Yes it does. A woman like that got my bro fired as manager of a convenience store. Mind you, his failure was not documenting the talks he had with her about sneaking in extra hours by punching in early or out late.
That said, I have a bit of sympathy for the old, slow woman too. I bet she can’t survive on her retirement dollars and knows she really isn’t capable of the work, but she is desperate for income. There are a whole lotta people in this situation right now.
Understand and agree. We live in a world where far too many people have it far too hard. We can fix it if we have the will to do so.
Meantime, keeping the OP off the unemployment rolls as well is a worthwhile goal; no reason for him to be forced to follow your bro’s example.
Yeah.
I’ve been kinda mean to her in this thread (never, ever to her face), but she really is a sweet little old lady. And she does know things that I don’t. And she did prove that she’s quite useful when she supplemented me during my overnight shift when I’d been alone for about five hours. I’ve been accentuating the negative recently, but she’s not, one hundred percent, useless.
On the other hand, as I mentioned in post 356, we have another woman who’s literally stealing both money and lottery tickets, and can’t be counted on to come on time, either. She needs to be gone, and charged with at least one class-5 felony for lottery fraud.
By the way, during slow periods of the day, I am now periodically taking shorthand notes of what’s been happening, so I’ll always have stories to share, not only with you, but with my boss, mother, and coworkers.
Day 25:
A 7a-3p shift on a Saturday.
Remember the conversation we had way upthread about how I should be checking ID for every tobacco and alcohol transaction? I really, really haven’t been doing that. I’m not doing it for people who are clearly well above 21, nor do I do it for regulars or for greybeards.
But someone tripped my weird-shit-o-meter today, and when he asked for a Black and Mild, I asked for ID. You know what? The fuckhead was 19! I said, “Nope, sorry man, you’re underage.” And after he left, I commented to the next customer, “You gotta be 21 to legally poison yourself.” The customer laughed. He wanted tobacco too. I asked him, “Are you legally* old enough to poison yourself?” He was. I didn’t bother checking him. He was probably in his 50s.
My favorite customer came in again! I finally got her name. Malinda. She came in twice, actually, both times with the same someone else, another woman. The first time, she came in for her own coffee (which she had the money for this time) and so her friend could cash in a scratch-off ticket and buy some other things. Unfortunately, I goofed and accidentally rang up her $5 scratcher win as a $5 lotto sale, and didn’t realize it until the transaction was over. The shift leader had to void the transaction. She got $5 of that back onto her debit card and the other $5 in cash.
And then Malinda came in later the same day. I said, “So what brings you back? More coffee, or you just enjoy the pleasure of my company?” She was getting coffee for her husband. I said, “Wow, what kind of wonderful guy managed to snag you?” A male customer standing right next to us said, “That’s what I was about to say!” Malinda’s the kind of woman who brings light and life into every room she inhabits, based on the way she is at 7-Eleven, anyway.
I had my first taste of what it’s like to be a manager today. Even though I’m still not one. In the middle of the shift, my computer’s credit card terminal stopped working. Thankfully, the other one remained in order. While my two coworkers manned the rest of the store, I called my boss to receive instructions. I had hoped there would be a three-fingered salute I could use to reset the credit card terminal in a matter of two minutes, like we had at Blockbuster, and I was the only one who bothered reading the tech manual.
NOPE!
I had to call 7-Eleven’s IT department, and at my boss’s instructions, tell them I was an assistant manager (they wouldn’t have talked to a CSR), and spend several minutes shutting down the entire computer system and turning it back on. Thankfully we were in a bit of a lull, or there would have been hell to pay. It still didn’t work, so they had me recite the serial number of the malfunctioning terminal. They’re sending a replacement.
And then the damn thing, realizing it was facing the end of its linear existence, spontaneously resurrected after an hour of not working. It’s working fine now. At least we’ll have a spare.
We had a DoorDash order that was a complete team effort by three people. I fulfilled the cold pizza order, though the Slurpee they wanted wasn’t frozen and we had to wait until the Dasher arrived to find out what they wanted as a replacement. My male co-worker cooked some wings for us, but we couldn’t find the barcode we needed to scan them through the DoorDash app. And then my female coworker pulled a rabbit out of her hat by showing us how to look up barcodes for food on the register. It was a complete team effort, and it was a delight to me.
I have my regularly scheduled Sunday off tomorrow, and I’m singing the communion hymn as a solo. “Gabriel’s Message”.
A caution, sometimes people are sent to a store to see if they are carding everyone. You might get in trouble for this, not sure.
Well, if I do, I’ll take it out on everyone and make everyone show me their ID. Homey don’t play that.
Homey reference!
Yesterday, when I came in at 6:50, a familiar-looking Black woman was sitting at one of the gaming machines. She’d been in there since 6:30 and didn’t leave until 11. The reason she’s familiar?
She used to be a coworker of mine! She was an assistant manager at my Blockbuster store until they laid off all ASMs in 2011 in favor of having the lesser-paid shift leaders do the same amount of work and get less money and less benefits. The barbarians. But I didn’t remember her name until I admitted that I’d had two nervous breakdowns since that time and I’d forgotten it. Amy. She now works in child care.
