Well, he might have meant it as a guesture of “I’ve been there…”
Well, are you posted in the Another Doper Photo thread. . . so that we can check you out?
Sometimes the cashier can come through well though. In wallgreens I was buying several types of cold medicine and many boxes of tissues. As the cashier was ringing up the purchase and started to say “have a nice day” she noticed my rubbed red runny nose and changed mid sentance to “have a better day than your currently having” that made me smile.
I couldn’t have been the only one who came into this thread thinking that I’d find a story about how you don’t mind it too much when people run their eyes over your body, but that you wish they’d do so without making as many lewd comments?
Is that a hint? Sheesh!
Okay, I’ll go post over there.
Heh - yeah, well, I’d probably be running off to go to the bathroom if they did, so I wouldn’t even hear the lewd comments.
(Umm…could no one in this thread have warned me about what Uristat does to your urine, so that when I got to the doctor to give them a specimen, I didn’t think I was DYING? Man, you guys suck sometimes 
. And I retract the thing about the UTI - it’s not a UTI, it’s a bladder infection.)
E.
I find the normal small talk bad enough. When cashier’s say personal shit to me I usually just give them a blank stare. The kind that screams “Fuck Off”. Never had anyone go quite that far though…
You should have pee’d on him. OK maybe that’s out-there. But at least spit on him. Is it a crime to spit in a cashier’s face? What if you just spit on their clothing?
On second thought, I have, as a cashier, had customers say shit almost that stupid to me, but at the time was restrained by my position. From the other side of the counter, it would have been a much different experience.
writing furiously Got any more?
This was absolutely the funniest thing I’ve read all day…make that all week. I have tears streaming down my cheeks.
The behavior described in the OP always reminds me of the episode of Northern Exposure in which Walt subbed for Ruth Anne at the general store. He was an absolutely terrible, nosy cashier, the last straw being when someone bought some antifungal medication and he commented, “There’s a fungus among us.” I still think of that line every time I have to buy an antifungal.
…and ask him what time he gets off work.
…yeah dammit! I thought this was a pitting of hot or not . com …
:: grumbles in the corner, votes HOT! ::
My best Wal-Mart check out experience happened two days before Christmas in 1998, and to fully appreciate how innocuous it all was, I need to give a little background information:
My mom and dad have a large Great Dane mix. Large. We all love him and buy him Christmas gifts. My extended family gathers on Christmas Eve for an all night food and present opening extravaganza, and they are particularly fond of cheese balls. My family exchanges “gag” gifts via the greedy Santa game, and there’s always a informal contest to see who can contribute the most outrageous gift. The corgi had chewed up the vaccum cleaner hose, and finally, mom had gotten a new fireplace screen thingy that used candles all over it in a very decorative effect, but it didn’t come with the candles.
Now, FaerieBeth Mom and I went to Wal-Mart the day before Christmas Eve to gather up the necessary odds and ends that we were lacking for our holiday experience. We checked out with the following:
-1 humongous rawhide dog bone
-10 8oz packages on Philly cream cheese
-1 red sequined g-string
-1 roll of duct tape
-8 12inch taper candles
We were totally oblivious to the contents of our cart until I glanced at it on the conveyor belt and thought :: sucking in breath :: , good grief, that looks lewd! Our checkout person was a pimply-faced young gentleman of about 18-20, I’d say. He showed amazing powers of discretion. He never said a word to either of us, but he was almost purple when he handed mom her reciept. I flashed him a big cheesy grin as we left. Mom was completely unaware of how the whole thing looked.
Recently I was standing behind a studenty looking guy who was buying a load of disposable “glasses”, a 48 pack of lager, some minty chewing gum and… a 24 pack of condoms. I was so trying not to catch the cashier’s eye and make her laugh. I hope he enjoyed the party.
Oh but I bet that’s a story he tells to this day in whatever retail breakroom he happens to be in.
