Pain in the ass

A drunk lady comes in and says she wants a blue Philly. Sometimes people confuse the purple grape for blue so I asked if that's what she wanted. She says "I want the blue one are you deaf?" We don't carry 'blue Phillys' so I don't know what the fuck she's talking about. I told her we don't carry that and she gets even more pissed off and says "I said I wanted a Dutch master. Are you trying to be a pain in the ass?" Bitch that is not what you said and now you're giving me an attitude? In my mind I'm saying "fuck you" but as a cashier I'm required to smile and deal with it. It's not worth arguing over and she's clearly intoxicated.

After she left I asked the girl behind her "you heard her say she wanted a Philly right?" yeah she did. But whatever I guess I'm just a pain in the ass.

Fuck Obama

I had a lady come in drunk the other night. I've seen her around town for years. She rides around on her bike with this stupid looking plastic cover over it. She usually seems to be talking to herself.

So she comes in around midnight and uses our photo machine to print a bunch of photos. Then she decided she wants to buy a photo album to go with the pictures she printed. She grabbed one that had been misplaced and she thought it was $5.99. That type of thing happens all the time, someone will pick something up, decide they don't want it and put it back in the wrong spot.  We went to the aisle and I showed her the correct spot and the correct price of $14.99 and she got angry. Then she asked if I could change the price 'just for her'. Uhm no I can't. Fuck that, I'm not risking my job over your drunk ass.
I politely told her I couldn't give her special treatment and she told me to go fuck myself. Yeah I don't think I can do that at work ma'am. She said "fuck (my store), fuck me, fuck Obama (not sure what he had to do with it) Then she just looks me in the eye and dumps her drink on the floor and says "Oops it was an accident". Bitch no it wasn't I just watched you pour it out.

As she was leaving she said she was never coming back ever again. Ok that's fine with me.
She was back at 7am.

Excuse me officer can you help me...? I need a pack of Newports

I don't know what this lady was on... But I want it lol. She comes in and buys some candy with food stamps, and then she wanted to buy a pack of Newport's. Those are our most popular cigarettes so it's one of the few items I actually know the price of off hand. They're $8.28 with tax but the lady only had $5 so then she wanted to return the candy to afford them. When I told her that wouldn't work she asked why... I don't know ma'am because you can't buy cigarettes with food stamps? So she hangs around for a bit, talking to me (I have no idea what she's talking about, I'm just agreeing with everything she says) and asking people if they can spare $3.
What was hilarious though was when a cop came through my line. She says "excuse me officer can you help me?" I thought maybe she was going to ask for a ride home since she was fucked up and mentioned she lived a bit of a (walking) distance away. Instead she says "can you help me officer...? I need $3 for a pack of smokes" lmao! It was so hard for me, and I think the cop too to not laugh at her. I'm also shocked the cop didn't do a sobriety test.

It was getting to the point where I was considering calling the manager to kick her out when she finally left. That lady was enough crazy for one night...

Donations & AsshoLeS

This month my store is taking donations for ALS (the disease Stephen Hawking has) and Cystic Fibrosis research. A message pops up on the register when I'm checking them out. People tend to be rude when asked if they want to spend there money on other people. I'll say "Would you like to donate-" and I'm cut off with a "no" before I even finish the sentence. I understand if you don't want to donate but you could at least let me finish the sentence asshole. Is common courtesy too much to ask for these days? It's sad when I actually do ask, and I'm thanking people for letting me finish a sentence.

Last night a kid came through my line, and after his receipt printed he asked if we were doing any donations. I was shocked because no one ever wants to donate when I ask. By this point I'd stopped asking and just hit no when the message pops up. I told him about our stores current donations and he bought a piece of candy just so he could donate $3. I was moved by the small act of kindness and I told him how I had given up asking people because all I got was rude replies. He laughed and said "I was sent here to tell you not to give up" and left. I started asking again after he left and actually got a few donations. So lesson of the day: not every customer is a selfish asshole.

The look

When ringing someone out, sometimes they get what I've dubbed 'The look'. They're checking the prices as you ring everything up as if you're intentionally trying to over charge them. They're head tilts to the side, mouth agape staring intently as if somethings wrong.Whenever I see 'The Look' I don't even bother waiting for them to say "Why isn't _____ ringing up at ____?" I just ask whats wrong. They're always confused, "How did you know I was going to say that?'

You people look retarded

Next time you're at the store take a look around, I guarantee there's an old person somewhere with this look on their face.

"Forgotten" cigarettes scam

There's an older lady that has came in a few times in the morning claiming she 'forgot' her cigarettes at my store. She says that she already talked to my manager the day before and they said it was ok to just give her a pack.

