So today I was reading over the old “Seven Deadly Sins of Safeway Shoppers” (there are a lot more than seven!) and I realized that many of them apply to my current job too! Yay customer service! Here are a few of them, in no particular order (except numerical);
6) Thou shalt not tell me that someone did something for you last time that is against the rules. I said NO! Now SHH!
At Slaveway, people would become extremely offended if I wouldn’t use an expired coupon for fifty cents off a can of Funions, like, the amount of offended certain parents would get if you told them that their child wasn’t really that gifted, that they too eat paste and colour on the walls. Good heavens, the fit that these people would throw! “I got to use this coupon last week!” Yes! And last week is now in the past! I think these people have contact lenses stuck in their brains. It was actually a bit fun! Now people expect me to replace their $500 lenses for free two years after they purchased the glasses because their dog ate them yet again (see charts in “Eyeglass Economics 101”)
Usual Perpetrators: Trashy men wearing pit stained clothing, soccer moms.
9) Thou shalt not talk on thine cell phone while going through the till. The penalty is brain cancer.
AGH! This one still makes me insane! At Safeway when people came through my till talking on the phone, I would immediately perk up and become Friendliest Cashier Ever, a character I invented to piss people off in such a way that they couldn’t complain. I would start asking them how their day was going, if they found everything they were looking for, what they thought of the current weather, all with a grin on my face that would normally indicate that I had just experimented with a wide assortment of over the counter medications.
I actually once had a customer cover the mouthpiece of his phone and say “Excuse me, I’m on the phone,” to which I responded, “Excuse me, I’m doing my job.” (Friendliest Cashier Ever went away for about 2.5 seconds while I became Light You On Fire With The Power Of My Thoughts Cashier.)
(Another true story about Friendliest Cashier Ever; I was once refusing an expired coupon to an increasingly irate customer, who finally asked “Where the (expletive) do they find people like you?” to which Friendliest Cashier Ever responded “Aisle 12, next to the sugar!” The customer then expressed some more frustration to which Friendliest Cashier Ever responded “Aw, you have a great day too, sir!”)
Now my job requires me to have much more involved conversations with people, and when we’re sitting down talking about their glasses and they start babbling on their phones (about some undoubtedly important gossip or, as was the case with one gentleman this week, very important business sounding words like “Merger” and “Asset”), it takes an enormous amount of strength to stop my ears from bleeding.
I have two responses to this situation; one is to sit there staring at them while I wait to ask a question or measure something, causing the discomfort to increase exponentially on a second by second basis until finally the person has to hang up their phone (“I have to go…the glasses guy hasn’t blinked in about 17 minutes”). The other option is to get up and go make my own phone call (or answer the phone if it is ringing) and then drag out whatever Important Phone Conversation I am having until at least 5 minutes after the customer has hung up his or her phone and sat there waiting for me. Are you calling me passive aggressive?
Usual Perps; Important Executives! and “cool” older women.
17) Thou shalt not sneeze on me. Seriously, ew.
Does this one require further explanation?
Usual Perps; Gross People.
22) Thine cashier resides solely at the till. We know not where every last freaking item in the store is.
I would always have people coming up to me at the till asking for directions to some obscure item like “Jackelope Harfin Norgs”, and when I asked what the crap it was they would snort derisively and launch into a 4 minute explanation that left me even more confused and suggesting they look at NASA headquarters or something. I spent 8 hours a day standing at that till! How in the hell was I supposed to know where everything was? And they would actually get mad if I called for a general clerk because they came to ask me cause they didn’t feel like waiting. I’m seriously still very flummoxed by this behavior.
Now I have people stumbling into my store asking where other stores in the mall are, and about 50% of the time, I’m not making this up, they insist that I’m wrong. I will get out the mall map that I have in the store, point to it, and they will still tell me that I am incorrect. They don’t give me a reason for why they think I am wrong, they just inform me that I am, beyond all measure of a doubt, wrong.
Another 40% will immediately turn around and leave without saying a word.
Many times, it’s a store that I haven’t heard of or cannot immediately recall, and the person will inform me “Well you work in the mall.” Yep. I sure do. You live on Earth! Could you please direct me to Starbucks in North Carolina? You’re WRONG.
Usual Perps; Old “privileged” women
23) Thou shalt not let thine children run wild and free, unless I am allowed to kick them outeth of mine way.
This one works the same at Slaveway as it does at my current store; There are parents out there who see their children growing restless and think “Now seems like a great time to run some errands! First things first, everyone have your bowl of sugar in syrup!” Then they (the parents) drink some Nyquil and hit the roads!
First stop, the grocery store, where they buy ice cream, frozen chicken nuggets and pizza, frozen fruit (to put on cake), and all of this shopping gives the kids plenty of time and space to run up and down the aisles throwing things at one another (did I mention that this is on a Saturday?) while the parents stumble around in a Nyquil induced (I pray) stupor. Don’t forget that the kids need that little burst of energy to keep them going though the rest of the mid-morning, so they have a healthy snack of hot chocolate and Lucky Charms with the pesky wheat-bits removed, and then they head off to the mall to buy some glasses!
There, the kids are free to demolish frames and run in and out of the store playing tag while the parents yell at the employees to hurry right the heck up because their groceries are melting in the car. Trust me, parents, we are going as fast as we can humanly go.
It’s nice to have this continuity from one job to the other!
