I’ve told before of that one who pushed in front of me and two guys in a supermarket express lane saying “doyoumindI’veolnygotanitem!” and plonked her item on the tray.
I told her “so do I. And him, and him. And yes, we do mind.”
My item was quite bulky but yes, it was only one. And since I’m not a gentleman (in any case I might be mistaken for a lady) I’m under no obligation to allow little bitches to push me over.
And one reason I quit calling people on this, is if one had 5 items more than the limit and had a child or something with them, they would say- Oh these ten 10 are mine, and little sweetums is paying for these five- which just made it more time consuming.
While I was a cashier, we also had to do maintenance, every once in a while. I didn’t mind spills, accidental or not. It was a great excuse to get out off the loop for a minute. I got paid by the hour, mopping ice cream or flattening cardboard was all the same thing.
Been there. I started a mini-revolution at one local hardware store that way. I have zero tolerance for incompetent workers.
I have some tolerance for incompetent workers if the cause of their incompetence is ridiculous management rules and a refusal to train them properly. Whenever i run into stubborn employees or intractable problems in customer service situations, it usually seems to be the result of poor management and/or inflexible rules.
If management is at fault, then I would regard the workers as “inadequately trained” or “screwed by the Boss,” not “incompetent.”
I once had something similar happen to me at a restaurant/pub. The kitchen kept losing my order or screwing it up (it was the daily special, how hard could it be to get it right, or done, even?) The waitress was going nuts, I was fuming, and the manager eventually bought me off by comping my friend’s meal and loading us up with some very good single-malt. I made sure to tip the waitress quite nicely, and lodge a very specific complaint against the kitchen, not the waitress. It wasn’t her fault.
OTOH, the checkout drone at the hardware store was just stupid. 
Oh I agree - mostly. Though sometimes it’s just stubborn people, or rules addicts who don’t get it.
When I worked in the hardware store, one of the ridiculous rules dictated to us during my tenure was to the effect that “General employees are not competent enough to determine if someone is shoplifting. Any suspected incident of shoplifting must be witnessed by a member of management, or it is not deemed genuine.”
So there I am behind the register, and some dodgy character walks in - I clocked him immediately - wanders around suspiciously, picks up a Black & Decker Workmate, which is quite a big item, and starts walking about the store all shifty-like. The manager and assistant manager are out the back cashing up. I ring the bell urgently, but they’re too busy to react. So the guy walks towards the door, more than $100 of goods under his arm, and out the door. I wave him goodbye with a resigned smile. My boss was pissed, but I reiterated the rule to him and he concurred. Damned if I was going to get into a fight with someone when I wasn’t deemed competent to judge if I should or not.
So? WHAT HAPPENED? What did she say? Don’t leave us hangin’!!
Of course-but does that mean people should still throw things and spill ice cream and such all over the place on purpose? Does that make it okay?
Sometimes, the cashier CANNOT suspend a sale and wring up your stuff while in the middle of another sale. Some people do NOT seem to understand how certain things work. And instead take it out on the poor workers-who have NO control over these things.
oh, I agree with you 100%. It is just that customer’s attempts at getting back at employees simply fail with employees that couldn’t care less about how they spend their minimum wage hell time.
That was the one good thing I can say about cashiering at [del]Evil-Mart[/del] Wal-Mart*. Not only were we allowed to enforce the Express Lane Limit, we were required to.
I had one woman come through with a cart full of like eleventy-billion items. Told her when she got to the front of the line that I couldn’t ring her up because the Express Lane had a limit of 12 items (I think it was 12, was a long time ago). She got all indignant and huffed at me “But there’s no one in line behind me.” So I got to point to the 6 or 7 people in the next (non-Express) lane, most of whom had 2 or 3 items in hand and say “That’s because they all got in that lane when they saw your cart.” Never heard one word from management about it.
*Of course, when I was cashiering at Sears, I could do any damn thing I wanted.