Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Buy it, or don't buy it already

Cold food needs to stay in the refrigerator or freezer. It's pretty simple -- even my son figured it out after he got food poisoning from drinking left-out apple juice. But we dumped a half a cart load of meat, frozen and other perishables last night. A couple had a "form of payment problem" (read that "the card was declined"), and instead of coming back 20 minutes later, they returned 2 hours later, and still couldn't pay.

OK, where are the brains? Customers, cashiers, CSM's? After they didn't return in 20 minutes, wouldn't you have found somebody to sort the food, pull the perishables and at least put them in a cooler? But no, two carts of unsorted food sitting out for 2 hours. It wouldn't have been safe to sell to them at that point, anyway.

So I sorted -- perishable, now perished food in one cart, non-perishables in the other cart. Perishables to claim out and destroy, non-perishables to restock. I left the perishables for another cashier to tag, and left with the full cart of non-perishables to restock all over grocery. Break. 2 1/2 hours of doing nothing that I expected to do.

Now, rest of the night I ended up doing returns -- clearing out things that people returned, decided they didn't want when they came to the checkout, or left lying around the store. Department staff are supposed to come up and get it, but everyone is short-handed. So we take it to their department if their bins are overflowing. Here -- restock this! Unfortunately, most of them are waiting for us with another cart of mislaid stuff that guests have left all over their department. So it's an endless circle of delivery and pickup, ala FedEx. Big difference, if I worked at FedEx, my paycheck would be better!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

I wish I had lost control this time

I'm not a violent person, but last night's customer would have persuaded St. Francis of Assisi to throw blows. How I escorted this woman to the door without putting her on the tile, I'll never know.

Without going into specifics, the photo department, me, a CSM all told her the same thing: If the deal is online, buy it online. The brick and mortar stores don't get the same deals. But she's already spent $3,000+ in our photo department (in the last week, last month, last year or her lifetime, she didn't say), and she expects she'll get what she wants.

When she doesn't, she resorts to a 4-year-old's tactics. She calls names. My CSM was the target. The name -- doesn't belong in a family blog. His verbal reaction and my facial expression matched. I could not believe this woman would drop to this unbelievably rude level. Then she repeated it, with a description. I finished her order -- +$700, and I would have liked to cancel it, tell her we didn't need her business again and tell her to go buy her camera, groceries and grill somewhere else. But her husband conveniently had started walking out the door with the cart. Probably knew what was going to happen and didn't want to be near her.

My CSM handled it better than I did -- he walked away. I finished the transaction and walked her to the door while she continued to berate our staff. I hope she never does shop here again. But I've checked her out dozens of times -- she will be back within the week -- probably tonight. Too bad the trash doesn't blow away.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Cutting it a little close

It's 7:55 and my break is in 15 minutes. Lady with really loaded shopping cart and two boys in tow pulls up to my register. Almost immediately, my CSM comes over and shuts off my light. "Go to break after this guest."

It will be a while -- she's price-matching almost everything. After taking off a few bags and loading them into shopping cart, two boys head for Family Fun Center. More like "Give Kids Loads of Quarters and Don't Bug Me While Shopping" Center, but I digress. Mom looks vaguely familiar, but we keep talking. I keep hoping something she says will refresh my memory about where I've met her.

This is a really large order, but Mom is on the cell phone. Not talking, but repeatedly dialing. Kind of weird. As the belt starts to get emptier, she explains. Every other week, she gets a check that's deposited into her bank account at 8:00. It's 8:05, still no check. Keep scanning, she says. It will come. It ALWAYS does.

OK, my checks are direct deposited, but they come in the middle of the night, sometime. (I try to be asleep when that happens, but I doubt it's at the same moment every two weeks.) It's not at 8:00 a.m., and certainly not 8:00 P.M. There's a fair share of frozen food here. Keep scanning? Really?

