Once I figured out who the deaf cashier was, I would beeline for him/her every time. The speed of another human doing the scanning/payment/bagging for me without the annoying chatter. Perfect.
husband sounds like an ass.
Kudos for target for hiring handicapped that face enough barriers in life that being a Target cashier seems like a good gig.
Having some kind of heads up to communication challenges on her nametag would be useful.
This exactly.
When a deaf woman who works at our library (who incidentally has a degree in library science) was hired as a shelver, she told me it was the happiest day of her life. She has since moved up to the cataloging department. The obstacles deaf people face in joining in with the normal work-a-day culture of our society are huge.
FWIW I had a problem with something like this a while back. I bought my new computer at a store that works basically online, so I bought all the parts of my computer online, then went to the office, paid for it, and went to the storehouse next door to receive the pc, the person who gave it to me was deaf. The thing is it would’ve been ok if it wasn’t because (i thought at first) there was something wrong with my order (I wanted a kit that included speakers, but the guy gave me headphones instead), so I tried to tell him that what he gave to me didn’t match my order, and it was impossible. He seemed unable to read lips, i don’t know sign language and there was no paper/pencils in sight. Luckily, in the end it turned out i was wrong (I had bought the kit with the headphones by mistake) so i just apologized for the trouble and left, but what if i was right?, it would’ve been quite a hassle to solve the problem i think.
And I’ll bet they never hear any complaints either.
It’s a little unusual, and may not be objectively optimal.
But gah! What are we made of? Paper? Does a slightly unusual situation cause up to spontaneously explode? It doesn’t physically hurt you, cost you money or take more than a couple minutes of your time. And it makes someone else’s life way better. I think it’s awesome.
Husband also posts on this board. Any further personal remarks of this sort will be posted in The BBQ Pit, not here, understood?
I think, by definition, unusual situation wouldn’t come up with such regularity as once an hour. I also find it hard to believe that success at up selling is truly a measurement of a cashier’s job. However, even if it was, certainly the management knew what they were doing when they placed her there and adjust her specific goals accordingly.
I think it’s fine and I’m willing to risk some hypothetical inconvenience for the cashier’s tangible benefits.
My sister (who is Deaf) was the first Deaf cashier hired by a large supermarket chain in our region. They have since hired many more. She is able to speak fairly clearly (especially when comparison to her friends) but she only used her voice together with laminated sheets made up especially for her. The sheets inquired about things like loyalty cards and things like that. I forgot to add, she also wore a special button under her name tage which read “Hello, I am Deaf” so that customers would know that she was Deaf when dealing with her.
She was a dynamo at her job, unfailingly polite and always very conscious of her non-verbal communications. Customers would often line up at her till when her lines were longest, she developed quite a loyal customer base herself.
She has since moved on to a better, higher paying job.
There are limits to what she can do (for example, she could not join the military), but working as a cashier is not one of them.
I agree. I don’t really mind if cashiers want to talk while I’m checking out, since I’m sure that the job is boring for many of them if there isn’t human interaction.
However, as a natural introvert, I would consider it a BONUS if the cashier just quietly scanned things and didn’t want to talk with me.
Chatting with customers is not, in my opinion, an essential aspect of the cashier job. If you have a problem during your transaction,just go over to the Customer Service desk after you check out.
I’m pretty confident that Target hired this person because it gave them a tax break or some other financial incentive, not because they were trying to help out a disabled person, but I think it’s a fine thing that they did.
I apologize for the cretin/Neanderthalish remark, as I did not know the OP’s husband was a Board member, and I’m sure with the right type of training, he could eventually become a useful, productive member of society. (I keed, I keed.) But I’m still taking the OP’s side on this and fully support Target’s move even if their motive does turn out to be a tax break or something.
I prefer self-serve setups, but if there wasn’t one I’d prefer the deaf cashier over a hearing one anyday.
