One more month down

February 1. I'm finally writing 2007 more than I'm writing 2006. Another month at Wally World.

I have a dream. Instead of schools teaching kids how to diagram sentences or the electron structure of boron, both of which I learned and never, ever had to use again (outside of teaching my high-schooler the same information he will never use), schools need to start teaching consumer survival. There is no final exam -- you have to either learn the lessons now or learn them the hard way in life.

Week 1: If you can't afford it, don't buy it. Credit cards aren't free money. If the card is declined because you didn't pay your bill, you didn't learn the rest of this lesson -- don't take it out on store personnel. And please don't ask to apply for a Wal-Mart credit card at the register at that point.

Weeks 2-3: If you are on food stamps, you are failing consumer survival. In this country, responsible citizens work, pay our bills, eat and repeat the process. It's your civic and moral responsibility to try to get off welfare. If you are getting government subsidies, don't waste them. Class debate: I suggest that states go back to coupon booklets and kill the cute credit cards. People should be somewhat embarrassed to use welfare. And they should only pay for staple food, like WIC checks do. Soda, candy, chips and snack cakes are garbage foods that schools have now banned -- why should our government allow poverty-stricken families to buy that for their kids? Meat, vegetables, fruit, milk, bread, tortillas, flour, cheese, juice and the like are the foods these kids need. And every adult who is getting welfare should be taken into a grocery store for Shopping 101. You can price match. You can buy good values. You can buy cheaper cuts than ribeyes and buy larger quantities of other meats, if you are in survival mode. If you can afford ribeyes, you don't need welfare.

Week 4: Job interview skills. What to wear and what not to wear. What to say and what not to say. How to take out nose rings and various piercings. How to fit in socially in Middle America. Basically, there's your time and company time, and only one of those is giving you a paycheck.

Week 5: Individual survival. You can live without a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, parents, babies. Life happens. Great lesson for the siamese-twin high-school couples, and one to file away for later, when people leave and spouses die. At some point in your life, maybe lots of your life, you will be alone. Deal with it.

Week 6: Look for the bargains. It's worth it. There is no crime in shopping on clearance racks, bargain stores, thrift stores. Take care of what you buy. And use it until you've used it up. I walk by the $3-5 per pair underwear racks every day. My 88 cent cheapies are fine -- and they do come in black. My husband thinks I'm sexy because of how I act and feel, not because I'm wearing $5 per pair thongs. It's perfectly OK to buy day-old bread, sale items and generic brands.

Week 7: Remember Lesson 6? Now that you having savings, you don't have to panic when the water heater breaks, when your kid has to go to the doctor, or when you and your husband want a weekend away. You have savings and you don't have to scream at Wal-Mart associates when layaway is gone and you don't know how you're going to pay for Christmas.

Week 8: Almost there now. Lots of forms. Tax forms, checkbook registers, loans, insurance... Yes, you can follow directions, meet deadlines and take care of yourself and your family.

Week 9: Review for mid-semester exam. Written essay on the meaning of the term "work ethic."

Weeks 10-18: Field trips, guest speakers and simulations on consumer responsible living.

How can parents turn loose kids into this world who don't have a clue what they will face? Maybe parents should have a final exam before they can conceive!

You can shop here -- but there's no free lunch

It would be easier just to tell customers "Shop here, eat later." Because anything involving eating or drinking in a Wal-Mart store creates some kind of problems.

Consider soda, juice, tea, Sobes, Starbucks and assorted energy drinks in the coolers. Accessible. No one is going to tackle you the second you take one from a cooler and drag you by the ear to the nearest checkout. Honestly, I wish they would.

The soda isn't a perk for shopping here. Drink it in the store, you still have to pay for it. Spill it in the store, someone still has to clean it up. Some of our customers apparently don't get this.

Look around the store today. You can probably find a soda bottle or two that someone opened and drank, then discarded. $1.28 bottle of soda, no charge. And because there aren't enough eyes to see whether every customer pays for everything, some of them are going to walk. Most of them, actually.

What it comes down to is a lack of personal responsibility. Don't drink it if you don't intend to pay for it. Don't let your children touch, use or break what you don't expect to pay for. Please don't let your children teethe on packages, then give them to me, saying you don't want to purchase them. YUCCCHHHH! Don't have kids if discipline is a dirty word.