The cart is getting full, the belt's now half empty, and still no check. Son #1 comes back and starts rummaging in the candy near the checkout. He comes up with a couple of sugar-laden items. Mom says he can pay for those as soon as she finishes. Few more items to go, still no check. Order finished, still no check. She tries to run the card, just to see if it went in and hasn't registered, card declined. We're looking at each other, she starts to be hesitant -- it's ALWAYS come at 8:00 before. Hmm, wonder if it might be safer to start shopping the DAY AFTER the check is supposed to come, or at least checking out closer to 9:00. I ask her if it would be OK to suspend the transaction so I can check out her son (and anyone else who happens by). My break time has come, and Mom realizes it -- "Sorry, I'm keeping you from your break."

"That's OK," I say. What I'm thinking is "This is way too much fun to turn over. I want to know how it's going to come out."

Son #2 comes back for more quarters. Mom starts digging in purse for cash. My CSM comes over and wants to know why I haven't gone to break yet, and suspends transaction. I ring up her son's candy, and she says it has to be in. I put suspended transaction back in, and card is declined once again.

Once a transaction is suspended and re-scanned, a cashier can't re-suspend it. If I abort it, I'll have to re-scan everything (or more likely, some other hapless cashier will. I'll be on break.)

Mom checks with son #1. He has a $20 bill. She's got some money, and a little more money in the car, and she says she's going to run to the car and get it.

More than half the time, when people "go to the car" after a wallet, checkbook or cash, it's not really there. It's an excuse to escape, and we're going to have a lot of groceries to put back. Kids have now gone back to the game room, so maybe she is coming back. Kids come back to register to find out where Mom went, and head out the door. I see those chances slipping away.

But there she comes. Not looking very excited. There wasn't very much money in the car. She gets back on the phone, more frantic dialing to her bank. And finally, 8:40, check is deposited. We finish the transaction, and I head to break. She promises not to cut it so close next time, but you know she will. I just will try not to be the cashier that rings her up.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Is there a support group for that?

Some Wal-Mart Superstores have removed their fabric and craft department. Think about it -- I bought a nice blouse for $5 on the clearance rack last night. It would have cost me more than that in fabric and buttons to make it myself (plus years of sewing lessons, but I digress). My store hasn't given up on crafts. And last night, I found out why.

Scrapbooking addicts.

I am convinced that a few scrapbookers can single-handedly keep the department afloat. Last night, lovely young lady starts piling stuff on the belt. Piles of it. The clear cellophane sticker packs. 30 different kinds of peel and stick type. Plastic stencils. Colored brads.

"I know it's going to be about $300, but I love this stuff."

Wow. $300. My part-time check at Wal-Mart isn't much more than that. This stuff isn't contagious, is it?

The yellow plastic stencil of the beach scene gets tangled with some other yellow plastic stencil. I try to carefully free them -- she grabs the beach scene out of my hand. "Oh, that's going to be hard to do, but I probably won't use the surfer dude very often anyway." Surfer dude in scrapbook in Arizona? Probably highly unlikely, but go for it.

"Don't ya just love them?" she asks, as I scan Disney stickers by the handful.

Actually, no. I have a few Disney shirts, Disney stuffed animals I bought for my son years ago, but I'm not a princess or Tinkerbell fan. I smile and keep scanning.

"I have two whole suitcases of this at home."

I explain that I don't scrapbook, don't have time, work two jobs. Her plight doesn't do anything to change my mind. I would have piles of various stickers, stamps and fancy cutters that I would use very occasionally, then store in something. Truth be told, I'm trying to un-clutter my life. "You've got to make time," she trills.

No, I don't.

"Hi, I'm at Wal-Mart, checking out," she says to her cell phone. "I got a few more scrapbooking things off their clearance shelf."

A few more? Off the clearance shelf? That explains about four items on the belt. How about the other 83? Really. 87 items, almost all full price -- and today's price comes to $380 and some change. Wonder if she will share that info with whoever was on the other end of the phone?

Without choking or gagging at all, she runs her credit card.

If I had an extra $380 in my account, I'd do a weekend in California. Donate something to the food bank. Throw a party for my son and his friends. Bolster my church parking lot fund. Join a couple of friends in a Victoria's Secret shopping spree. Buy gas (OK, slightly overstated, but not far from the truth at over $3 per gallon). Not buy decorations for a photo album that will stay in my closet for eternity.

Somewhere, someone is creating "Scrapbookers' Anonymous." This lady is the future poster child.