hey, you. yeah you, gnathumper. The one smirking that tomatoes are technically not a vegetable so my rant before was silly.
shut up. leave me to suffer my grocery store woes in miserable peace, damnit.
Well, a number of years ago I was forced to officially transfer my grocery shopping custom from Eagle Foods to Kroger, because Eagle Foods was trying to go for the “Hi, we’re your Friendly Country Market!” approach, and it drove me crazy to have the checkout people comment on my groceries. Constantly. “Oh, apples! Those are nice-looking apples, too!”
“Um, yeah…”
I once individually selected a bagful of 8 or 10 nice big Gala apples, and My Country Market Friend picked them up and said in concern, “Now, did you know these are on sale in the 5 lb. bag?” And swelp me, she handed my bag of apples to another checker and told her, “Go get her the 5 lb. bag.”
“Um…” Aw, heck, too late.
The last straw was one day when I did a HUGE unintentional two-cart “stock up and save” shopping spree. Everything I usually bought was on sale, incredibly cheap, like mac & cheese dinners. So I jockey my carts into line, and she says brightly, and loudly, “Oh, you must be with [name of local adult foster care home].”
“Um, no… Why would you think that?”
“Why, all these groceries!”
“Um, no, it was just a really good price on mac & cheese…”
I fumble around for words. By now everybody up front is staring at my hoggish shopping practices.
So now I go to Kroger, where they totally ignore me. It’s bliss.
And second the motion to hire only the mentally handicapped to bag groceries. I always flinch when I see a certain Kroger manager come bustling over to bag my groceries. I beam thought waves at him. “You’re too busy, you really ought to page Kimmy to come do this, she’s back in Dairy restocking…” He always gives me what seems like hundreds of plastic bags, each with only a few items in it. A bag will contain one jar of coffee, the aspirin, and the TV Guide, for example.
I happen to be a mod over there. Trust me, Broomstick-we would NOT condone how you were treated.
You think that’s bad? Read Oh Gross, Parents to be Proud of and Freaky Customers.
Another thing about Kmart that drives me absolutely batshit is that they do these charity things twice a year-March of Dimes and Give Kids the World. The kind where you sell a paper little thingie for one dollar, and the person signs their name on it. They keep saying, "Always say, “And would you like to make a donation to GKTW,” and what have you.
It pisses me off because-
a-the customers hate being solicited, and often yell at me
b-I refuse to do it-I absolutely HATE soliciting for charity, it goes against every belief I have about that
c-the managers keep yelling at me-I tell them the customers don’t like it, they won’t listen.
So, it’s like I’m stuck.
Sometimes, the cashiers may start asking questions like, “Oh, would you like to pay with your store credit card,” not because they want to-but because they’ve been threatened by managment with write ups and even firing-yes, I’ve seen it happen.
So, if you have problems with the way they do business, don’t tell the cashier-chances are she has no control over it. Complain to managment.
The grocery stores around here are also back into this fad of making you join their little “Savers Club!” where you only get the sale price if you have their card. ARGH! Fuck you!
My grocery store doesn’t have the “saver’s club” thing and they’ve started the advertise that as a perk. Which I agree with 100%
I wish the Onion had archived online the article from March or thereabouts about the mentally handicapped kid being the only one at Burger King who knew what he was doing. Classic.
Anyway, when I worked at Hy-Vee I once listened to the woman checking in the aisle next to me get into a discussion of birth control responsibility with a guy who was buying condoms. Also Classic.
-Myron
PS: For real fun have you and a bunch of your friends join the Savers Club and then all trade cards every once in a while. Throws off their Marketing Departments. "33 year old single white male, buying Tampons, Jet Magazine, Wild Turkey bourbon and Pampers. O. K. "
Actually, I believe it’s still there-Mentally Disabled Employee only decent worker at BK or something like that.
And here it is . . .
http://www.theonion.com/onion3702/burger_king_employee.html
Would you like that in paper or plastic? 
Okay, so I haven’t worked in a grocery store. But I’ve worked in the kids section of a large bookstore/cafe. It made me seriously consider adding to the gene pool, except for the fact that my left nut can parent better than some of these assholes. (The parents who yell at their child for misbehaving when they’re stuck in a bookstore at freaking 11:30 pm made me want to scream)
And I never started up a conversation with someone based on something personal they bought. That’s just embarrassing. I rang up gay porn, sex manuals, books on all sorts of medical problems and you know what? Wasn’t my business. I even tried to bag them so the titles didn’t show through the cheap plastic.
There’s one exception … a young lady was buying a couple of books on marijuana. “It’s for a project.” She then very hesitantly asked if we had any magazines on the subject, since she wasn’t able to find them. “Sure,” I said, having shelved them many times, “near the cafe, right next to the adult magazines and tattoo magazines. Can’t miss 'em.” The shade of red she had attained upon returning with a handful of cannabis newsletters made me feel sorry for her.
