And Another One

I have had a busy two days.

On Wednesday K was unable to get in because of highway conditions. Icy. Snow blowing. Better all around to stay home and stay safe.

Having said that guess who was nominated to supervise for the day? You guessed it…..me! Because I am able to do everything!

Pull orders. Answer pages. Answer more pages. And more.

Yesterday I swear I was going to murder someone.

I know not everyone thinks like me, but common sense would dictate that you do not put a new cashier at the Express checkout. Give your head a shake. When the 2 p.m. supervisor came in I suggested he move her to a large till and put someone a bit more experienced in express. It did not help.

I was helping meat department put out smokewall items and chatting with a co-worker. Out of corner of eye I could see a regular customer eyeing me and I was a bit unsure of issue.

Customer (male): That is the one there right?

I turn my head a bit because I am fearing an ambush (not really but was bewildered) and his wife walked up to the cart. She looked over and said:

Yes that is her! Excuse me I would just like to tell you that you do an awesome job. I see ypu all over the store helping people and I wanted to tell you that.

I beamed. My smile could have lit up the sky if it had been cloudy. But I sure did give the pale lemon orb in the sky a run for its money.

You know it means more to me to receive a compliment like this direct from the customer then to have BB tell me. Knowing that there are those who appreciate my service and SEE me not the uniform…..I have no words to express how hearing that directly makes me feel.

Other than my lighting up shinier then a Christmas Tree with all its lights on.

Grocery Etiquette #106

Do not lie to me.

It is as easy as that.

And most especially do not lie to me about being told you could bring the receipt back be refunded your $26.00 so you can then use gift cards. On a receipt from three weeks ago.

My hackles were already up.

The minute I saw her I knew why she was there. Looking to return something for her ‘dad’. Always purchasing the wrong items. Now though she needs a new system to return them because her dad has been coming in to shop as well.

She told me the cashier told her it would be no problem to come back. That we easily could just call it up and correct it.

First you cannot call up anything on our tills. And most especially not a damn thing that has to do with orders that are paid for three weeks ago. People really do not have a clue how registers work.

As an aside a woman came running up to me asking me for my scanner so I could check something for her. I looked at her with cocked eyebrow and explained that I do not have a scanner, our systems do not work like that and I could go and check in the back for her. Although I already knew that there was nothing back there.

Another aside, our back area is not a magical cavernous space where we have billions of extra product just waiting to be brought out for a customer. That is not how stock and inventory works. Despite what people believe.

Another aside, had a customer annoyed because we no longer carry colored Kraft marshmallows. We have our name brand, but that was not good enough. Have to be Kraft-this despite the fact that the marshmallows are the same-but hey if you want to pay double for the name by all means…..

And another aside. I ruined her dessert. Customer was very annoyed with me when I told her that Christie no longer made the chocolate wafers she used as a base for one layer of her dessert. It was like I personally shut them down as she put the whipped topping back and said that she could no longer make her dessert. What was she suppose to do? Not sure why I apologized, but I did.

Back to the reason for my story. So she and I argued back and forth about this. I told her that I required all the items as I had to refund them all then re-ring them back in to be paid with the gift card. She held my line up up for 5 minutes while she argued back and forth with me.

Jay’s hard ass voice came out when I told her that going forward she was to record the name of the person that she spoke with regarding returns or actions such as these. As I needed to talk to the cashier that told her that. But it was not the cashier that was on her receipt. LIAR!!!!!

After all of that, she than says to me ‘oh I have another return to make.’

My dead eyed stare made her ‘kindly’ turn to the customer behind her and say well you can help her first. Than she tried to go to the self checkouts to do her other return. Forced back to me I took down her name and phone number again and after she left wrote on the receipt that if they had questions to come and see me.

Whether or not she truly believes that I am an idiot I do not know. But when we have problem returnerers, we make notes on them. And when you work 40 hours a week and have dealt with this woman more than once, you remember her.

Could I have been nicer? I could have. I could have modulated my tone. I could have tried better to school my bitch face. I could have…..

I could have but with her, I won’t.