KC I am talking about the ones where it is store policy to call the customer by his/her name. IMO, it’s a ludricrous policy (like Target calling its customers “guests”), and it is in these stores where my name is mangled to death. It’s five letters long-no, it’s not Rigby(surprise!)-and couldn’t be simpler. Doesn’t matter. No eye contact, “thanks for shopping at…mumble…Mrs. mumble”
Oy.
I can spot a genuine effort to be courteous (and still mangle my name)–these folks get a smile and some banter. The others, bupkus.
One could argue that the clerk is not to blame for the idiotic policies of corporate headquarters, but it’s a social interchange that lasts about 5 seconds.
And then there are the clerks who pick up my stuff and ask, “is this any good?” etc. Methinks these folks are a wee lonely. If I am feeling charitable, I inform them on the positive qualities of the product in question. If not, I ask, “if it wasn’t any good, why would I be buying it?” This leaves them furiously to think…
Aanamika --next time, inform the clerk that these items are all part of a private ritual, used by an exclusvie religious sect back home… 
How bout, “Honey I ain’t just good, I’m day-umn good!”
I worked at Wal-Mart from 1999 to 2001 and they had a policy called CHANT (Customers Have A Name Too) that they beat into your head everytime we had a (mandatory) cashier’s meeting but, thankfully, they weren’t too stringent about enforcing it and in the two years I was there, I almost never did it as I hated forcing conversation on a customer but, due to my experiences, I don’t mind when I’m shopping at Safeway or wherever and one of the cashiers calls me by my name after I’ve paid.
I’m with you on the name mangling though. Especially those that look at the ticket and see something else entirely because they gave it only a cursory glance – I’m not a fucking folk singer, you troglodytic mouthbreathers.
Ugh, the cashier at our employee cafeteria (the only cashier, so I see her regularly) has this problem with needing to chat with everyone who comes through. I don’t like her. I don’t want to chat with her. I particularily don’t want to chat with on days when talking sets of coughing fits and I’m late for a meeting.
“How are you this morning?” she says, as she tries desperately to figure out how to ring up my very complicated purchase of one bottle of water.
“Fine, thank you,” I respond quietly, hoping to expend as little of my breath as possible while still being minimally polite.
“Just fine? Just fine? It’s a beautiful day out there!” she berates me for my lack of beautifulness.
“Actually, I’m not even fine. In fact, I have bronchitis.” I reply, wishing she would shut up and give me my change.
“Oh, well, that’s too bad, but you should be happy anyway, you’re surviving!” she continues with terminal cheeriness.
“Barely,” I mutter under my breath, while thinking about how she’s not going to survive if she keeps this shit up for much longer.
How can she argue with someone about whether they’re having a good day or not? Argh. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
I have this kind of conversation repeatedly with her. I’ve tried ignoring her completely and saying nothing, she just keeps babbling. She seems to think it’s her mission in life to cheer everybody in the building up but really, her kind of faux enthusiasm wouldn’t cheer me up even if I wanted to be cheered. It just irritates me endlessly.
Oh girl, you had me at the UTI. I went home from work on Tuesday with a raging one and I wanted to die. I wouldn’t have been in the mood for ANY kind of small talk at that point.
heaven forbid that someone might want to inject a little light humour into
a) his mindnumbing routine in one of the worst employers in the country
and
b) Your crappy shopping experience.
lno has it right. This guy must obviously pick out the crabby people especially to annoy, so he can gloat about it afterwards, perhaps while torturing puppies.
Somehow I think most people would feel that joking with a total stranger about their sexual history/excretory health is rather too personal. Not to mention that the customer in question was almost certainly in fairly intense pain as well as having an immense urge to urinate at that moment. I’ve had bad enough UTIs that at least once I sent my husband to get some Uristat for me while I stayed at home and cried over the pain. Fortunately, the rude asshole in that case was a fellow customer, and after my husband chewed him out, the female cashier praised him for being kind to me and buying this embarrassing product for me when I was sick.