But we’re not. It’s year 2002 and we rely on barcodes and scanners and computer databases to track inventory. So you’re either going to have to wait here for ten minutes while the Target beauracracy retrieves another of the same product with a barcode for me to scan, or you can just (hopefully) forget about it so we can hurry this up.
Or Target could do a better job of training its floor staff so that they can actually find the product with a bar code instead of spending 10 minutes looking in the wrong aisle.
You’re mad at the customer for chancing to pick up a product that the staff allowed to be put on the floor without a UPC?
(I would agree that by 2002, I would have hoped that more people understood all the back-office stuff that is driven by bar codes and would pay more attention to the ensuring items they brought to the register had them, but stuff happens and sometimes things get missed. Deal with it.)
You don’t have a general key?
When that stuff happens if the customer is patient, nice or I have a big line my register has a general “Front End” key. Type in price, hit “Front End” and go on with life.
If they are nasty or impatient I explain that I have to get a floor person to go find an item that the tag hasn’t been ripped off of and bring it up. Gotta give good, honest service. I break store policy for nice people, shitheads get it by the book.
I do cycle counts too, so yes I understand that this messes up inventory, but so does pilferage. We all deal.
I tell the cashier how much the item costs because sometimes they sprinkle magic pixie dust on the cash register and it allows them to override the scanner and key in the price. When I do it, I’m trying to be helpful, though.
This usually happens at the supermarket, though.
Oh, and you can forget about me forgetting about the item.
Argh! I am now a victim of this problem…
The store that I usually frequent was recently taken over by (someone… I don’t know who!)…
The new owners have computerized everything! Chaos!
The barcode scanners don’t work! Deal! (I say!)
What used to take 2 minutes (checking out that is) now takes 10 minutes… ARGH!
Computer say need barcode. Must do as computer say. Must have barcode. Cannot use own initiative to input price manually. Must have barcode.
So…you’re blaming the customer for trying to be helpful to someone who’s stupid enough to either work for a company that doesn’t train its cashiers how to do a simple general entry or who’s stupid enough to not be able to figure out that the number keys on the cash register can also be used to enter dollar amounts? You know that semi-solid jelly-like mass of neurons that sits perched atop your spinal column? Yeah, that one, right behind your eyes. That’s your brain. People who give up their brains to the machine will be left in the wilderness to die or survive come the revolution. See ya then.
Okay, not really. But it is pretty stupid that you either aren’t allowed to manually enter a price or the thought never crossed your mind. It’s even more stupid to blame the customer who’s trying to help you and move things along. You know, there actually was a time when all customers weren’t viewed with suspicion and contempt.
I don’t think you are stupid, pizzabrat. When those scanners work they are a huge blessing, everything moves quickly and smoothly. When they don’t there are problems. Neither of which is the company’s fault, the customer’s fault, or the cashier’s fault.
Shit just plain-old sucks sometimes.
I have something similar happen frequently where I work. A customer brings up a pricey item, like a CD-RW drive. Said item rings up thirty dollars higher than the price the customer claims to have seen on the tag, or the item is an “open-box” (aka returned) item with a hand-written SKU that I can’t read. I explain to the customer that I’ll have to call the computer/car audio/whatever department to confirm the price and get a manager over to approve the price override. While we are waiting for the manager to come over and for the department to finish looking up the price, sometimes the customer will throw a fit, to the tune of “I know what I saw on the tag!!! You’re wasting my time!!!” and several deep sighs and huffs. I once had a guy huff and puff so much over a minute wait for a override signature that I thought he was going to pass out.
Now, had the person been purchasing a four pack of batteries and claimed it was ringing up fifty cents higher, I’d gladly punch in the override without a manager’s approval and send them on their happy way. Likewise, if a person brings up a DVD stickered with a price lower than what the computer comes up with, I’ll automatically change the price. However, I really don’t understand how some people can claim that their product is overpriced by $10-$100 (or is an expensive item with no barcode) and expect me to just take their word for it. In the case of a price dispute, not only is it highly likely that a) somebody placed an expensive product with similar packaging in the same area as the lower-priced version, b) they failed to read the part of the newspaper ad that says “AFTER MAIL IN REBATE”, or c) they are lying to me, but I can lose my job for taking someone’s word. I know it sucks to have to wait for a long time, especially if the computer is truly wrong, but if it comes between making someone wait or getting fired and prosecuted by the store for theft, which one do you think I’m going to choose?
P.S. There is no “general key” on the computer-registers where I work. I either get a SKU or a bar code, or I can’t do the sale. Then again, we sell some pretty expensive stuff where I work, and doing a hand key on a 32" plasma TV doesn’t seem like the best idea 
And you can’t 999 it or get a cash sup to override? Target’s guest service policy is to get people through the line fast, not make them wait. If your level III cash sup isn’t doing that, then you need to talk to the LOD about it. If this particular guest is doing it a lot, then that’s an AP issue, and you should talk to the APTL.
Justin, former Tar-ghetto lackey
At Kmart, we are not allowed to just key in a price-we have to have the barcode.