Okay, maybe another anecdote. I was chatting with the chick in the music department when a guy comes up and asks “Do you have any … you know … adult books?” “Sure,” says my co-worker, “they’re right over there in the psychology section, straight ahead.” He wanders over there, then a few minutes later snaps his fingers and hollers across the store, “Miss! Miss?!”
She later confided that she was rather tempted to yell “THE GAY PORN IS RIGHT THERE SIR, TURN AROUND!”
I think the point of the “savers club” cards is to allow the store to track your purchases for their unknown and nefarious purposes.
Which is why I generally use my Big Bear card only to buy things like pimentos, taro root and canned Tasmanian devil.
Well, that must be it, because the shit I buy is never on sale.
Of course, I’m weird - I buy fresh fruits and vegees, rice, noodles, plain bread… almost none of the processed and pre-packaged stuff.
Anyone else annoyed by the checkout bullshit you get with your receipts saying basically “TRY THIS!” and it’s some overpriced, overprocessed sludge with a temporarially reduced price - which normally sells for twice what you usually buys goes for?
Yes, it did. Walgreens Home Medical Supply, on Clark Road just south of Howard at the very north end of Chicago, right on top of the Evanston border. So sorry, but truth really is stranger than fiction, and funnier, too, if you have a morbid sense of humor.
Broomstick-
UGH! I veered your thread a little off course. Sorry for that.
Originally posted by Long D.
I know this is no consolation, but with what cashiers and sackers are paid, it’s unreasonable to expect much.
(pldennison said):
Actually, it’s completely reasonable. The customers aren’t in charge of how much you get paid. If you don’t intend to do the best job possible while you’re at work, then fucking quit. But don’t slack off and punish the customer with subpar service just because you don’t like what your employer pays you.
Let me rephrase that. It IS reasonable to expect good service. It may not be realistic.
I can see both sides of the issue. Cashiers and sackers can be some of the most aggravating dipshits on the planet. Some of the sackers where I work actually avoid me now. I'm always yelling at them when they're in the breakroom avoiding work.
(I really gotta learn how to quote other threads in a new one. Then multiple quotes)
To the guy who figured I'm Union: HELL NO! I do make more money than I figured I would in a grocery store. I only took the job to pay rent/bills until I go back to school......and only because of the wage.
Y’all have a good one, LongDistanceOperator
That was supposed to be a new thread. Ugh. What a dork.
“What’s the prescription for?!” at top volume over the counter when they can’t find your stuff right away.
“Amphetamines! I’m having a party!!”
It’s always the gyno-rectal-psychoactive meds they do this on.
It’s odd, I just realized that I have very few bad experiences shopping at grocery stores. I’ve had a few INTERESTING situations, but in those cases the staff helped me the best that could be expected, I had no reason to be mad at the store or the people who work there.
When I worked a regular 9-5 job, I used to absolutely detest going to the grocery store. The service was always crappy, nobody knew where anything was and they didn’t care. Now that I work midnights and weekends, I frequently do my shopping between the hours of 9-5 M-F and I’ve noticed it is completely different. I actually like to go to the grocery store now. Because the Jewel by my house is a union shop and seniority dictates who gets the best shifts, the most senior, most experienced people work 9-5 M-F. As a result, you get a crack squad of checkers who actually care about their jobs during normal working hours and a bunch of newbies and goofballs on weekends and nights. It makes all the difference in the world.
Oh, lord, the pharmacy I used to use had staff sorta like that. They’d fill the prescriptions, then ask: “What’s it for?” My thought is, hey, you work behind this counter - presumably you know how to use a PDR. Figure it out for yourself if you need to be nosey. They also made comments like, “Man, is this for that really bad cough? 'Cause that’s just bad.” Thank you for alerting me! Before you made that insightful and acute remark, I was unaware that I even had a cough, let alone that it was bad; I was merely buying the highest-strength prescription cough syrup because I like purchasing pharmaceuticals so much, and my doctor only wrote the Rx because she appreciates the opportunity to help me pursue my little hobbies.
But, Rosebud? Do tell them it’s your antidepressant when you go on Prozac. You might get quite an interesting reaction. When I started taking Paxil, I was still shopping at the pharmacy of the curious. The pharm tech checking me out asked if I had ever taken the med before, and I said no. While we were waiting for the consult, she leaned across the counter, looked into my eyes, patted my forearm (which was on the counter), and said: “You’ll feel better real soon now, sweetie. It’ll be okay.” When she handed me my bag after I’d paid, she said, “You just hang in there, now. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
I felt like I’d gotten in the line for therapy-style pick-me-ups rather than the one for the pharmacy. I mean, it was nice of her and all, but we’re talking about one of the most common prescriptions in the western world; surely she must realize that not everyone who takes SSRIs is teetering on the brink of suicide.
This topic has been priceless. Brings a cheer to an otherwise horrible month. My customer persona is a polite but not overly talkative automaton. I find I like the service people (checkers, tellers, waiters) the same except when I’ve known them for a few years.
COOL! I’d been getting bored.