If I ever see this one customer coming, I'm shutting off my light or having a CSM check her out. Twice now, she's been in my line, and twice, I've wondered if I ever want to work here again. Two little brats that obviously have never seen any discipline.

1st time -- as I'm checking mom's groceries out, she's talking on the phone. Mini-mommy and her little sister are playing with everything on the shelves. They find antibacterial hand cleaner, the alcohol-based stuff. Bingo! Both sisters are covered from fingers to elbows in the stuff. It's dripping on the shelving.

"Hey, girls, that's not for trying if you're not going to buy it," I say. Mommy, still on the phone, pulls them toward the cart, giving me a dirty look and making no effort to pick up the container to buy it. A few minutes later, the girls are right back at the stuff. The older one gives me a "Nyyahh" face. I check their groceries as fast as I can.

Maybe two weeks later, they're in line again. Little one playing with stuff on the shelf, older one now trying to annoy me. Tries to spin the six-bagging-station carousel. I hold it. She backs off, I go back to bagging, she spins it again.

"Don't spin it until I'm finished filling the bag," I say. Matter-of-fact, not angrily. Enough to encourage Mom to restrain her child.

Apparently, she didn't read my comment as her cue. "Don't be rude to my child," says the enraged lioness.

"I wasn't rude to your child. I asked her not to spin the carousel. I don't want to get injured while my hand is in the bag."

"You were rude. 'Please' goes a long way."

Lots of "pleases" go through my head right then. "Please don't come in my line." "Please tie up your children." "Please learn how to parent." And especially, "please, kid, don't make that mocking smile when your mommy's stupid, because some day, mommy won't be there."

I go back to holding the carousel whenever she tries to spin it. If it takes twice as long to check out her groceries, I don't care. Maybe she won't be back -- in my line, or to this store. I can only hope.

Same with the 60-something couple that needed a heat-rub for sore muscles. I was accosted by them going to my break, and I walk them to Ben-Gay area in Health & Beauty Aids. They start opening jars and tubes, smelling them. Then the lady tries some on her arm. Hey -- every product in our store isn't a tester!

But I digress. I'm really sick of writing off stuff, like antibacterial hand cleaner, empty candy wrappers and soda bottles that people think we won't miss. We're a corporate giant. And you're just a sorry excuse for a human being that came with no morals attached. If you don't pay for it now, you'll pay for it in higher prices later.

Gracias, de nada, burrito

When my son was in middle school, he took a semester of Spanish. Basic beginner stuff. Colors, numbers, simple phrases. One evening, he came home and explained what he'd been working on. "Gracias" means thank you, and the typical answer isn't you're welcome, but "de nada" (it was nothing). So the next time I said "Gracias," he said "de nada" in such a way that I thought I missed what I was supposed to say next. I looked at him and said "Burrito." "Gracias, de nada, burrito" has been an inside joke for years. But I admit, the rest of my Spanish is pretty nada.

Working in a Wal-Mart store in Arizona is like a Spanish language immersion program. Unless you consciously avoid doing so, you pick up a little of the language. Most of the time that's helpful. Forgive me in advance, there are no little squiggly things to put over n's to make them sound like y's.

Si, no, si y no -- Yes, no, yes and no.

Muy bueno -- Very good!

Huevos -- those are eggs. A helpful phrase to know when handing a customer a sack. I always prefer to scramble eggs for breakfast by my stove, not at register 9. I think that's a universal thought. Of course, huevos can have another meaning, but I don't think a cashier's going to refer to a guy's huevos as they hand over a grocery sack.

Bano -- The little boys and little girls rooms.

Ninos and Ninas -- male and female rugrats that often need the banos.

Dinero -- money.

Targeta -- card, like a gift card or credit card.

Uno, dos, tres... -- counting up to 15 is helpful, and thanks to Sesame Street, I actually could do this pre-Wal-Mart.

Hola, gracias, por favor, adios, buenos dias... -- social graces go a long way.

Abierto, cerrado -- open and closed.

Of course, many common items need no translation. Tortillas, jalapenos, chiles, we're good.

This is a shared thought among many cashiers. Sundays are fine. The store is crammed, but time passes quickly if you're on a regular register because of the two- and three-cart orders from the Hispanic families. Usually one adult will be filling the belt and the husband or an older son will be filling the carts. I don't have to stop, load six bags of groceries and go back to scanning.

OK, sometimes the language barrier does give us problems. One night I rang up about $125 of groceries for a Hispanic group. Two adult women and one adult man. They dug around frantically for money. The man, speaking the most English, said "We only have 19 dollars."

