I always ask cashiers “Does it help if I know the price?” Sometimes it does (grocery store), sometimes it doesn’t (Tar-zhay). But that way the cashier knows that I don’t think either of us is an idiot, just that computers are programmed differently.
this thread is pathetic.
SOMETIMES we were allowed to accept a guess.
But now they’re more anal than ever. It’s pathetic.
I hate it, and I hate it when customers whine. But it’s not my fucking fault, so don’t bitch to me about it. You’re only making me feel bad for something I have no fucking control over.
So you have to wait a bit? Deal, that’s life. If that’s the worst fucking thing that ever happens to you…
I swear, everyone should have to work in retail for at least one year.
Okay! Anything to be helpful! I probably didn’t really need that item, anyhow. Come to think of it, I probably don’t need to shop at your store at all! I’ll just save you lots and lots of time by skedaddling out to the Wal-Mart down the street, and you can let the Target beauracracy know that their wonderful inventory control has saved everyone a whole bunch of time.
I guess I’m naive, b/c I always try to help in this sort of a situation. Thanks to you, I have seen the light. I resolve to never try and help the cashier ever again.
No, you can continue to try to help. I’m not going to yell at you, or even get detectably annoyed. I’ll just post an irrtated thread about it on an internet message board.
Hey, it could be worse. You could be working at McDonald’s on the drive-thru and have to deal with several customers at the same time.
But, see…in most cases, except in whatever retarded company you work for, this does help.
Most of the time at the grocery store…usually once every other time I go, the cashier will run across an item that won’t scan. He or she will either ask if I know the price or suggest a price (“I think this was around $3.95. That sound right to you?”).
Hell, the last time I was at Target around Valentine’s day and the cashier was able to key a price in manually.
I’m sorry your asshole store doesn’t allow you to do this, but it sounds like you’re expecting the customers to know the minutae of whatever idiot policy that your individual store has, and that’s unreasonable. In most cases, in most non-idiot stores you can key the price in manually and would, rather than inconvienience the customer.
Fenris
It works like this:
Stock Controller: Whine, bleat, the till operators are using dump codes all the time and making my job impossible.
Sales Supervisor: As opposed to…?
Stock Controller: Using the correct SKU for the item, if you don’t bleep it through on the correct code, the stock isn’t deducted and the machine doesn’t tell me to reorder, and…
Sales Supervisor: (interrupting) So why do we have dump codes then?
Stock Controller: So that the sales assistants can charge items that aren’t labelled.
Sales Supervisor: And whose (insert choice expletive) responsibility is it to see that items are labelled?
Stock Controller: (stony silence)
I’d be able to do the same thing at Target too. “Won’t scan” and “has no barcode” are two different things. If there’s a barcode that won’t scan, there’s at least an identifying number you can type in to accompany the price information.
That was February. Since then, Target has changed their Sunday closing hours, installed new POS systems, and a bunch of other stuff including banning general entry.
It’s not that minute; barcode scanning is universal and it’s obvious that its use is neccessary in large stores like Target these days. Besides, my sentiment goes beyond the missing barcode situation. Sometimes people expect me to ring up twice one of two different but equally priced items instead of each individually just because they’re priced the same.
I don’t think pizzabrat is whining because people give him the price-rather, he’s complaining about those who get upset when he tells them thank you, but I have to have the SKU.
I’m with Fenris here and while I do have sympathy for you retail workers who deal with asshole customers (possibly like me) – you MUST understand that we, the public, do not know how your system works. I have been asked many times if I knew what the price of something was, something I didn’t realize was unmarked. (What is a SKU?) Like Loopus, I’ve been asked to make a guess at a price, which has been accepted with a shrug. I try to keep up with the cost of everything I’m buying in case something doesn’t scan, but I almost always have children with me, whose idea of fun is not shopping and frankly it’s hard to keep up with it all. (I’ve often come home with things I didn’t think I was buying, probably because I grabbed a nearby box or can, instead of the one I was looking at before Cherry Child #2 went diving under the shelf.)
You know, I understand the world works on scanners now. But hate to tell you, things were rung up a lot by hand a lot more recently than the 1920s – AND not every store is a big ole retail chain. I shop in a couple stores where I get sales receipts filled out by hand. But I also know I’m asked a lot what I think a price is. I also know that every store has, for example, a different machine with which to accept debit/credit cards. Some go in upside down, some rightside up. I’m an agreeable person most of the time. I deal with it all, and only really get mad when uncaring, slouching teenagers put cans of Progresso soup on top of my fresh fruits and/or bread.
Don’t do that, and I won’t (visibly) simmer, deal? 
Okay, the OP wasn’t supposed to be an expression of burning rage. It was just meant to be a smarmy aside, that’s why there were no insults or profanities. More like “Heh, thanks alot pal, but this isn’t the 20’s, DOY!” than “We’re not in the goddamned 20’s, MORON!” I know it’s not really rational to get angry at the customer over that, I was just being sardonic. Perhaps I shouldn’t have added that exclaimation mark.