So, tonight I was working the closing shift (4-10pm) at self-checkout, and it was going great until the last forty-five minutes/half hour of my shift.
I had already closed most of the registers and pulled all their tills so the night manager could count them down. There were only two registers left open, and both were being used.
I managed to close one and pull its tills out, leaving one open that I intended to close as soon as the customers using it left. Except that wasn't what happened.
The customers, a group of teenagers, were buying some food and paying with EBT/food stamps. They couldn't remember the card's PIN, so one of the guys ran out to the car to get his cell phone which had the PIN on it. He comes back, tries entering it, and it doesn't work. He does this several more times until he gets the message "PIN tries exceeded".
At this point, the card can't be used because it's been locked for security reasons. I tell the guy that he can either pay with cash or another card or call up the food stamps office (or whoever can fix that, I don't know) to get his card unlocked again.
So guess what he does? Instead of taking the faster route and paying with cash which he had in his wallet, he calls to get his card unlocked. This takes some time, so I'm hanging around waiting for them to pay and leave. The next thing I know, they are leaving taking their cart of groceries with them. They haven't paid, they haven't gotten a receipt...
They're walking towards the coffee seating area, and by all appearances, it looks like they're planning on sitting down and eating their unpaid-for food and then trying to walk out. Now it's nearly fifteen minutes after I was supposed to be off.
I alert my manager to the situation, she doesn't act alarmed, even though I told her I was concerned that the teenagers were going to walk out without paying. But then I come back to the self checkouts to get my jacket, and on the way, I notice them in line at the regular register paying for their food.
What I don't understand is why they walked off with their food. Maybe I shouldn't have freaked out and assumed they were planning on stealing it. But all I saw was them not paying and then leaving with their groceries.
I'm sure there was nothing malicious in any of this, but I wasn't thrilled about having to report what I thought was a potential shoplifting attempt and then being nearly 20 minutes late clocking off because of it.
I had already closed most of the registers and pulled all their tills so the night manager could count them down. There were only two registers left open, and both were being used.
I managed to close one and pull its tills out, leaving one open that I intended to close as soon as the customers using it left. Except that wasn't what happened.
The customers, a group of teenagers, were buying some food and paying with EBT/food stamps. They couldn't remember the card's PIN, so one of the guys ran out to the car to get his cell phone which had the PIN on it. He comes back, tries entering it, and it doesn't work. He does this several more times until he gets the message "PIN tries exceeded".
At this point, the card can't be used because it's been locked for security reasons. I tell the guy that he can either pay with cash or another card or call up the food stamps office (or whoever can fix that, I don't know) to get his card unlocked again.
So guess what he does? Instead of taking the faster route and paying with cash which he had in his wallet, he calls to get his card unlocked. This takes some time, so I'm hanging around waiting for them to pay and leave. The next thing I know, they are leaving taking their cart of groceries with them. They haven't paid, they haven't gotten a receipt...
They're walking towards the coffee seating area, and by all appearances, it looks like they're planning on sitting down and eating their unpaid-for food and then trying to walk out. Now it's nearly fifteen minutes after I was supposed to be off.
I alert my manager to the situation, she doesn't act alarmed, even though I told her I was concerned that the teenagers were going to walk out without paying. But then I come back to the self checkouts to get my jacket, and on the way, I notice them in line at the regular register paying for their food.
What I don't understand is why they walked off with their food. Maybe I shouldn't have freaked out and assumed they were planning on stealing it. But all I saw was them not paying and then leaving with their groceries.
I'm sure there was nothing malicious in any of this, but I wasn't thrilled about having to report what I thought was a potential shoplifting attempt and then being nearly 20 minutes late clocking off because of it.
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