Really? Lady how stupid do you think I am? I'm a smoker, I'm  actually smoking as I write this. If you buy a pack of cigarettes especially with how expensive they are here in Connecticut you're not going to just forget them at the store. I refused to give her a pack and she left.

A few days later she comes back with the same story but this time she has a reciept to 'prove' it. Just because you have a reciept this time doesn't mean you forgot your cigarettes here. Anyone can buy a pack and just bring the reciept back the next day when someone else is working and say they forgot them there.

Nice try lady but no dice.

Next register please

So this just baffles me. In my store there are 4 registers. At night we only use 1. I'll be standing at one and the other 3 out of the 4 have this sign. Why is it everyone chooses the register that says "next register please"?Then they wonder why I wont come help them.

Read the sign dumbass.

Can't live without chocolate

A white lady and a black guy come up to my register together. They were buying condoms and Reese's. The lady said "I can't live without chocolate!"

Afterwards I wondered which chocolate she meant?

Snooki on my intercom

I'm not one to spend much time on Facebook, I'll just quickly check it on my iPhone every once in a while. However a week or 2 ago I was reading a friends status about Snooki's pregnancy that I found hilarious. It said her due date was the Mayan doomsday.

Btw, what happened to Lindsay Lohan's face? 0_o

The other night at work I had to page my supervisor for something, I can't even remember what. Apparently after I paged him I didn't hang up the phone properly. I continued ringing out customers and someone noticed US Weekly which currently has a pregnant Snooki on the cover. We started talking about her pregnancy and I started cracking jokes. A lot of them were from the status below, and a few of my own like if Snooki breast feeds her baby that kid will probably be constantly wasted and child services will probably go wait in the hospitals waiting room the second they hear she's gone into labor. I even quoted her from one of the few episodes I've seen. Personally I hate Jersey Shore. I think it gives whorible messages to our already retarded youth such as "this is the night to go all out and get drunk, steal a plant, have sex with an old man and get arrested"

Little do I realize everything I'm saying is being broadcast to the pharmacy and the back room. Thank god it wasn't through out the whole store.

After about 10 minutes my pharmacist friend I talked about in Crappy Finger Painting comes to the front. I said "oh hey _____ I've never seen you come up here before" he's laughing and says "just a tip you might want to hang up the phone"

 

 

 

9/8/12 update

  

 

I like how according to Google, Snooki's kid was born August 26th. So this baby is less then 2 weeks old and she's already throwing it in the spotlight.

 

I'm sure Snooki is going to be a great mom...



Bearded lady

This morning a hunched over old lady with a beard came through my line. I'm not talking about a little bit of hair, it wasn't as thick but it was as long as the picture above. I couldn't see her behind the magazine rack and thought she had left and I said to the customer behind her "huh, that lady had a beard." I didn't say it maliciously or anything, just casually commenting like 'oh thats interesting'. Then I saw her walking away. She didn't look back or say anything so I'm hoping she didn't hear me but I still feel like an asshole now. But at the same time, she has a beard so she has to know people are going to look at her odd. I don't understand why she doesn't just shave it.

Oops...

An important lesson in customer service, it's usually best to just keep your mouth shut.

Then start a blog and make all the comments you want on there.

Oh it's ok she was only attacked at knife point

So a man comes in last night to my 3rd shift job and asks if I feel safe in here at night. I said for the most part yes. There's a million cameras in the store, one of my supervisors knows martial arts and we have cops that sit across the street at random.
The man tells me "oh well in the newspaper a few years ago there was a story about a female worker in this store that got sexually assaulted"
So when my manager came in that morning I asked her what was up with that. She says "oh it's ok she wasn't sexually assaulted just attacked at knife point"

X_x
and that's supposed to make me feel better?

I guess what happened was the girl had let someone into our back room o use the bathroom when the man attempted to sexually assault her and pulled out a knife. A male co-worker who was sleeping in the next room woke up to the commotion and scared the man off. They said he was caught during his attempted escape. I guess the girl had a scratch but was overall fine.

But I love how my managers response was "oh it's ok she was just attacked at knife point"

Ok that makes me feel much better... Fuck that between this post and Crappy Fingerpainting I'm not letting anyone use our bathroom anymore.

The trick my co-worker played on me

This post isn't about a customer, but my crazy co-worker at my night job who's name I promised not to use. My co-worker... 'Matt' is a really nice Fillipino immigrant. He's 2-3 years older than me and has 'adopted' me as his new American little sister. We tend to get side tracked alot with random conversations, but he works hard and still helps me finish my work.