"Nineteen?" (OK, so why did you bring up $125 in groceries).

"Yes"

"Nineteen dollars?" I wanted to make sure before I took the next action.

"Yes. Sorry."

He starts handing stuff back to me to void from the order. I figured, don't bother. I'll just abort the transaction and start over. Once I do this, my station pages a customer service manager. As a cashier, I can't act like I'm ringing your groceries, hand you the slip and abort the transaction so you don't have to pay. I'm sure people have tried that, but not possible. Fortunately, coding various actions to the CSM's is simple, as they carry this Palm Pilot-like device.

"What did you need?" my CSM asks.

"The customer said they only have $19."

"Nineteen?" she asks.

"Yes." And this time, he hands her the bills, upside down, and I see a $20 bill. Something's definitely not right. And I feel very stupid.

"You don't speak very good English, sir, and you meant NINETY, right?" Really frustrated man nods.

She is able to clear my abort action and I take a dozen items off the order. They pay, and they're on their way. While our Spanish-speaking customers sometimes create issues, they pay with American currency. I wish some of them would attempt more of our language, now that they're here, as I try to make customer service happen in a language I don't speak.

What shall we wear?

If you've read the trade publications, Wal-Mart is going through some changes. It's impossible to stay on top of the retail world if you never change. So we're changing schedules to make sure we maximize staff when people are in the store (WOW, absolute brilliance). People don't just shop from 8-5 Monday through Friday any more. We need more staff evenings and weekends.

Also, the traditional blue (or red, magenta, green and brown) smocks are being retired. You know, the ones covered with associates' Wal-Mart pin collections. I once asked if that's how you tell how long someone has worked for the store -- it's inversely proportionate to the amount of empty space not covered with pins on their smocks.

Anyway, instead of the back of a smock saying "How may I help you?" we're supposed to say it. Anyone with any kind of customer service background doesn't need a smock to say that. But now everyone is going to go blue and khaki. Or is that tan and royal? Or brown and navy? Basically, the dress code depends on who you talk to. It's not going into effect until Feb. 1. Or probably later. You ever try to change what 1.8 million employees are wearing overnight? There aren't enough khakis in every Wal-Mart in the world for that.

Apparently, the change follows a new Wal-Mart top executive hire from Target. My thought is: Take your ideas back to Target. We don't want to be Target. We're No. 1. Now you go into Target, it's a red polo and khaki pants. Pretty soon, you will go into Wal-Mart -- blue polos, khaki pants. How imaginative.

I thought the smocks were great. Slip it on, you're in dress code. Now, there's the decision of where to change before work. No, I'm not going to start wearing some shade of blue and some shade of brown to my other job all day. Changing in the Wal-Mart bathroom? Who are you kidding?

Actually, it won't be uniform. Apparently any kind of tan-khaki-brown pants/skirt and any kind of royal-blue-navy shirt. So you might have a cashier in a navy blue sweater and a khaki skirt next to a customer service manager in a royal blue polo and brown slacks, and they'll both be in dress code. Pity the poor customer who comes into the store in brown cargoes and a blue sweatshirt. "Excuse me, sir, can you show me where the cosmetic department is? Overnight, people may remove two colors from their wardrobes. I know I consciously won't walk into Target in a red shirt -- it makes ME the Target!

Currently, it's easy to point a guest to a customer service manager. "Go over there and talk to that lady in the bright red smock. She can get you change (an RV permit, an associate to help you carry that plasma TV you are returning in from your car...). Now, everyone, even management, will be identical -- sort of. I'm not sure that's such a good thing.

Plus, where will we display our pin collection?

I thought I was a cashier...

Sometimes it's not so busy at Wal-Mart...