Gaming machine? Oh, dear. You’re in one of those states where the lottery board allows retailers to have video slots, aren’t you? I’ve seen those things in Oregon and they terrify me. They have all the appeal of a Vegas slot machine with all the seediness and low odds of a pulltab purchased out of a fishbowl in a dive bar.
The habitual gamblers are my least favorite part of working the customer service desk at the Store. They’ll be in almost every day playing $30 in Mega Millions and Powerball and the other state games, and the money they win never makes up for what they spend, but they keep doing it. Then there’s the Pick 3 players who want you to run dozens of different numbers for them but absolutely refuse to fill out a paper playslip, so you’ve got to stand there tapping on the touchscreen over and over again while a line forms behind them so they can spend $50 on a game with a grand prize of $500. We only get a 5% commission on lottery sales, so it’s barely even worth our time to deal with them, and yet I get the impression that my boss would be unhappy if I yelled at them that the only people who ever win the jackpot are 80-year-old ladies from Pennsylvania who bought a $2 quick-pick because they had change left over after they bought their coffee and the morning paper and their plans for the money are to buy their grandkids new clothes and give the rest to the church.
Yeah, video slots. In Virginia, they were very briefly made illegal and deactivated (but not removed from the stores) because of something something government wants to make sure they get proper tax revenue from it. But they’re back, and they’re at practically every gas station. And when someone parks their carcass at one of these things, they’re there for hours.
At least now we have an “ATM” specifically to pay out their winnings. On my first few shifts, I was having to keep a frankly dangerous amount of cash in my drawer whenever we had someone playing these machines, because we paid them directly from the register. And I hated it.
You’re not wrong about this part. And the goddamn scratchers! “Gimme three number 17s and five number 20s.” Sure, let me bend down behind the counter with my bad back. I’m always hurting after that.
That, thankfully, has not been my experience. Practically every player has given me a play slip. The only time I’ve had to type in numbers manually has been to correct an error in their penciling. If a player did ask me to type in 30 Pick 3 numbers, I would, quite literally, tell them to go spit.
Anyone who’s been reading the thread has probably got the impression that I love this job. And I do. I absolutely love this job.
But I have just applied for a job as a cashier at Food Lion, and if I get it, I’ll put in my two weeks’ notice at 7-Eleven. I can’t consistently work different shifts with varying start and stop times. 3-10 one day, and 7a-3p the next morning, with an occasional five hours overnight by myself. It’s extremely taxing on my mental health, and I’m on psychiatric medication. To say nothing of the fact that convenience stores are much, much more likely to get robbed than grocery stores. I live in fear of that happening to me.
Watch this space.
This is a convenience store by me. Every time I drive by I start humming,
One of these things doesn’t belong here
One of these things isn’t the same.
Good for you. I hope they pay more also.
Legally, they can’t pay less. I’m making minimum wage.
Well, then, I damn sure hope they pay more, or at least have a structure in place where you get a raise after X days with no incidents (often a 90 day probation period). You are conscientious and try hard to do your best … and swinging shifts like you’ve had suck it wrecks any semblance of personal life or healthy sleep cycles.
Putting in a full 2 weeks at 7-11 puts you in the top 5% anyway. Good luck!
Yeah, I mean, I’m learning something new every day, I’m building a comradery with my coworkers and customers, I’m not slow like slow old lady, dumb like home-schooled kid, nor am I stealing things like the other lady. But if I’m gonna be run ragged, I deserve more than $11 an hour. I can get that working almost any place else I want, and most of those places don’t have an overnight shift.
You know what? I’m fucking going for it.
Just texted to my boss.
I’ve been taking command of the 7Now app on all my shifts, and I think I have it down. [Female employee from yesterday] taught me a neat trick yesterday for looking up the PLU codes for AM and PM foods. I believe you mentioned a possible raise if I mastered the app?
Won’t get it if I don’t ask, I reckon.
I’m also going to tell Food Lion, if they interview me, that I tend to be rather more chatty with the customers than the average 7-Eleven employee and certainly the average Food Lion cashier, and if they’re not comfortable with that, they shouldn’t hire me. I’m an extrovert who thrives on social contact and praise from people. I’m not a machine, goddammit. They want one of those, they can put a self-serve checkout stand up.
Honesty is good. They may see your chattiness as a feature, not a bug, but if you do say that, be sure to balance it out by emphasizing that you’re also speedy and efficient.
The last thing you want (when interviewing for a better-paying & better-hours job) is to give the impression that you’re like Slow Old Lady and that you’re gonna waste endless time chatting with each and every customer.
They may have metrics in place (e.g. check out X customers per hour) so be sure to find out about that.
I’ve given you the wrong impression about Slow Old Lady. She has all the conversational and social skills of a lamp. She responds to my questions with as few words as possible, usually just a simple yes or no. She doesn’t chat up the customers the way me or my mentor or my boss do.
And she doesn’t know where anything is, either. It’s deeply frustrating.
I would NOT tell them that. They’ll likely be fine with your degree of chattiness once you’re on the job, but they don’t know you from Adam yet, and for all they know, your level of chattiness could be problematic if you feel you have to bring it up. Your first job is to get the job. Then let them deal with your idiosyncrasies.
I hire people. I like chattiness (to a degree). I would consider this a possible red flag if I didn’t already know you.
Right, good idea.