I have pretty crappy eyesight. About a month ago, I forgot my glasses at work so I called the store to make sure they were there and went in the next day to get them. I picked up a pair that looked almost identical to mine, but didn't notice they were just plain black. Mine have some dragonfly designs on the side. It took me a few days to notice the difference since I don't constantly need my glasses.
I thought I had picked up someone elses glasses by mistake and looked for mine at work that night but couldn't find them anywhere. I asked one of my supervisors if they had seen a pair of glasses, they said no and if they were behind the counter the store manager hates clutter and had probably thrown them out. I had just got these a few weeks before and was devestated at the thought of them just being tossed in the trash and I felt bad thinking I had taken someone elses glasses now intentionally to replace my own. I was going to leave the 'other' pair for their owner but my supervisor said they would probably just get thrown out and to hold on to them and she would let me know if anyone else was missing their glasses.

A month goes by and my co-worker and I started talking about the glasses, he said "how much do you want to bet those aren't your glasses" At this point I had accepted and really believed mine were long gone. He took my glasses and peeled some black tape off the sides, my dragon flies showing again! He said he hadn't known at the time who they belonged to and was just bored, messing around.

If it had been anyone else in the world I would have killed them, for making me think I had lost mine, and guilty about supposedly taking someone elses, but I'm incapable of getting angry at him because he's such a nice guy. I was just relieved to have them back and realize I had them the whole time.

So word of advice, make sure you keep an eye on your personal belongings at work so you don't have to go through something like that.

Also I wanted to take a picture of my glasses to show the design on the sides, but I forgot them at my dads house a few days ago..

How 'bout some fries wih that shake?

Like many stores, ours sells little paper placards for different charities throughout the year. You pay either $1 or $5, and we give you a little paper card to write your name (or anything you want, for that matter) on. We then display all the cards for everyone to see. Remember this. This will come up again in a later post. Pretend you're surprised. Anyway, the charity we're raising money for this month has, appropriately enough, shamrock-shaped cards.

During my shift yesterday, I had a customer who looked a lot like Carl from ATHF. Here. For reference:



When I asked him to purchase a shamrock for charity, he replied, in a very thick and nauseating voice, "I'll buy shamrocks if you tape them on (he gestured to my boobs) and give me a shamrock shake. Heh heh." I kept a completely straight face, looked him in the eye and replied "Sorry, sir. I'm not McDonalds. That's the only shamrock shake you'll be getting. You can find them across the street."

After this, I immediately went to my supervisor and told him that "anytime a customer buys 2 $5 charity placards, we should have to give them a mandatory shamrock shake. And not the kind they serve across the street". I then gave a little demonstration and walked away, leaving him staring open-mouthed at what I just did. Then from behind me I hear "Oh my god. Yes. Please do it."

Artichokes...My weapon of choice.

In my line of work, you'd never think you'd have to contemplate what your weapon of choice would be if you needed to arm yourself in the grocery store. When you're a cashier, you have very limited resources. If you worked as a grocery stockperson, you already get to carry around a box cutter. As a cashier, yes we have guns, but they only shoot lasers. Weak lasers. In the shape of a 3" bar. Not what I'd consider useful. Just saying.

Fortunately for me, I learned that artichokes can be useful weapons. No, really. How did I discover this? An old man attacked me with some. About 12 of them actually. For you educationally challenged folk, yes, 12 is a whole dozen! I was nearing the end of my shift when an old Italian man with a heavy accent came through my line with a hibiscus plant and an armload of artichokes. First I scan the hibiscus, and I hear "No! No much!" Um, what? Apparently he meant that I was charging him too much. I pointed out the little price sticker that said $14.99. "No! Is $2.99!" The hell it is. To humor him, I got the floral department manager over. She politely told him that the hibiscus was $14.99 and that maybe he read another sign by accident. Surprise surprise, the guy decided he didn't want the plant. Fine by me. Whatever. So I ring up his artichokes. Being out of season at the time, they cost $2 each, so his order came to $24. "No! Too much! You no make it $24! Not pay that!" I respond with "I'm sorry, sir. They really are $2 each and I'm not allowed to change the price." At this point, he starts to leave and I assume I'll just be voiding his order and taking the next customer. Life is never that easy. He turns back around and begins throwing the artichokes at me and yelling god knows what in Italian. Not only are artichokes solid objects and not fun to get hit with from the get-go, but they have these tiny little prickers on them like cacti! After being hit with 4 or 5 of the dozen he threw, he makes a face at me and leaves the store.

