Shoes For Crews is what I wear. They were required when I worked at Jack in the Box, and even though I stopped working for them 12 years ago I still use them because they’re the best slip-resistant shoes I’ve ever worn and because I like the laceless slip-on low-tops that they make. I usually get about 4-6 months out of a pair - not too bad considering that the step counter on my phone tells me I typically walk about 60 miles per work week.
Day 8. 3-7 turned into 3-6:45.
I did something potentially pretty stupid that was nevertheless okayed by my boss- I left work a little early to take a customer home. What I didn’t tell her was that the customer was probably more than a little crazy.
I first saw her come into the store early in my shift, kinda muttering and eating some raisins. She came in later to get s drink, and s third time accompanied by a military veteran who told me she’d seen her hanging around outside the store and was concerned about her, and had given her some money for food and was hoping I could help her get home.
She’d been left there at our store by whoever her ride was. So, with permission, and perhaps against my better judgement, I left work 15 minutes early to get her home and then me to church in time for choir rehearsal.
She didn’t really seem dangerous, though. Just a little slow.
It sounds like you have found a great, humane, place to work. Customers are kind, boss is kind, you are kind. It’s uplifting to read this.
Day 9. A 3-11 shift on a Friday night.
Big story or the day was that a non-employee, a customer, came in to help us clean our advanced coffee machines, and showed me how to do it. It’s all right there on the screen; it talks you through it. It’s supposed to be done once an hour ideally, or at least once every three hours. Shit. Something that time-consuming? The machine would be down a decent percentage of the time.
It was fascinating watching the inside of the machine as it ran through its cleaning cycle, though. All those intricate wheels and gears moving at various times, like clockwork. Magnificent machines.
Something alarming today that I hope won’t be portentous. My coworker, one who’s been my greatest mentor so far, came in to work with a stomach bug that he caught from his niece, and word is it’s been going around the neighborhood. In fact, one guy threw up in the bathroom early in the shift. (Thankfully without leaving a mess for us.) My coworker spent the entire shift figuring something was gonna come out one end or the other, but nothing did.
I hope I don’t catch it. I hope I don’t pass it to my mother.
Before my 3-9 shift today, I got a pedicure and went to the shoe store, eventually landing on a pair of Skechers and some gel insoles. I did a little test-run by going through Food Lion on a grocery trip, and they feel real nice. Hopefully they’ll serve as good walking shoes.
For the first time, I’m going to bring my heavy winter coat to work with me today, in the quite likely event that I’m called upon to stock the cooler again like I was on Days 1 and 9, among others. I think one of the reasons I haven’t been doing very well on it is that it’s just so damn cold in there, 37 degrees, that my jacket just isn’t cutting it.
Day 10. 3-9 shift on a Saturday. A guy called asking for 40 jars of creamy peanut butter. We had two. He said he wanted to fill up his swimming pool and make s YouTube video. Okay.
A couple came, said they flew out to northern North Carolina from California to watch their son play in a high school football tournament game, which they won.
Sold a LOT of Powerball tickets today on the day of the $1.6 billion drawing.
You’ll get used to it. I’ve worked 12 years at the grocery store and I can go for over an hour at a time inside the dairy cooler without even needing a jacket. I would recommend a light pair of waterproof gloves, though, since your fingers can start to go numb in there after awhile, especially if the products you’re working with are wet, as is often the case with our milk jugs, which somehow arrive from the distributor dripping in milk despite none of them having a leak in them. Make sure they’re not so thick and heavy that they compromise your grip or your ability to use your box knife.
I assume this must have been a prank. 40 jars of peanut butter isn’t even going to make a dent in a standard bathtub. That’s about 5 gallons of peanut butter and a bathtub is about 80 gallons.
If I really stretch, I can imagine someone thinking that 40 family-size jars of peanut butter would fill a kiddie pool. It wouldn’t, but I suppose it might fill it enough for purposes of some YouTube or TikTok video.
Even so, why wouldn’t he head to Sam’s Club to buy a pallet-load for far cheaper than convenience store prices.
I mean, you’re asking a guy who thinks he’s filling a swimming pool full of peanut butter to be logical.
That’s my assumption as well. See if he can shock the poor minimum-wage guy working at a 7-Eleven. Son, I got customer stories weirder than that from before you were even born.
And he was all too eager to volunteer why he wanted that much peanut butter. When I said I only had two jars, and he wanted 40, he asked, “Do you want to know why I want that many?” I mouthed to the customer at the register in front of me, “This is gonna be weird.”
Well, at least it wasn’t sexual. The one prank call I could remember to the coffeehouse I worked at in college involved someone wanting to reserve seating for a large contingent of carnies coming through town. Took me a good 30 seconds or so to catch on.
Don’t be so sure.
Somebody wanting a pool, even an inflatable kiddie pool, of PB might, just might, want to frolic in it. Or film frolicking. Or something like that. 
Was he asking for creamy or crunchy? I mean different strokes and all that, but I know which I’d prefer in a kiddie pool.
Crunchy would definitely be bad for frolicking. Those peanut fragments are hard and jagged. Ouch!
hehe! He specifically asked for creamy, thank God.
The conversation did have one benefit (besides the amusing story which is making you guys laugh, and my church friend laugh): Now I know we stock peanut butter. One day, I want my manager to put me in charge of tagging for the day and I’ll be able to learn the inventory better.
I sat at Panera today, on-call in case another co-worker, a fellow new guy who’s apparently not known for being as reliable as I am, decided not to show up for his shift.
He was due in at 2 o’clock and showed up at around 3:30, my cut-off time for arriving at 4 and doing a 4-8 as my store manager requested. So I don’t work today. In fact, I don’t yet know the next day I work.
BUT!
The boss is already talking about a possible pay raise for me, once I’ve got the 7Now application fully learned! (Which is our portal to DoorDash). I did it once at my co-worker’s insistence, wanting to teach me these things, a few days ago. It was simply a matter of grabbing the items, scanning them with a device, verifying that they were correct, bagging and tagging them, and giving them to the Dasher when he arrived. (I didn’t do the latter part myself, because I was working on a very complex order on the lotto machine at the time, and my co-worker wisely decided not to interrupt me.)
But dudes! A possible pay raise, already!
This. I worked 7 years as a supermarket cashier/stock clerk. I couldn’t believe how long you can work in both the dairy case and the backroom freezer. We had an array of quilted jackets right outside the freezer door if we needed it and I had gloves without fingertips for the days I was going to spend time in that big freezer that was longer than it would take to stack a cart or pallet with goods. You don’t want a heavy jacket; you’ll start to sweat and that can make you colder.