Common Courtesy

Well, apparently courtesy is something that is becoming rare and unfortunately it seems to be a certain age group that is like that.

I have several young people (I'd say in the 17 to 20 year old group) that come through my register. There are both sexes and several nationalities. The young men are usually pretty good, sometimes sullen, but for the most part its like I am a mother figure so they'd better behave. Then the young girls. They are okay if they don't have a cell phone stuck to their ear. If they do, you can usually forget about any communication at all. They hand over their credit card (at that age, yes they have them) and never look to see how much they are spending. Too busy talking. They will watch you put the item in the bag then take it out as soon as your back is turned and leave the bag and the receipt on the counter. I have a garbage pail but they don't 'do' garbage.

The foreign students, I am very sad to say are the worst. They make no effort to understand the language. They DO watch every bit of money that is spent but, they barely if ever talk to you. Now that is not to say they are all like that. There are some that try to talk to you but for the most part no. They won't look at you and won't even smile, or try to let you know they don't understand. I have had a few that WILL try and then I will go out of my way to help as much as possible. I do stay neutral with them but there is the odd one that is just out and out rude.

They also do not seem to have common sense. (to be fair it is not only the foreign students but some of the other students and even adults). I will bag up their groceries and leave 5 or 6 bags on the end counter. Now this counter is barely four feet wide and two feet deep. It also contains my small bag holder, so there isn't a great deal of room. After the receipt is handed over they will stand there and start to pack the items away in their backpacks or bags and leave me with no place to put the next customers groceries. I have tried to ask that they move to the next register which happens to be empty but they truly look at me with an "I don't understand" face. I try to show them but they don't seem to know what I mean and they don't seem to communicate. I am really not meaning to pick on anyone, these are just my observations. I am not sure if it is that there is a cultural shock or a lack of wanting to interact with 'foreigners' or maybe just plain shyness.

Anyway, that leads me to another thing of courtesy. When you go on your cash register tray at work, sometimes it is on 'audit'. That means that it is counted and you sign for it that it has a certain amount of money in it; then it is counted again at the end of your shift. Its a way of keeping an eye on people. For the most part it is random but if there is a mistake over a certain amount then you will be audited every day for two weeks to make sure it was a mistake and to keep you on your toes. As someone that was ALWAYS responsible for counting my own tray I welcome it as it was very hard to just turn the tray over to someone and not know that it was balanced.

Anyway, I went onto a tray after another girl yesterday and of course the lid was on it so I didn't look until I got out to my register. I had a customer right away and opened the tray to see that I had 3 pennies, no nickels, two dimes and five quarters, some loonies and twonies for change. They rest was in twenties. (the odd thing was the change didn't even add up to a round number like it should have. She was out several dollars.)

I was able to make do (good old debit cards) and asked for change from the head cashier. I was told that the girl before me does this all the time. Oh, really I think. Well, don't I run into her the next day. So as its getting close to her leaving I asked whether she had left change for the next person. "No, not my job."

She feels that her job is to take money from people and that unrolling coins makes customers angry while they have to wait. (SARCASM ALERT) Yeah I've noticed that those 5 seconds undoing a roll of coins has nearly pushed some of my customers over the edge. (end of SARCASM ALERT). Why wouldn't you unroll the coins one of those times between customers or instead of running off somewhere in the store to talk to another (male) employee? No thought to the fact that our job is basically simple to do IF you use your brain.

It is just plain considerate of your fellow employees to think ahead for them instead of being wrapped up in your own little world. I told her that if I was coming in after her again I wanted there to be change in my drawer. She said again that it is not her job and that when it is audited it is there responsibility to make sure there is change. Well, no its not. It is their responsibility to make sure that the tray balances. They have enough things to do in the office without trying to make sure we all have the proper coins etc. It is "our" tray from the time we clock in until we clock out and it is just plain decency that makes you have a tray ready for the next cashier on duty. All I can say is I hope one day I am on a tray BEFORE her so I can leave it that way for her. Maybe THEN she will see what it is like.

Mean: yes.

Do I care: for her, NO.