So, if you ever find yourself in need of a way to defend yourself in the produce section, artichokes make great weapons and and should be your projectile of choice!

Greetings from the new guy. Erm...new gal!

Hello faithful readers! My name is Anita, and I've been in the retail game for almost 15 years. (Kill me now. Please. Anyone? Bueller?) Anywho, I'm a 30ish year old female and I work as a cashier with MJ in Mentaltown. I've worked in various retail positions, including customer service at a department store, jewelry department manager, head cashier of a grocery store, etc. So as you can imagine, I've seen my fair share of things at work. I've been assaulted with groceries, I've threatened to kill a manager, I've been hit in the parking lot. What I'm trying to say is that I've got stories and you've got free time. Let's get together and waste some time, shall we?

Crappy finger painting

I was talking to my pharmacist friend at work the other night and he told me this story.

Years ago when he worked at a different store, one day there was a boy around 12-13 who asked to use the bathroom. He led to the kid to the bathroom, but after being in there 20 minutes or so he knocked on the door and asked if everything was ok. The kid said yeah and he would be out in the minute.
The kid comes out of  the bathroom and my pharmacist friend goes in to find that the kid had been doodling. Finger painting scribbles covered the bathroom wall, with shit.
The kid had been finger painting with his own shit, in a drug store bathroom...

My pharmacist friend went and found the mother and said "hey I'd like to show you something" and brought her and her son to the bathroom. The mother asked the kid if he had done it and he admitted. She slapped him and told him not only would he be cleaning up his mess, he would also be cleaning the entire bathroom until it was spotless.

Unlike in Potty Time I applaud that mother.

Fried chicken for seizures

A guy at one of my jobs had a seizure the other day. At first I had no idea what was happening, my supervisor just said "go outside and wait for the ambulance to arrive" when I asked what happened he told me to just go outside and do what I was told.
I went outside and a manager sent me back in as the ambulance was arriving.

I had to help a customer find an item near the aisle where the guy had the seizure so after I helped them I was curious and walked down to see what happened.

My store manager had brought a chair over to the guy and was talking to him. He told me to go get the man fried chicken. I just said "yes sir" and did as I was told.

But I was thinking, out of all the things in this store that could possibly help this man, fried chicken?

The guy was fine in the end.

Potty time

I was cleaning up behind the counter in the photo area when I stumbled on a left behind picture. At first I thought "this would be great for twitter and the blog" so I took the pic and tweeted it but on second thought I realized I could potentially get in trouble over it so I deleted it from twitter and my phone.

However I see nothing wrong with describing the picture.

The picture was of a little girl that looked wasted. I'd guess she was between 2-4. She had fallen into the toilet and the caption said 'potty time'

My first reaction was lmfao.
Thinking about it, the pic was cute but as a parent why are you taking a picture instead of helping your kid put of the toilet? That's some great parenting lol.

5 things NOT to do at the store

#1 Do NOT talk on your phone when you're checking out. I'm standing here waiting for you to pay, I'm busy, I have shit to do. Don't just stand there ignoring the cashier while you bull shit on the phone. It's rude assholes.

#2 DO NOT try and hit on the young attractive cashier if you're old and creepy. You're just embarrassing yourself and we're not interested.

#3 DO NOT throw away full open containers of beer, dunkin donuts, etx in our garbage cans outside its fucking disgusting when you have to change the over flowing garbage can and it's leaking beer and coffee everywhere. Just dump it out first or something.

#4 If you're at the grocery store and you decide at the last moment you don't want something or can't afford it, just give it to the cashier. Don't shove bacon, ice cream and other frozen foods in our magazine racks and then bitch that it's expensive. It's your fault for damaging our products. We lose money on that stuff and then you have to pay more.
Also you people aren't slick when you're shoving some unwanted item in the back of whatever.

#5 Especially during 3rd shift, contrary to popular belief we have a lot of stuff to get done, why do you think (most) stores look nice and well stocked when you come in in the morning.
DO NOT waste our time because you can't make up your mind what candy bar you want. Come to us when you make up your damn mind.
________________________________

Sorry this post is kinda pissy but god people is this stuff too much to ask for?

"your ass looks fine to me"

An old fat man that reminds me of Danny Devito with what sounds like a russian accent comes into the store. He delivers the newspapers in the morning and came in early to buy cigarettes before his paper route. He says "I see you in here all the time, you seem like a hard worker" I said "yeah I've been working my ass off lately" he looks behind me like he's looking at the cigarettes and says "you're ass looks fine to me" Dude you're old enough to be my grandfather, get the fuck out of here.