Kids, Parents and Idiots

Not that these things go together all the time, but some days it seems like it.

Wednesday, working the afternoon to evening shift. On a regular register and its fairly busy. Through the store I could hear these parents and two kids traveling around getting their items. Don't you know they choose my register to come through.

So its Billy don't do that, Billy be quiet, Billy quit grabbing the candy, Billy be quiet, Billy don't climb out of the buggy, Billy be quiet, Billy don't push the buttons, Billy be quiet, Billy don't climb the water bottles, Billy be quiet, Billy don't hit your sister, Billy be quiet, Milly don't scream, (she stopped, he didn't), Billy be quiet, Billy don't open the ice fridge,Billy be quiet, Billy don't do this, Billy be quiet,Billy don't do that.

So: Billy stopped doing that, kept screaming, stopped grabbing candy, kept screaming, climbed out of the buggy, kept screaming, stopped pushing the buttons, kept screaming, stopped climbing the water bottles, kept screaming, stopped hitting his sister, kept screaming, Milly don't scream, (she stopped, he didn't), stopped opening the ice fridge, kept screaming, stopped doing this, kept screaming, stopped doing that.

This is all going on while I am trying to ring through their order. Finally I got sick of it.

"HEY!!" I yelled. The kid stopped screaming! The whole store stopped. I actually thought the other customers were going to applaud me. "Billy, you should be quiet." Well, THAT'LL teach him.

The order is almost complete when he starts up again. I asked him if he wanted me to come around the counter and talk to him. Then the mother says to me " we should take you home with us. He listens to you."

Well, yeah. Because YOU don't do anything. He could tell that I'd have climbed the water bottles to get at him. Why should he listen? There were no consequences to his behaviour.

That was incident number one:

Number two: Guy buys about $14.00 worth of reduced produce and the credit card is declined. "Can you do it again?" Sure, and it is declined again. "Well, maybe if you punch the numbers in?"

What?? It is going to be the same result but WTF. So I punch the numbers in and, surprise, its declined!! Then he says to me "Well, I don't know why it doesn't work. I use it all the time." (Well, maybe that's why it doesn't work. Do you pay the bill 'all the time'?)

Then he asks if I will cash a personal check made out to him? We don't even do checks made out to US!! I said no, do you have a debit card? No, he replies, and then he says he'll be back.

I figured I'd never see him again, but sure enough he came back (an hour later). Then he's aggravated because the groceries are all taken out of the bag. That was done because after he left the receipt disappeared. No idea where it went. I had JUST come on so there wasn't any place it could have gone. Checked the garbage, etc, so we just totaled it up and charged him the correct amount. And he paid in cash. A lot of work for $14.00 worth of day old produce.


Incident number three: I asked the customer if they wanted bags and they said yes. So I bag the whole order up and then after they've paid they stand at the end of my register taking it all out and putting it in their own bags and backpacks. Again: WTF. All you had to do was say something. And also, to the lady that rearranged all her stuff after I bagged it, if I did such a lousy job, why wouldn't you have said something.


Had the union rep stop by yesterday and while I'm trying to talk to him about the water situation, The Rambler walks over and starts to listen in. We were almost done so I didn't think much of it. But later, when he comes through my register to buy some food for his cat, The Rambler comes back and asks what we were talking about. I nearly, well, you know. I couldn't believe she asked that. But he covered very well. (He got points from me for that). For the most part I am pretty sure she didn't mean anything by it, but still, to just ask what two people were talking about????!!!!

The Princess on Steroids

Well, seems like someone is going to step in and take a shot at replacing her. We have someone who is constantly rude to the customers, fellow employees and probably most other people she comes in contact with. You know, sometimes being blunt is good but most times it is just kinder to be a little less snotty.

I don't really like working with people like that. Makes the day longer and it makes for an uncomfortable feeling regarding customers. I actually get embarrassed, shocked, sometimes even mortified, by what gets said.

Sure customers ask stupid question. That's what a lot of them do. But, jumpin' jimminy don't point it out to them! Its nice that they come in our store. We shouldn't be chasing them away. Its lack of customers that has caused the hours to be cut and make the work all that more frustrating. Both for cashiers and customers.

And yelling across four registers is just plain old RUDE!!!


