So, I got a summer job at a grocery store to keep me busy before college starts in the fall. And, of course, to save up some money for myself. Besides the money, though, I’ve noticed that it gives you great people experience (as in, it teaches you how to deal with really shitty customers after standing on your feet all day while holding back hunger pains and wanting nothing more than to just go to sleep already). So, as you can imagine, I’ve managed to compile quite a lengthy list of complaints and grievances. Here is just a small preview of the kind of ridiculousness I encounter daily:
1. No, I don’t know what’s on sale this week. My job is to ring up your order and not blow up at you when you ask annoying questions–not to sit around and memorize sale prices from the weekly flyer.
2. Yes, I did ring it up correctly. Everything is according to UPC code. There is no way I accidentally added $5 to your order, so hurry up and pull one of your ten credit cards out of that designer purse and let me move on to the next customer.
3. If you’re going to sit there and watch me scan all of the items on your $200+ order without bothering to start the bagging, thus forcing me to do it after ringing up your order and holding up all of the customers behind you for even longer, do not then complain that you don’t like the way I bag. Why are you using double paper bags, anyway? Stop killing trees and either use the fucking plastic or bring your own bags. They’re easier to carry, anyway.
4. Don’t sit there obnoxiously tapping your foot waiting for your receipt after you’ve held up everyone else for 10 minutes by insisting on having two separate orders, paying for each one half with debit and half with cash, re-doing all of the bagging and then trying to return an item that you didn’t realize was $1 more than you originally thought.
5. Coupons. No more than 20 per person, please. The money you’ll save isn’t worth an extra 10 minutes ringing up your order. And don’t act like it’s a huge inconvenience when I have to ring for the front-end manager to give an override because of how much money has been taken off of the order.
6. At the end of my 8-hour shift, do not complain to me that you’ve been in a store for nearly an hour and get no help from your spouse or children in doing the grocery shopping for your family. I don’t give a shit.
And believe me, I could go on. But I’ll spare you the rest. Despite what you may think, I’m actually a pretty patient person. During the school year, I worked at the after school program we had for the younger children whose parents worked and couldn’t pick them up until later in the day, and I had to deal with a whole bunch of kids from pre-K through the fourth grade. There’s a lot of crying, screaming, name-calling, cheating on homework, pushing on the playground, etc., but that’s the sort of behaviour you expect from someone who is six and has spent 8 hours at school. Not someone who is 40 and accidentally picked up the wrong can of tuna fish and has to run back to aisle seven for it. Boo-hoo.
Hope things get better for you soon. Too bad your store doesn’t have dedicated baggers.
#2 actually is an issue around here, because the people responsible for assigning prices to the items in their system make mistakes often and the price on the shelf doesn’t match the one at the register.
Oh god, I so do the two orders thing. But it’s for a good reason and I pay for both with debit. One tends to be my mother’s and the other tends to be mine and neither of us like to pay for each other’s groceries on our own cards (which might be because I rarely have enough money to pay for both on mine, so it would be her paying for both…).
But I totally agree with all of your complaints. The other day I was buying breakfast cereal and it took 20 minutes in a 1-8 line and I was only the second person in the line up!
I’m desperately searching for a Summer job for the same two reasons as yourself: to pay back my student overdraft that I’ve somehow blown this year, and to pass the time away. I’m not having much luck at the moment, but I’m sure it’ll improve soon.
I really do know how you feel, though – I used to work on a delicatessen. We used to get shitty obnoxious customers in complaining that I’d sliced their ham too thin/too thick, had put too much/little oil in with their olives (they keep them fresher for longer, don’t you know…) or that I’d cut their miniscule piece of cheese too big and they were on some faddy diet. We even had a woman come in and complain that the piece of blue (yes, I repeat BLUE) cheese I had sold her was mouldy.
Keep at it, though – the money is always a bonus. Plus, it gives us something to rant about, which seems to be something we all need sometimes.
hey it’s alex (from 9th grade) haven’t talked to u in forever (kind of awkward as well), but i couldn’t not comment on this….hilarious
oh, and i put a heart after the hilarious, so it didn’t post the rest of what i said, which was…………you should write for a magazine. u don’t work at that huge warren stop&shop at mountain blvd do u? i always drive by that place… alright, well, i miss u. if you ever wanna talk my sn now is lilalex37
I’m pretty sure paper bags are a lot better for the environment than plastic bags.
 Reply: The plastic bags are typically the ones customers bring back and reuse, unlike the paper bags which usually tear and are thrown out. Plastic bags also don’t kill trees.
I was told once that jobs like the one that you took helps one realise how it feels to be in the shoes of people who have to literally do this for a living. But apparently, it also shows how people can be silly really and petty. I’m sorry you have to go through stuff like this. It’s sad that people do not know that good communication is a two-way thing.
Stuff like this was very apparent when I moved to Singapore. Before living in Singapore.. and perhaps its just me but when customers yell at cashiers, the cashiers/baggers just remain silent or passive. At least, from my experience.. so I did not know whether or not people were just being unreasonable or whether their complaints are legit. In Singapore, I have found that people here are a little bit more vocal about these things, and I became more aware of it. I was probably guilty of #3 but now I’m more aware of how I should be doing my part.
Good luck on your job. It’s good to release your grievances. It helps you sleep better at night and take on the next morning.
I smiled at #2, by the way. I just loved the way you wrote it.
Oh don’t I know the feeling! I have experienced most of these… more than once.
We have cupon ladies at my work. We can pretty much spot them. We’ve had to give them back money before.
I’ve rang up a $1,000+ order before, thank god I didn’t have to bag it up. I felt sorry for the baggers though because it took 2 baggers and 5 carts to take out the order and the baggers only got 7 dollars. At my work the baggers only work for tips.