One note about speed of cashiers… We were timed via the register and it calculated how many items were scanned between the first item scan and the cashier pressing total. This information was posted on a chart along with over/short information and general statistics. I preferred express as I never had a bagger and at least on express the orders were theoretically smaller. The worst part of cashiering for me was having to get a replacement when I needed to go pee.
Is there any way you can transfer to a different department? Most stores make the majority of their staff start out on register hell but are willing to move them once they figure you’re not going to quit and are semi dependable.
I have never worked for Walmart and god help me if I did… my friend is blacklisted from ever working in any walmart for speaking against their crappy treatment of employees… gee like shitty retail jobs arent a dime a dozen.
I never knew that. No wonder the cashiers get that look of terror in their eyes when something won’t scan properly amd they have to key in the SKU manually.
Are raisies tied in to your scanning performance? That seems shitty.
As my retail ways have gone. I can say for one that I thoroughly enjoyed working retail. Sure you had some a-holes but I managed to work at stores with managment that would not always lick a customers ass. I was an assistant manager at a small radio shack which was great I had my regulars and then anyone that wandered into my store was taken care of any way possible. I was a discount king. And then I have worked at Best Buy, I worked the Computer dept as well as later on in their Upgrade center. Being in the computer dept if I had a bitchy customer that was nagging about pointless crap I would try and resolve their issue. But if they kept persisting and got on my managments nerve as well they were more than happy to have a tresspassing warning put against them to where they are not allowed in the store again. Hey we are here to help to be verbally abused. All and all though I would like to do retail part time again someday.
Wow. As far as register-timing goes, Staples cashiers have it easy. No timing or anything. When we get “mystery shopped” they time us - it’s supposed to take less than three minutes to get checked out, but I’m not sure whether that starts from the time they stand in line or just from when the first item is scanned.
Okay, not quite related but I have to say something before I kill myself about it.
Last night at work we had a thief. This is normal. Since store policy is that we can’t say word one to someone in the store (We might get a complaint if someone thinks we saw them put CDs down their pants) and are not allowed to pursue someone out of the store(liability) people are pretty free with walking out with a basket full of Playstation games. And yet, there is going to be great yelling from the manager and higher ups about “shrink”.
Can’t have it both ways, assholes. Either put up with teenager whining that you asked to see her bag or put up with punks walking out with DVDs.
This morning, while I’m laying in bed snuggling the wife, my mother calls and leaves a message.
“Sam’s Club is hiring! Why don’t you throw on a shirt and coat and go over and apply?”
Because, Mother, I will NEVER work for Walmart, just as I will never work for the Post Office. Remember how I finally had to break down and scream at you to stop suggesting that last year after hearing it more times than I can count over the last 22 years? Well, put Walmart in the same category of Hells that I will not go into and never fucking mention it again!
Hey, that’s fine. It’s my experience that caring parents (as you appear to be by that statement) usually don’t have kids that are grabbing candy off of the “impulse rack” in handfuls, and throwing it into the aisles, so it’s immaterial, anyway. (I never once had the parent of an unruly child refuse the free pony ride.)
In regards to the three-cent overcharge discussion, I remember seeing a “20/20” or “60 Minutes” report once on grocery stores, and it was the conclusion of the reporters that the overcharging was intentional. They reported the problem, but they returned a week later they found that nothing had changed.
It may only be a few cents per customer, but after a while, it adds up. A good deal of customers either won’t notice, or shug off such a small amount.
I noted the same problem at our store. We had a sheet we were supposed to record the item number of a item which rang up incorrectly, but it seemed that I was recording the same “sale” items daily for weeks on end. We cashiers used to groan when we’d hear of an item going on sale, because we knew it meant endless price checks (even if we knew the true price, policy dictated that we MUST call back each time and get the initials of the person who had confirmed the price.) For some reason, “sale” prices never seemed to be programmed in to the registers. (And, as I understand, all it involves is making a quick change in the main computer.)
Oh, how I hated the advsertising circulars! They were always issued about a week in advance, and people coming to the register expected to get the advertised price, having not noticed the small print. Dear Lord, did some of them get angry! “No, I can’t make an exception just for you. Well, I’m sorry you’ll never shop here again, but I’m not allowed to take a discount off on items.”
Color me confused, but what benefits does one get by deliberately being an obnoxious customer?
Benefits:
Possibly faster service because the salesfolks want to get rid of you ASAP.
Drawbacks:
Possibly slower service because the salesfolks want to retaliate against you.
Reputation for being an obnoxious pain-in-the-tuckus.
Risk of sabotage by disgruntled employees.
Risk of being ejected by management for treating employees like serfs.
Drawing attention to self in a negative way.
I’ve never worked in retail, but I always try to be polite to the salespeople I meet. I know most of them have crummy jobs and low pay, and I don’t see the point in spreading more bad karma needlessly.
In principle i agree with you completely. But, in my experience, people who are assholes generally don’t care about drawing attention to themselves or getting a reputation for being obnoxious, and in a disproportionate number of cases i’ve seen rude people get the benefit you mention (fast service) and apparently none of the drawbacks.
As i said before, none of this is likely to change my own polite behaviour, but it does often seem to be the case that rudeness leads to faster (although maybe not friendlier) service. Management often seems desperate to please every customer, no matter how obnoxious or unreasonable; i’d be quite happy if they kicked the pricks out, but it never seems to happen.
Walmart is cheaper than other department stores. (The Bay, for example).
This is because they keep costs down by providing less service.
If you want your stuff baged and delivered, pay more and shop at the Bay. If you want it cheap, shop at Walmart and bag yourself. The $$ you save is your wage.
Dealing with the low-echelon folk - cashiers, clerks, etc. try being nice - I would go out of my way for customers who were polite, and go out of my way to inconvenience those who treated me like crap. But, when you take a problem to management, be as mean a bitch as you can be - they’ll cave in to whatever you want, and often do more.
So, today, I was on the register and I had a customer come up with her purchase and a complaint. Seems the wheels on her cart decided to stop going round and round, and she pulled a muscle trying to move it. She wanted someone to help her carry her groceries out. After several attempts at paging someone- those little phones at the register don’t always work the way they’re supposed to, I flashed my light for my customer service manager. When he came, I told him the lady was injured, needed help, yada yada, the phone (which is also connected to the PA system) was making weird noises at me. He explained how to page for help- yeah, I know how to do that. I finally managed to get a clear line and paged for any available associate to come to my register for a carry out. In the meantime, my CSM called for an assistant manager to fill in an accident report. Fifteen minutes later, the lady was still sitting there. Eventually, the assistant manager came to me and asked if someone called for an assistant manager. I told him, yes, that lady was injured, wanted to fill in an accident report, and also needed help carrying out her purchase. Fifteen minutes later, she came back to the register and asked me to page again. I did so, then told her to go sit down and get off her injured leg.
Forty-five minutes after I finished ringing her purchase, the lady finally got her accident report filled in and left the store. Carrying her groceries, and a small baby, on her injured leg. I was sorely tempted to shut down, leave the long line of people waiting to check out standing there, and help the lady carry her stuff to the car myself.
My store (not a walmart) would insist that any customer injured in the store get checked out by paramedics at a minimum and would call an ambulance for even some of the more minor injuries. I know they were motivated by the ever present threat of lawsuit but for the managers at your store to do nothing to help the woman is just rude!
They probably didn’t believe her story but really should have attempted to error on the side of decency and caution.