Working a register at Wal-Mart when it's slow is an acting job. The act is knowing how to find something to do to look very busy. Reading a magazine is too obvious, as is chatting on a cell phone. Most of us have slipped in one or the other of these occasionally. Scrubbing shelves or reorganizing entire displays is real work. So what passes for meaningful work:

• Cleaning the belt. Each register is supposed to be equipped with a roll of towel and a spray bottle filled with a blue mystery liquid. At first, I thought it was watered down Windex, but apparently, it's some cleaner, diluted to a recommended level and mixed by the vat. Nice to have on hand when the 10-pound chicken thighs burst open (ughh). But during down times, one can clean the belt that shoppers cover with toys their kids have drooled on, assorted overripe fruit, leaking raw meat containers, half-thawed ice cream and gooey detergent bottles. No wonder guests don't want to put their white clothing on it. After working here, I don't want to put anything on it that's not itself toxic.
• Facing and putbacks. Guests often come to the front of the store with more than they actually will pay for. Typically, they dump it in the aisles of checkout impulse merchandise. That isn't so bad, unless it's refrigerated or frozen merchandise. Please, folks, if you decide you don't want your ice cream, meat, yogurt or frozen vegetables, hand them to the cashier. We will make sure someone runs them back to the appropriate refrigerated or frozen area. Otherwise we have to claim it out, which results in higher costs for all of us. If it's not cold, cashiers stash it under the register until it's not busy, then take it to a go-back area -- customer service, return cart or even the correct shelf. Taking back empty carts and hand baskets means another trip and a couple more minutes. Finding an empty package of something someone ripped off stashed under the beef jerky -- another couple of minutes to go log it. And so on until more guests come to check out.
• Red Lining. A definite two-edged sword. Cashiers are taught to provide "aggressive customer service" by meeting guests at the "red line," an imaginary boundary in front of the register, separating the front end from the sales floor. At one time, Wal-Marts probably had red lines, but now it's akin to sending someone on a snipe hunt. Like the "blue stars" that are supposed to be on the self-check registers -- they've gone the way of 8-tracks and dinosaurs. Managers don't see it as aggressive customer service -- they see "bored cashier doing nothing." They leave instructions like "Send any red lining cashiers to go zone toys."

A side note, here. I think there are two employees in toys at our Wal-Mart, even during Christmas. Itinerant cashiers make up the rest of the staff. That's why, if you ever go into the toy department during Christmas, guests know more about the department than the staff -- if you're lucky enough to find staff. But associates -- toys or cashiers -- don't really get to zone toys, which means pick up all the out of place items (more are out of place than in place every night). They're more like Tickle Me Elmo TMX's or Wii's -- they aren't on the floor more than a minute when three guests are tugging them in three directions.

So if toy department or cashiers don't straighten toys, when does the straightening and stocking get done? Legend has it that overnight inventory control staff does it between 2 and 5 a.m.

So to avoid being punished for "aggressive customer service," we act busy where the customer service managers can't see us. Straighten soda coolers. Fill the grocery bags on the carousels. Help another cashier bag a large order. Clean the particles that multiply under the scale trays. It's far more work to act busy than to be busy when you have a line five-deep with guests.

U-Scan? Do you really want to work here?

Call it "FAST LANE," "U-SCAN" or "SELF-CHECK," it's all the same to me. One of the worst duties a cashier can draw.

Look at it this way: Typically, 95% of the interactions a cashier has with a guest are positive. We scan, bag and sometimes stash their items back in the cart. We're friendly to them and we either entertain or ignore their children. We use the hand scanner to prevent them from lifting heavy items, or we lift them ourselves. We call for carryouts. We can type in quantities at one time, and even price match. We can add minutes to their phone cards, activate phone and gift cards, and allow them to pay their Wal-Mart credit card bills. It's a pleasant time.

Now, there's self-check. Flip the statistic. 95% of the time that a cashier has to get involved, it's not positive. The machines can't see if a guest is old enough to buy an R-rated movie or Super Glue. It doesn't know if security items are deactivated. It doesn't make produce purchases simple. It only has two small bagging stations, as compared to six on a typical cashier station. And some days, they are just really tired personal computers in disguise. So, for a cashier, it's "chase the red lights." Scan personal bar code, fix problem. Try not to infuriate too many customers in the process.

With all of the problems those machines can create, wouldn't thinking guests choose a regular checkout? Oops, I put the word "thinking" with guest.

Can self-check see a person's age. Nope. Cashier intervention with alcohol and any restricted material (certain auto chemicals, Super Glue, R-rated movies and mature video games, spray paint, etc.).

Can self-check do phone card or gift card or cell phone activations? Nope.

Can self-check handle a check for payment? Nope.

Can self-check handle WIC (the commodities program for women, infants and children?)? Nope.

Can self-check split payments between you and your roommates' debit cards. Nope.

