Next time bring a freakin' calculator!

[Pixilated]

This is similar to the first story I posted ... only worse.

Had two women come through my line with a cartful of stuff. So I ring it all in and tell them the total ... you guessed it. It's maybe $60 over the amount of cash the one woman has on her.

So of course then she has to start putting stuff back. But it can't be just anything, oh no. This requires much careful thought.

SC: Oh, let's see, what don't I want ... hmmm, okay put this back ... and this ... and this ...

Now we're down to $50 too much.

SC: Oh geez, what else ... this ... and these ... hmmmm ... and ... okay, and this ...

$40 too much ...

SC: Wow, still that much?? Well, hmmm, maybe I could put ... this back ... and ... um ...


And on it goes, until finally we get down to a total she can manage.

If looks could've killed, the glares she was getting from the half-dozen customers waiting behind her would've left nothing but a small pile of ashes on the floor. Throughout the whole thing she was giggling and laughing like this was the most fun she'd had in weeks.

And the number of 'voids' I had to do meant I needed a manager's override before I could re-total what was left, so of course that created an additional small wait for everybody.

As she left, she carolled out that I was "really patient!"

Me, to next customers in line: "I have no choice. We're not allowed to shoot customers."

Them:

[Beki710]

Eurgh I've had that before but not to the amount! Surely when your shopping you would look at the amount of stuff and think I could be over my limit here? But then again maybe I'm sensible and use a calculator on my phone if I have a limit when shopping to make sure I don't go over...

[HappyFun Ball]

If I only have so much money, I always keep a running total in my head, I round the prices up. I have gone over a couple of times, but never more than 5$.

[Cai1987]

We had to do something like that once, but it was a matter of "okay, we have $50, the total's $48...wait, the credit card declined? we /don't/ have $50. Well, crap!" And at least we tried to be quick about putting back what we didn't absolutely deperately need.

[Cazzi]

Oh my, that happened to me at the weekend.

Went to hand my debit card to pay and it was refused. All I had otherwise was a few coins in my purse
Since I had no idea what had happened, I had to hand the shopping back, which I did quickly while apologising profusely.

When I finally got the shopping on Monday, I mentioned how embarrassed I was to the checkout lady I've known there for years. She brushed it off with a "meh, it happens more than you think... but did you get the old lady behind you tutting away?"
I did of course

(It turned out I'd made a booboo with my calculations, the actual amount my card was refused for was under £2, if I'd have known I could have put something back!)

[powerboy]

I mentioned how embarrassed I was to the checkout lady I've known there for years. She brushed it off with a "meh, it happens more than you think... "

Done the samething before. And it always happens infront of the ones that you known for years

[bainsidhe]

This happened so often when I worked at *big box retail*. And that $60 overage would be when she only had $50 to spend. When she knew she only had $50 to spend and was still surprised that grabbing twice as much food could possibly put her over.

And it was always the perishable food that got removed. Never the dry snack food like cookies/pop/chips. Always the $14 family pack of chicken, the hamburger, etc. Our store couldn't reshelve perishables for food safety reasons, so all of that was a loss. *sigh* Well, I guess it wasn't always perishable food. Sometimes the customer would remove small items one at a time, asking after each what the total was. Customers never clued in that a 50 cent can of corn wouldn't reduce a total by $60.

[mikoyan29]

Back in my cashier days, I had this happen all too often but one incident sticks in my mind. I was ringing this lady up and she ended up going way over. So she started to decide what she didn't want. The total was still too much, so she took off some more stuff. We finally get to a total she could live with at which point she said, "I don't believe it". So I voided out the rest of the order because I was going to need a manager anyway and showed her the total at zero. I rung up the stuff she wanted and surprisingly the total was the same. She was still pitching a bitch when her friend finally spoke up and told her to quite giving the man a hard time. Gah.

Of course my favorite was the person with the brimming shopping cart stating they only had so much. At which point I told them they better start deciding what they wanted because there was no way that much food would ring for so little.

[EricKei]

If I only have so much money, I always keep a running total in my head, I round the prices up. I have gone over a couple of times, but never more than 5$.

I do the same, even for those rare times when I'm not "on a strict limit" (read: a really REALLY good week, back when i worked on commish) >_< Haven't had one of those for a while tho ~_~

[Pixilated]

I think we've all done something along these lines ... just not to this extent. I usually try to keep track of what I'm getting and "round up" so if anything I'm overestimating what the total will be ... and I also figure out ahead of time what I'll give up if it turns out I've completely screwed up on the addition.