We have a big sign out front now that has this week's specials listed on it. I wonder who decides what goes on there? I think personally I would have put the one item that is almost 1/2 price right now. But that's just me. Also, I think the letters should all be the same colour as many colours makes it look a little yard sale-ish.

BUT, it IS nice to have something out there attracting attention. Its a good idea and maybe still a work in progress. So we'll reserve the judgment for now.

Well........... What do you think of the new look???

Do you like it??
FINALLY, after numerous hours following incorrect instructions (from their own help section) I now have my blog back where it should be. The blog name is correct, the correct email with it, the correct blogger address, my follower attached, all posts present and accounted for. Which leaves one happy (finally) unknown cashier.


Okay. The conversation with the HEAD OFFICE.

Seems that the water at the check out counter is a health issue. The problem is that when you finish a sip of water, you then wipe your mouth on the back of your hand and, gasp, touch the groceries and bags. I'm not meaning to be sarcastic.

Its just that:
a) what about the fluids from the chicken we handle?
b) what about the blood from beef or pork?
c) what about the stupid customers that stand there with their debit, credit or air miles card in their mouth and then we are supposed to touch that???
d) what about the customer that has let little junior have a sip out of a juice bottle or someone that has been drinking from a can of pop or water, all of which come from OUR shelves, and they expect us to scan it?
e) what about the vegetables that come to us covered in water from the sprayers and then have been handled by customers?
g) and lets not even discuss how filthy money is.

If we can handle all of those items then how is a bottle of water at my register going to impact anyone?


You take your cashiers aside. You explain to them that they can have a BOTTLE of WATER only. They must clean their hands after drinking with one of the little sanitary wipes that are provided and you have them sign a paper saying they are aware of the rules. If they get caught with ANYthing else, write them up!!

Plain and simple. None of this: "oh gee, your late, well don't do it again tsk tsk" stuff. WRITE THEM UP.



Another thing that came up in my phone call was the fact that the young kids have no idea how to pack groceries. The young one I was training was atrocious. No other word for it. And Miss Sterling had one as well. One thing in one bag, then twelve heavy things in the next. Bread with celery on top, cereal boxes sideways in the bag. Do these people not have ANY common sense?

We need to take the time to teach them how to bag. Maybe after they have a week or two under their belts, we can stand at the register and teach them to pack properly. As an older person a lot of customers come and talk to me about things that bug them. A lot of complaints are either about the way they were treated (rudeness) or their groceries being handled very badly.


One last pet peeve from me today. I think management needs to hire someone that can sit in the parking lot (I'll mention this as I would LOVE to do it) and
a) keep an eye on who parks there and for how long, and
b) to tell people to QUIT STEALING OUR BUGGIES.

We actually pay someone to round them up and bring them back!! Its time to start catching them before they leave the lot.

Or else I can see a charge going on the buggies, which I'm sure no one would like.

So, what do YOU do when you get an email from HEAD OFFICE??

Yup, yours truly fired off an email to someone at the web site wondering why they hadn't been heard from. See, I had already sent an email a few weeks ago, and the first I heard that someone had received it was when the manager mentioned as I was speaking to him about the letter of recommendation.

THAT lead to me firing off the second one which ended up giving me a response that said:

I have received your email sent to Customer Care and would very much like the opportunity to speak to you on the telephone.

I can be reached most days between 8am -5pm, Monday to Friday. At your convenience, please give me a call.

I left it a day and when I looked at the phone number it was going to be long distance for me.

Being the shy little thing that I am, I wrote back asking if they had a toll free number and if not I could be reached at ### between the hours of this and that.

Bold, eh??!!

Well, quarter past *** rolls around and the phone rings. Now I am mostly thinking this is an information session, but partly thinking "I wonder who I have p------ed off and whether I will be saying bye bye.


Worried about nothing. It was an informative call. There is absolutely NO WAY the shirts can be made longer. BUT, I can request a second shirt and have a piece of that sewn on the bottom of mine to give me the added length. (who's paying?). OR, I can ask after a polo shirt with a mandarin collar like the grocery clerks wear. Sounds like a better option. They are unisex and in men's sizes which means they should have length to them.


Then we got to the water issue. Not so good and at first I agreed with the HR person, but now that I had the kind of day we had yesterday, I am rethinking this whole thing.

Enough for now. Will write another blog shortly.

WOW was it busy!!!

