I Love People

I've been working in the grocery business since I was 16 years old, in fact, I've been working for the same grocery store chain since I was that age. I don't have the same job that I did when I was 16 (whew!), and it's taken me to where I am today. I started in December 1989, yup - the tail end of the decade of Big Hair, speed metal, leg warmers, and the "brick" cell phone. I can't believe it's been that long, but it has. I checked the calendar. Twice. Then cried. All better now.

So, in these past 18+ years, I can't have helped but have a few good stories about co-workers and customers. I thought I'd share a few with you.

1. I was working the cookie aisle when another cashier was called up front to check. He thought that since he was more senior than me (union seniority ... blech) that it meant they should have called me first. He's complaining the whole way from the back of the store to the front, walking past me muttering the whole way. I say, "Steve, drop dead" and the guy goes down like a ton of bricks in front of a customer who begins to freak out. She freezes, turns to me all wide-eyed and starts to flustery shout, "Call a manager, call an ambulance, please, I need help." Steve picks himself up, dusts off his pants, and walks right past this dumbfounded woman and opens his register like nothing happened.

2. I was working on a register printer today, and I have the thing in pieces so I could replace the thermal printhead. I have parts spread out over the entire belt, and I'm covered in dust and old pieces of receipt from cleaning out the bottom of this thing. Some lady comes behind me and starts to unload her cart, while I am in the midst of working. I look at her and say, "Ma'am, this lane isn't open" To which she looks at me, and growls "Well, aren't you buying that?" "Yes ma'am, our store now carries IBM parts for printers. They're over on the chip aisle, but not the chips you can eat. May I show you to the day spa, and make you an appointment with Serge for your massage? We also have lion tamers and real penguins on sale with your club card on display in the lobby" is what I should have said. I fought to only respond with a "Ma'am, there is no line in register #5 and I'm working on the printer for this lane." (This happens all the time to me, I'll have a scanner/scale, printer or various other items taken down or in pieces, and customers invariably will pop into my line assuming I'm open, even with the obviously non-working register in plain view.)

3. There were recently self-checkout lanes installed into one of our stores that is under remodel. You know the kind, where you have a kiosk to ring your own groceries. They're popping up in grocery, hardware, and other big box retailers across the country. Well, since they are new, the employees are trying to encourage people to use them so that customers know they are there and to lose fear of using them. One customer got all up in arms when told that the self-checkout lane was open and no line. "I think it's an atrocity that you installed those machines. How dare you expect your customers to do a job that you are supposed to be doing." Yep, endless war in Iraq, genocide in Africa and self-checkouts - - - same, same.

4. Back in the early 90's, my employer was running a "Tapes for Education" program, where you could turn in your grocery store receipts to your school, they were tallied, and the school could send in the accumulated totals plus the paper receipts to cash in for books, athletic equipment, etc. My high school decided to run a contest to see what student could turn in the most receipts, and win a fifty dollar prize. It was a landslide - I won. I think you know how. Second place was another student working for a competing grocery store who had a similiar program. Apparently it wasn't even close. Hurrah for me and my Sega Genesis game.

5. My favorite story of all - I was late for work, and forgot my apron at home. I grabbed one of the spares from our broom closet and started my shift. At the time, we had this huge salad bar which did a TON of business during lunch since we were the cheapest, fastest, and healthiest option for the City Government office that was less than a mile from our store. Our company had also changed to a smaller plastic-handled bag, making it harder for the cashiers to bag someone's salad container, and being able to keep it flat. Especially the BIG salad containers, those things wouldn't fit in the bottom of the bag until you rocked it to one side and kinda wedged it in there. Most people didn't care, since their salad was a tossed one anyway. I found a way to be able to get the over-sized container in the bag without turning it into a gloppy mess. A customer comes through with one of these big salad containers, and I start to bag it. He says, "Be careful. I worked hard to separate two salads into this one container, and I don't want them mixed." I have no idea why he didn't choose to use two different containers. "No problem, I'm an expert at bagging these" as I squoze too hard and dropped the thing into a bag completely by accident messing up this guys work. I turned bright red, and he's pissed. He pays, rips the bag out of my hand and storms to customer service. He rips the poor lady a new one, and storms out of the store. It's at this point that I look down and realize that my name tag says "Rick". Bwah hahahahahahhaha ......