I don’t think chitchat is an essential function of a cashier. The cashier in the OP’s scenario was clearly able to communicate and proactive in establishing communication by nonverbal means. As far as I’ve observed the average hearing cashier is unable to answer any question of consequence without consulting a manager either. For that reason I don’t think the Deaf cashier is operating at any significant reduced effectiveness. For simple questions a notepad might be helpful.
I do not think disabled people should be hidden away if they can do the outfront job. Frankly, it would be a violation of Federal law to do so. And here, the cashier clearly could do the essential job tasks with the exception of greeting the customer verbally.
It’s not about that. It’s about the cashier’s ability (or here, inability) to answer questions or complaints. “How much is this item?” “Wait, the price sign said this was $5; why is it ringing up at $5.50?” “Can you check to see if there are any more in stock?” “Do you match competitor’s prices?”
Communicating with customers is an important part of a cashier’s job. I’ve been a retail manager, and I would not have hired the woman for that position, any more than I would have put a legless man to work in the stockroom.
Not from the store’s point of view. In particular, getting people to apply for credit cards helps the store’s profit margin. The deaf/mute employee is going to be less effective at that.
I guess this particular cashier would have had to ask another worker to help out - or just have a whiteboard for both customer and staff to write on. The latter would be a slight delay, but not much.
Do you often ask the latter two questions at a supermarket? That sounds more to me like a question you might ask someone on the sales floor at somewhere selling computers or something where there’s actual selling involved rather than questions you’d ask someone just ringing things up on a till.
If she could do the job with an accomodation that costs you nothing or little - such as being permitted to keep a notepad at her station, and having laminated cards for credit offers as described by another poster – you’d be in for a hell of a lawsuit.
Deaf people (and people with any disability) just want to have the equal chance to work and usually really want to work. The standard of work ethic for a hearing Target cashier, frankly, is not all that high. I’ve encountered plenty who couldn’t be bothered to answer a question or just shrugged. I’d take a cashier who uses a notepad over one who just doesn’t give a fuck any day of the week.
The first question is dumb because every target I’ve ever been to has those scanny things that tell you the price of the item and where it should be living so you can find more if you find a package of cool tube socks in the soup aisle and want another one, the second is not the cashier’s fault for the customer not being able to figure out which sign goes with which item. The third question is better directed at a sales floor employee because if you’re ready to check out, you’re done shopping. And the last question is dumb because no one gives a shit about pricematching and if they do, there’s always a huge sign at the customer service desk that says We Match Competitor’s Prices! Drive to the other stores and do the legwork yourself. Don’t tie up the line because you want to save 5 dollars on your pair of jeans or whatever.
All a cashier needs to do is be able to ring up my stuff and put it in a bag. Maybe the gift card but when I do gift cards, I hand it to the cashier and say 25 dollars or whatever. I don’t stand there like a robot lacking direction, waiting for the question, “How much should I put on this card?” before I can respond. Anything about pricing, quantity of materials or any of that crap can be just as easily handled by a salesfloor employee or a customer service employee and if it’s that difficult for you to work with someone who can’t talk, get in a different line and let those of us who handle adversity well get on with our lives.
As I posted above, the way around that is with a sign, the cashier uses “flash cards” and a smile, it worked well for my sister.
Well, not any more. I haven’t worked in retail this century.
But as I think on it, **SciFiSam **has a point. I managed electronics salespeople, appliance salespeople, and apparel salespeople; all of those required a great deal of interaction with the customer. Certainly in the first two cases you were meant to have a conversation with them. This simply can’t be done with most customers if the salesperson is deaf.
I can think of several occasions when I would have killed to have someone more fluent than me in ASL, though.
It is not a retail manager or salesperson’s job to decide what question is dumb or smart. It is their job to help the customer in a way that leads to maximum purchases.
As for your remark about the scan it yourself devices – well, I don’t frequent Target, but I do go to Walmart. The one I go to most frequently does not have nearly enough of those, and people often have to stop an employee and ask where the it is.