I don't know what was going on today but was it ever busy. From about 3:30, when I started, to about 7:00 there was never less than 5 people in my line and a few times as many as ten.

What was going on today that EVERY one was shopping?

I just don't know. I was on express, for the first time in about a week and a half. Most people behaved themselves. I had a few with 13 items, but most were about 6 to 8.

Oh, something interesting has been happening over the past three weeks. Once in a while you'll get an order that totals out to an exact dollars amount. No cents, just an even amount. Some days I have had two or three such totals. BUT, today was the twenty fifth day in a row (only counting the consecutive days that I have worked) where I had an exact amount. Pretty interesting actually. Considering most items are something that ends in a 9, its not all that easy to do. And most people are buying items that are by the pound. So when it comes out exactly to the dollar it is kind of neat.

Anyway, its probably only interesting to me, but what the heck. Its MY blog.

Tomorrow, I'll write about the call from, are you ready? HEAD OFFICE on Friday. Also, tomorrow is the Around The Bay road race (30K) and the Bay and Back race (5k). I am going to watch the 5K race tomorrow. Its amazing to see all these people coming down this long street running right towards you. I have a lot of people that I talk to regularly about racing. We have a 'running' store across from us at work and they are allowed to use our parking lot if they shop in the store. I went last year and was surprised at how many people ran by and said "Oh, look. Its the cashier from *****."

Hopefully the weather is nice tomorrow.

Off to bed now to rest up for all the cheering I have to do for my customers tomorrow.

Water Issue

You've heard the saying "All talk and no action"? Well, I have to somehow get the cashiers to ALL bring a bottle of water to work on the same day. There is security in numbers. They can't send us ALL home and they would get tired of writing us ALL up.

I think a mistake management made was in letting people have water and then taking it away. I don't know that its right to allow it, even though it was not 'policy', then decide to enforce it after two years (at least). The proper way may have been to say "look, I am allowing you to have water, not pop. Screw it up and you lose it. THAT'S IT." And even then it should have been the irresponsible punished, not everyone.

So, if you feel strongly about an issue you have to try to do something about it. The thing that the girls didn't do right was to push the boundaries. Eating at the register??? What kind of idiot does that? And an open pop can or juice bottle with a straw in it? Accident waiting to happen. And you don't really need a bottle big enough to water an army, evidenced by the fact that so many of them used to be left behind.

So, come on people. If we want to be hydrated this summer we have to all agree to actually DO SOMETHING. I know there are three of us with the guts to act.

Talk to me.

Fun at work today

Its 1 am, and I can't sleep so here goes :

WOW. I got to work Saturday, the 21st, and was told I was training one of the new girls. I was a little nervous, yup, nervous at first, but soon settled into it.

I hope I didn't scare her about the bagging stuff, but I have a real thing about that. This was actually her third day of training so I think it was actually a good time to work on the finer points of bagging. At first she was making some pretty bad (in my eyes) choices about how to do it. She also still uses too many bags and has some inappropriate items together. But it doesn't come over night. When I was first trained they took a whole week to do it, and one day was spent on bagging alone. So these young kids don't have much of a start before being thrown in the pond to sink or swim.

I think she has potential, but that being said I trained a girl before and, though she started out strong, she faded fast and disappeared when she found that it was work. Hopefully this girl will stay around. The customers liked her and she did not get at all flustered by the few mistakes she made. And even the mistakes were very minor and not stupid, but just things that can happen to all of us. Get a little finesse into and there'll be no stopping her.


Also, quite impressed with our new customer service girl. Hard to take the fact that she is young enough to be my GRANDdaughter but that aside, she is really blossoming. She used to be a shy quiet little thing but wow, this has given her a whole new persona. She suddenly has this aura of confidence. So nice to see.

Good on ya, Sparkly Girl!!!!

By the way, this is the same girl I wrote about a couple of days ago. The 17 year old. And yes I am pleasantly surprised and ashamed of myself for thinking she was not up to it. She has stepped up to the plate and done an excellent job so far. Time will tell as to whether she can handle the snarky customers and some of the pressure that can go with the job. But so far I stand (or sit because I'm at the keyboard right now) corrected. If the transformation thus far is any indication, customers shouldn't be an issue for long, if at all.


By the way, it was really busy at the store today. Guess it must be all the end-of-spring-break crowd. The new girls did very well.