Friday, June 24, 2011

The woes of being a cashier

I work at a grocery store (which shall remain unnamed, of course) as a cashier.  I've been there now for over a year, and it's the first job I've held - yeah, I waited around unemployed until I was 19.  (to make me seem less of a slack I was hired when I was 18 but my first official shift was after my birthday) At the end of the day, I do enjoy it: it isn't a bad job at all, and I find fun in it with the people I work with.  Sure, sometimes the minutes tick by excruciatingly slow, and sometimes the monotony and repetition of it all gets to me, but I have a good job and I can't complain.  I still do, obviously.

I can complain, though, about the customers.  Slay me now.  Good thing I'm in customer service, me, the person who hates people!

I can't stand how ridiculous people are.  It bothers me knowing that people go on power trips because as customer service representatives, we're supposed to appease them.  You don't need to act all mighty because I'm the clerk that's serving you: I know I am, so you don't need to be an asshole.  More often than not I deal with customers who complain or give me a hard time for the sake of it, and even in the times that they're wrong, they won't own up to their mistakes.

In truth, I give customers what I get from them.  If you're going to answer my "Hi, how are you?" with a great big smile and a genuine return of the greeting, I'll strike up conversation and smile extra brightly (you should see my good guy smile) and give a good parting wish.  However, if you mumble, or if you are quite obviously short with me, or if you ignore me, I'll be rude.  That's just the way it is.  I'm not rude unless someone is rude to me.  Trust me, I don't even like admitting that I get rude with customers sometimes, but it's the honest truth, since I live by treat others how you want to be treated.  (I definitely don't.  Cliche) I feel like you're undeserving of outstanding customer service if you're an ass to me.

It irks me when my honest mistakes are returned with rudeness.  I admit, I make mistakes sometimes with the codes or whatnot.  (I had to memorize hundreds of codes.  Of course our system doesn't use the numbers on the stickers) When I make a genuine mistake or cause minimal discrepancies, I apologize profusely.  I should really make a tally for the amount of times I say "sorry" in a shift; I'm sure I say it even when I don't have to be sorry.  That being said, I hate that if I make a minor mistake, realize it, apologize as profusely as I do, and take measures to fix my flub, some people still treat me like I'm an imbecile.  Humans make mistakes.

Sometimes I find that being overly nice to rude people gives me satisfaction.  I'm usually more satisfied with being just as rude back, though.

I swear to god I'm so fired after this blog post.  Hello, boss, I reiterate: I love my job, I'm just complaining about some people who are idiots.


Today, I had quite the shift.  I worked the 5 to close, which really does suck if you think about it, because you only get one break and you're the very last to be on cash, even when people crawl through the cracks of the closed doors and continue shopping fifteen minutes past the store's closing time.  In tonight's shift, I: cut my arm on a sharp edge and drew blood, and that shit still stings; I slammed my hand into another sharp edge and it bruised instantly; got increasingly queasy when smelling the pizzas we make (Thursday night is the pizza special, and I swear to god, the smell of that grease makes my stomach turn.  As does the thought of the smell as my stomach turns now); and, four hours in, got hit with a massive wall of nausea which caused me to abandon post in a freaking hurry and get sick in the washroom.  Not the best shift in the world.


Anyways, I have a good job, but people are retarded.  That's no secret.  I've always had problems with other people, because everyone who isn't me is, by default, an idiot.  (I'm kidding.  You aren't, you who reads this.  You're sexy)

1 comment:

  1. haha.. I really love reading your posts..

    ReplyDelete