my answers is better than any other reaction. Oh well, they eventually get bored and walk away.
5 of these kids walk into the store, and whenever I see 5 loud teens I get antsy. Some could be creating a diversion to steal stuff, or they might be planning an especially good prank. After they enter, I don't see them coming back to the front. One of the few adults comes to my counter and asks me a few questions. As I'm answering, I see something catch the corner of my eye. I instinctively look over but don't see anything. As I continue to answer her questions, it happens again. And again. The next few times I can see it's green, and I see it's being tossed from aisle 7 and over the shelves to aisle 6. I can't abruptly stop my conversation with this woman to figure out what's going on, so I just have to wait until she's finished with her questions. Eventually I hear my supervisor over the PA: "Attention shoppers, please refrain from playing football with the shampoo in the aisles!" The woman gives me a look of WTF and I shrug, saying, "It's Friday Night." She finally starts to leave.
At that point I see the 5 kids pushing eachother to run faster out of the store, snickering and hearing, "Come on, let's go let's go, we can't let him see what we did while we're here..." I roll my eyes and say, "This ought to be good." I walk over to Aisle 7 and find that much of the floor and shelves are covered in shampoo, with a half-empty bottle of Pert on the ground. Our floors are carpetted. FML.
The supervisor asked me to put a "slippery floor" cone in the aisle and hopefully that would suffice until closing time in an hour. What a bitch. Those kids came back months later to do the same thing, but this time I caught them red-handed and took it upon myself to give them a store ban (I didn't have authority to do so, but when I told the supervisor, she congratulated me)
The Spree
Flash back to when I was 14, at the mall with my best friend. We were on the escalator just behind this very tall, blond kid who was wearing a mesh shirt, a jacket, and long baggy pants. Nothing odd about that, except it was the middle of August and 95 degrees (F) outside. The kid slowly turned to us and said, "Yo, kids, do you want to be part of a shooting spree? Gonna happen in 5 days."
My friend and I turn to eachother and then back at him and just say, "Uh, no."
"Pfft, ok, whatever floats your boat." He immediately walks off at the top of the escalators and we never see him again that day. Yeah, we could have reported the threat, and we could have been scared, but this was before Columbine and the idea of a kid his age shooting up a mall sounded ludicrous, plus we were idiot kids who didn't know any better. Big surprise, nothing happened. I spotted this kid a few other times, and he was always a loner. I began to be a tad worried, looking at his demeanor, but even if I reported it, what would they do? It wasn't enough for a warrant. Nowadays I would have done something right away, but back then I was just a timid kid.
Flash forward to when I was working at CVS and I was relating this story to my supervisor during the few times she's actually out of the office and at the register on Friday Nights. As I do this, I hear a mousy voice ask, "Are you guys talking about Spike?"
I turn and see this petite teenage girl looking at me with a look of concern that I'd report him. "Uuuh, well, I don't know his name," I answered.
"Is he tall and blond?"
"Yes."
"Oh, he would never do anything like that. He's a teddy bear. He's just all talk. He's harmless, I promise you. He says shit like this all the time just to get attention."
"Um, ok."
I found it especially odd that, just by mentioning someone talking about a shooting spree she'd know immediately who I was talking about. I guess this guy talks about them all the time. It was finally time to talk to someone. I knew a security guard somewhat well, and asked him if he knew Spike.
"Oh, Spike. Yeah, he's a cool kid," he said. "He actually helps us out keeping the other hoodlums in line. He acts strange, and he probably has a few bolts loose in his head, but I'd agree with that girl that he's harmless."
I told him, "But it seems he talks about shooting up the mall all the time. Doesn't that concern you?" By this time Columbine already happened a couple years ago and everyone was talking about how to protect teens from this kind of violence.
The guard answered, "Well, it's something to consider, but we're not police officers. We're rent-a-cops."
"Sure, but that doesn't mean you can't call the proper authorities."
"They can't do anything. All I can tell them is some people heard him talk about these things. They can't open up an investigation based on that."
I was a bit miffed, but what could I do? It's been like 3 years since I first heard him talk about this and he hadn't done it yet. Maybe there wasn't anything to worry about after all.
A few years later, though, Spike was found in the back hallways with a sawed off shotgun contemplating his next move. He was promptly arrested and I never heard from him again.
Well, actually, the older ones of us figure out eventually how to wear those clothes and keep cool. I wore peddle pushers today...much more cool n_n
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