I need advice for working at 7-Eleven

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
301

Day 19. A 3-9 shift on Thanksgiving Day. I had dinner with my family starting at 1, so I didn’t miss out-- and I got time and a half.

I worked with a guy I don’t work with much, and I brought my cranberry sauce and my landlady’s strawberry rhubarb pie for both of us to enjoy. He greatly appreciated it.

He also complimented me multiple times on the sincerity of my customer service skills. He said he could tell I’ve done this sort of thing for years.

I made three pots of coffee almost immediately upon my arrival; we were running very low.

The last customer of the night had well over $100 in lotto ticket sales. Tied up the machine for a long time.

Customers were very nice.

302

Quiet store and overtime is the bonus of working a holiday, IMO. I used to find them the most satisfying days to work. My SIL’s mother was appalled that I would skip the family togetherness to earn money, but the family is overwhelming so I loved having the excuse to skip out on at least one holiday gathering.

I’m glad you had a good day and a good day at work, too. Wonderful.

303

That’s interesting. I was at 7-11 8- or 9-ish last night and it was jam packed, as everything else was closed. Did not seem a fun shift around here.

304

Taking initiative like that (noticing problem + fixing problem, on your own, without being asked or told) will get you very far.

I’ve been following your progress. Think back to your first day! Don’t you feel like a seasoned veteran already?

305

Day 20. A 3-11 shift on the day after Thanksgiving.

You wanna know how my day went? Neither toilet was working all day. We had to put up a barricade to prevent people from getting back there. And at least 20 people asked to use the restroom today, including an out-of-breath fat guy who looked (and sounded) like he was going to explode if he didn’t get to the restroom in the next 30 seconds, and a woman and her six-year-old girl. NOT FUN to have to tell these people, and others, that the restrooms were out of order. I, myself, had to go back and relieve myself in the woods behind the store twice.

It was a very slow day. I guess everyone had the day off from work and was stuffing themselves full of Thanksgiving leftovers. We didn’t have to cook any additional (individual) pizza slices after the start of the second shift, though I did cook some buffalo wings, spicy wings, and a couple of full pizzas.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but when I cook, I sing, much to the amusement and entertainment of my coworkers. My usual cooking songs are “Atsa Matta for You” and “The Frim Fram Sauce”. Today I also sang “If You Love Me (Really Love Me)”. When times are really slow, I put on music, and often sing to it. My mentor puts on his own music on occasion, and it’s an interesting clash of styles. His music sounds like it’s about popping caps in motherfuckers. Mine is usually about falling in love.

Speaking of falling in love, I think I’m starting to crush on this guy who comes in most every day, which is a big deal for me because he’s a guy and I’m a guy, and I’ve pretty much been Kinsey 0 my entire life. So maybe I’m a little bicurious. We’ve certainly been flirting with each other. Sometimes when he comes in for the second time in a day, I’ll say, “You just had to come back and see me again, huh?” hehe!

I do, and apparently my boss thinks so, as well. I can tell because she just hired a new woman to work there, and on Thursday, she and I will be working together, just the two of us. It’ll be the first time I’ll be nominally in charge of a shift and working with another person. (I have also, for a few hours, worked part of an overnight shift by myself. But this will be my first real “command experience” at 7-Eleven).

306

Exactly.

I hired a high school kid with no experience as a helper on a fairly big A/V gig. He was just supposed to hork gear around, I wasn’t expecting much of him and I was paying accordingly.

But that kid totally blew me away! I didn’t even have time to tell him what I wanted him to do and he was already doing it. Identifying and solving problems on the fly is a very admirable and hard-to-find trait.

307

Next time, tape a handwritten sign to the door (“Sorry, restrooms are out of order!”) to mitigate some of this.

Hope the terlets get fixed soon and that you’re not the one who has to do it!

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I suggested that to my mentor and he said there was no point to it, that people would come in anyway having not read the sign. I strongly disagreed with him, but it was his decision, and as a result, we were catching hell most of the night.

The toilets got fixed literally near the very, very end of my shift.

309

People will indeed not read the sign, or will ignore it. If you want to keep people out in my experience you need to lock them or have a physical barrier.

310

We had a physical barrier. Two wet floor signs and a shopping cart placed in between them. Not to mention signs on the door. Still didn’t stop one lady, who went into the women’s restroom when we weren’t paying attention, came out, and said to my mentor, “Y’all might wanna check that ladies’ room.” GEE, YOU THINK?!