I've also had customers say "I've only got $50" before I start ringing up. They (and I) keep an eye on the "total" line as I go so it doesn't become an issue.

Oooh, the dreaded 'card not accepted' and the 'chip error' -- yeah, I got those a few times too. Often the customer would make a couple of stabs at it, and on occasion where I could see they were doing it wrong (running the card through too slowly, or jerkily -- our equipment wasn't exactly first-class ...) I'd go around and try it for them. For the times when it was absolutely a no-go, the customers either had some other method of payment, or just apologized and said they'd have to come back. Yeah, I had to void the whole order but they made a fast decision, so we could keep the line moving, and it's not like that's something you can foresee.

Yet another reason I'm trying to go cold-turkey on plastic and go back to cash, LOL.

[HotelMinion]

I NEVER do this cuz I've had it done many times when I was a cashier at a small airport newsstand store. Lady comes in, starts acting like this is a huge dept store and buy one of each of our items! We had mostly books, but lots of souveniers too. She buys it all. And then when I tell her her total, it came out to be hundreds of dollars, hundreds of items, she decides it's too much and wants to take 'this' and 'this' out. I wanted to kill her. We didn't have a screen where you could pick out what you wanted to take out like those big dept stores, no, we had to take out ALL of it and RE scan everything. She whines and hisses that this is taking too much time, that she'll miss her flight, etc. We are a SMALL newsstand, lady!! I quit that very same week after that. ANd also people do it all the time when I'm waiting in line. SOOOOO ANNOYING

[Pixilated]

I sympathize -- when she started whining I'd probably have said something that would've finished me for that job one way or the other.

[Caractacus_Potts]

Me, to next customers in line: "I have no choice. We're not allowed to shoot customers."

Them:

I've been behind people like this woman a few times (why did I pick this line, why did I pick this line) and if the cashier had said that to me I might very well wind up on the floor doubled over with tears coming out of my eyes from laughing so hard because unfortunately customers aren't allowed to shoot the SC's either.

Eurgh I've had that before but not to the amount! Surely when your shopping you would look at the amount of stuff and think I could be over my limit here? But then again maybe I'm sensible and use a calculator on my phone if I have a limit when shopping to make sure I don't go over...

I used to add it up in my head as I shopped then add the tax as a game to see if I could get the same total as the register. My wife calls me a 'math geek'.

[retailworker7]

I stink at doing math in my head and the calculator on my cell phone is crappy. I keep a small calculator in my pocket while I am at work. Yesterday I had some customer that kept saying her total was wrong and that I did not put in all her coupons. She only had 4 coupon and I circled where they were taken off on her receipt. She took my pen and walked away. I had a short line at the time. She decides to stand in the doorway and stare at her receipt until my line is gone and comes back some more to complain. She asks me for a pen because she wants to add it up by hand. I was polite and told her someone borrowed my pen and forgot to return it. I told her she could use my calculator instead and I would need it back when she was done. She adds everything up and realizes it is correct. I was surprised when she actually gave me back the calculator right away and my pen. It turns out she forgot that coupons never cover tax. She ran of the store her shopping cart without saying anything else. One of my regular customers heard the last half of the conversation as he was getting ready to check out. His reply was what a bitch. Everyone knows there is sales tax on everything. Also it should be common sense that coupons could not be used to pay tax. He said I was very patient with her and he would have told her off for me if he had been in a hurry to check out today.

[Catwoman2965]

I get that in my store, only its when stuff is marked down. now I suck at math too, but I can at least figure in my head how much something is if its 50% off. Yet I still get SCs who want to know "how much is this" and "how much is that" which means I either have to hunt down one of our shitty calculators, or, in the case of a promo, not a hard markdown, I have to ring up the item as if I'm doing a transaction, sicne that's the only way our shitty system will let us see the price.

And then there was bargain lady. My store's clothing is pricy; sweaters can be anywherre from from $60-150, and so on. So people like to buy on sale, which isn't an issue, but we had one lady who came in, soooo excited to see that stuff had been marked down again, and then ended up spending $43, which is nothing, and said her budget was $45. Which is ok in a store where the stuff is priced lower, but in mine, you're lucky to get one item, on sale for that.