I don’t care, as long as the customer is polite about having to wait. If not, that’s what pisses me off.
Just to clarify on my post, I don’t care if I have to call for a price check or barcode-- that’s my job. It’s when the customer gets pissy that I won’t just take their word for it and expect me to break company policy just so they can get to the food court 3 minutes faster that I get ticked.
Some places don’t allow cashiers to enter general keys, as that is a prime way to rip off the company and give your friends lower priced groceries.
Same situation at Disneyland.
We were always supposed to scan or key in the barcode. Fine; I usually keyed because my fingers worked faster than the scanner did. However, there were a variety of “cheat codes” that we could use for items that had lost their tags (number xxx for plush, xyx for general souvenirs, xyy for china items, that sort of thing).
Then came M.E.R.L.I.N.
Every barcode had to be rung, or else the warehouse didn’t know we’d sold it. Thus: no barcode, no restock. This is not a good thing when several of the smaller souvenir items (pens, pins and in particular autograph books) almost never had a bar code on them. Because we were still in the habit of keying in the general tags for these items, we didn’t get restocked on them.
Imagine, if you will, a Disneyland without autograph books. Imagine how very happy this makes the guests, let alone the cast members who take flak for them not being in stock.
Eventually, someone got wise and created a little book for each register with the correct bar code for each thing that usually lost the original. End of problem.
However, this has left me with the lingering awareness that barcodes are necessary for maintaining inventory at a level that will satisfy both the customer and the cashier. So, I never kvetch when someone is sent to fetch the barcode. OTOH, if the cashier asks me for the price on such an item, I have it ready.
That’s one of the things I like about Sainsbury’s (I don’t actually like shopping there if there’s a choice, but…) generally if nobody has retrieved a code for an unmarked item by the time your other goods have been rung through, they just let you have it for nothing (I suppose it would be different if it was a crate of wine, but I got a coconut and a box of chocs gratis this way).
I never said I got mad the customer for creating the situation, I just get irritated that they expect me to be able to do something with just the price as information. It’s the situation (which is no one’s fault) that makes me mad but their naievity still annoys me, regaurdless that they’re just trying to help. Overrides have been banned at my store and of course I can’t just press some “general key” or else I would and not have anything to complain about. Duh!
Yes, that’s exactly how it is, and it’s been that way for decades. Who hasn’t gotten that yet?
“Cannot use own initiative …” Hello? Have you ever worked retail? There are things we are forbidden to do, or at least not authorized to do. Thus, when I have to look something up in the computer to get the inventory number, it does not speed things up any to holler at me “It’s 4.95, it says it right here! Look! Four ninety-five!!”
It is not a cashier’s job to break the rules for you. It is the supervisor’s job to decide when exceptions can be made. And since they’re often as overworked as the cashier, you get to wait for them to make it to the register before the cashier can do anything.
Does it suck that the cashier can’t just punch “4.95” into the register and be done with it? Generally, yes. Can the cashier do anything about it? No. Feel free to helpfully offer the price if they can’t find it, but if they need to hunt up another one to get the code, repeating the price over and over will not cause Bob Barker to lower down from the ceiling like you’re on the Price is Right and have just won a “Brand … new … CAR!!”
You know, I apologize for casting pizzabrat and, by implication, other retail cashiers as idiots. I actually did not know that there was no way to key it in manually. The last time I worked retail was over 10 years ago, and it was a supermarket, so some things had to be manually keyed (produce, for example).
Personally, I think the whole system is a really bad idea if there’s no way to manually key anything at all without a supervisor’s code. I understand that it’s a theft prevention/inventory tracking thing, but it still seems more than a little paranoid to me.
Companies treat their employees with the assumption that they’re all thieving rats and then wonder where the old company loyalty went…
jayjay
Ha, bad work process and poor customer service. A floor manager (at minimum) should be authorised and available to override an unreadable UPC, EAN, what have you. Blame it on management, I say, and damned if I wouldn’t be right. They’re the ones who set the rules (cashier cannot override), so they should be the one responsible to keep the customer happy and the sales flowing at this time. If not then they’re not doing they’re job. Even if the directive comes from up the food chain in Troy, Minneapolis, or Buggtussle Arkansas. If you go far enough up the food chain then eventually someone in management designed this process and is pissing off the consumer.
I bought a bottle of shampoo at Target once that had no price on it. The following conversation took place:
Cashier: Did you notice how much it cost?
Loopus: Nope, sorry.
Cashier: Well, how much do you think it cost?
Loopus: [shrug] Two bucks?
Cashier: Okay.
She keyed it in, rung up my total, and I paid.
It was very strange. I could understand keying in the price if the customer knew it, but keying in the customer’s guess?
When I worked in the grocery store (still had price tags then), there were spies who came through randomly who would try to get you to accept the price they told you on an unmarked item and of course if you went for it this would count against you in their evaluation.
They were hired by the store who also didn’t know when they were coming. And yes, I fell for it, one of the few times I didn’t ask. Let’s not talk about the bag of dog food they snuck past me on the lower shelf of the cart 
Luckily they were hard up for help.