See the pattern? Unless you have a few, very normal food or general merchandise items, and you want to pay with one form of payment -- cash, credit or debit card, please stand in a real line. If you screw it up, expect to stand there a while. We've begged management for signs (not to give the guests ala "Here's Your Sign") but signs that say "20 or less items, no phone cards, checks, gift cards, fabric, ..." But we still have the guests who think this is a good place to bring two carts of groceries.

"Last week, the cashier helped us through our whole order."

What I wanted to say: "Last week, it was probably 10:30 p.m. and the cashier was probably bored out of her/his mind. I have to watch four self-check stations, and I can't be your personal cashier. Go to a regular checkout."

What I really said: "I'm sorry, this is 'self-check.' I will help you if you have problem, but that's why it's called self-check."

30 seconds later, a red light. Customer has hit "Help Requested" button.

Sometimes it's one customer working in tandem with another customer. You distract cashier, I will rip something off. Other times, it's just stupidity. I can, and I will suspend transactions when a guest keeps asking for assistance. "Here. I'm going to take the bags you've filled and the rest of your purchases to register 5, and let (insert lucky cashier's name here) finish your order and give you personal assistance.

The worst ones are our own staff, who bypass the four self-check stations, walk to your assistance terminal and demand "ring me up." I'm sorry, I am watching four stations. Unless we're four deep and you're on your 15-minute break and you ask real nice, I'm not your personal servant. One cashier tried this on me -- I walked her items over to the nearest self-check station and proceeded to scan and bag them there. "Do you need any help with the payment?" I asked, and walked off to help someone else.

I don't care how much it costs -- where is the UPC?

Perhaps my teenage son doesn't realize this, but not too many years ago, cashiers actually had to type in prices and do math in their heads to make change. Every item had a price sticker on it and instead of scanning UPC's, cashiers typed in the prices. Department staff did price changes by removing these little labels (with label pullers or heat-emitting devices), not like today's managers, who can go into the computer and with a couple of keystrokes, discount an item or even an entire line (Christmas merchandise 75% off!).

That's what makes it so interesting when a guest brings an item to the checkout with no UPC. "Um, ma'am, there's no UPC on this"

"Huh?"

"There is no UPC -- you know, the bar code that we scan. Did you happen to notice what the price was?"

Here's the point that will determine how long this operation will take. Three options: FASTEST) The guest knows the price and it seems reasonable. SLOWER) The guest knows exactly where the item is and that we need one with a UPC attached. BETTER FIND ANOTHER CHECKOUT) The guest is clueless about the price or is trying to pull a fast one.

Take, for instance, the 1 liter bottle of refrigerated Evian water of which the guest already had slammed half. Eating or drinking food in the store, by the way, is not a crime. Leaving it in the store half-eaten is, however, a one-way trip to the booking station if you are caught. So is leaving the store without paying for it. However, this guest handed it to me to scan.

"It was in the back of the store in the cooler."

Her boyfriend piped up, "I could run and get another one."

While her boyfriend runs (a slow stroll, actually) for another one, the customer lets me know exactly how Wal-Mart retails. "They put coolers back there just so you are tired and thirsty when you've shopped that far through the store." Actually, ma'am, there are coolers all over the store, because people aren't so much thirsty as they are impulsive. And impulse merchandise is a huge part of what Wal-Mart and every other retailer sells.

I've finished checking all of the woman's merchandise when boyfriend comes back with another identical bottle of Evian. Identical to the missing bar code. Heavy sigh. "I know," boyfriend says. "None of them have bar codes on them. But the cooler said 'Evian water, $1.40'." That I can deal with. It's a price, a reasonable price, and I can department price it and move on.

Now, when a guest, or my customer service manager brings back a second one, usually with a UPC, it's hilarious when the guest suddenly wants the one with the UPC. The UPC meant nothing to them before, now it's critical. "If it's OK with you, can I have that one?" Sir, do you think I'm totally stupid? I'm going to give you this one and then put the one without a UPC back on the shelf so some other cashier can go through this dance again? Sorry. No.

Finally, there's the guest that actually tore off the UPC by design, in order to rip us off. "No UPC?" I'm sure it said it was $1.50. Sure. Notice how many Wal-Mart items end in zeroes. This No Boundaries top is new merchandise. Not a clearance item that's been in the store since last May. Or there was the customer who brought me clothing whose tags "just came off" when she was trying them on. But the cashier wins again. Most clothing sold in our store have UPC numbers printed on the clothing labels themselves. Type in numbers, and the actual item and price appear. Amazing how she didn't want most of that clothing at the real price.