Anyway, another story: Either yesterday or on Thanksgiving, a guy came in looking for a pregnancy test. He and his S.O. are hoping for a positive result. I told him, best of luck.

311

Even that doesn’t always work. On Not Always Right there was a story where a store was undergoing a major renovation – as in hard hat area. A “customer” pried the boards blocking the entrance off and was discovered wandering around bitching at the lack of stock on what few shelves that hadn’t been removed.

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True, but the suggestion by @purplehorseshoe that a sign would be enough seems reasonable, but is quite insufficient, as @ekedolphin experienced despite the barriers the coworker put up. (I am assuming that out of order signs were also put up.)

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I think @purplehorseshoe had the idea of putting a “restrooms are out of order” sign on the station’s front door, which is what I suggested to my mentor, but he told me there was no point to it.

There were two wet floor signs in front of a shopping cart turned sideways and wedged between the walls, and there was an out-of-order sign on both doors. STILL didn’t stop that lady.

I got more than a few people saying, “FUCK!” when I had to tell them that the restroom was out of order. Look, there’s a Pilot station across the street that has like four or five stalls in each bathroom. It’s not the end of the world, at least it isn’t for you. I, on the other hand, had to piss on a tree twice during the night, and do #2 at the Pilot station after my shift ended.

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@ekedolphin

I read through the very beginning of this thread. I was intrigued and I loved the positive vibe. I appreciated your desire to do a good job.

Thanksgiving and associated time killers intervened. The next time I stopped by, there were over 200 new posts!

Because of the good vibes, I settled back with a fresh cup of coffee, and I looked forward to a great read.

I was not disappointed. Kudos to you @ekedolphin, and major pats on the backs to everyone who responded with helpful advice.

It’s wonderful when everybody plays nice!

~VOW

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Thanks, @VOW.

My next big challenge will be on Thursday, when I’ll be nominally in charge of a shift, working with someone who’s in her first week. My boss will literally be out of the country during that week. Thankfully, I’ll still have other co-workers I can text if I need advice. But I’m very nervous about it. (I’ll be fine, I know.)

316

You went from zero to hero in just over a month. My hat is off to you!

Now that you’ve conquered the convenience store biz, it’s time to move up. I hear there’s a Wal*mart that needs a new manager:

317

I enjoy these accounts of your workday.

318

To prepare for Thursday, I texted the 7-Eleven store group chat, and asked about making the taquitos. I’m told that we should only cook four at a time, and that if they’ve been on the grill for more than an hour, dispose of them. Only four at a time on the grill. Less to write off.

It takes 15 minutes to cook a taquito on the roller grill, and I can cook them quicker in the oven on the mini taco setting.

319

Uh oh… thinking on the job can get you in trouble :wink:

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Nope, people do not read. And even if they do read they decide it doesn’t apply to them.

A couple times a week I have to pry jammed money out of the lottery vending machine at work. Invariably, my fellow employees had dutifully taped an OUT OF ORDER sign over the slots on the machine as a physical barrier to attempting to insert money or playslips. Invariably, said signs are detached enough to allow entry of money and/or playslips. It’s always either “Oh, I didn’t see the sign” ??? or “Oh, I didn’t read the sign” or “I didn’t see anything wrong so I thought the sign was wrong” WTF? That machine is there to suck money out of stupid people, we’re not going to shut it down for the LOL’s.

Oddly enough, this is never a problem with people who speak English as a second language. It’s always folks born here in the US who’s native language is English who can’t read the sign. Or don’t read the sign. Or somehow don’t think it applies to them.

We also had a hot water heater above one of the rest rooms spontaneously disassemble a couple months ago. Needless to say, this resulted in a tremendous mess. We had people going through multiple barriers to try to use said toilets, which included such features as standing water on the floor, one toilet bowl entirely separated from the wall/plumbing (hence the standing water - finding and shutting off the water took a little time), tiles falling off the walls, and a partially collapsed ceiling. And at least two people STILL attempted to use the facilities! Thank Og they didn’t find a way to hurt themselves or they probably would have sued us for their stupidity.

Oh, by the way - the store had two other completely functional and undamaged toilets open for use. Including a sign by the damaged toilet telling customers where they were, but of course the idiots didn’t read/ignored that sign, too.