Yesterday was the workday from Hades. Particularly since I wasn't scheduled to go in, but got that early morning call from Larry. (Larry is just a couple of days older than I, a low-level manager with a good work ethic and equally good sense of humor. Der B and I have met his other half, David, a couple of times. Larry had been thinking of retiring, but for some quirk in company policy had to return to the store in Maryland where he first started to do so. He's since re-thought the situation, and is now back in Rehoboth where he belongs.)
If I'd looked out the window, I'd have seen what part of the problem was. It was raining. Not pouring, exactly, but when it rains at a beach resort town, there's just one thing for the visitors to do - go shopping!
We were quite busy all day. I had lines of customers waiting to be checked out, some with their carts very full of groceries. Some of the bills ran over three hundred dollars. And some of the customers were very cranky. Keeping a cheerful demeanor through a seven hour shift when faced with a number of cranky customers is not easy. My shift ran seven and a half hours.
By the end of the day, I was ready to be a nasty bitch.
Poor der Brucer, who had to put up with me while we dashed up to Dover for some shopping of our own at Sam's Club. Dog food, doggie biscuits, paper towels, various and sundry sundries.
We got to the checkout line, and put most of our purchases on the checkout belt. There was no way I was lifting that bag of dog food onto the belt, and the paper towels could stay in the cart as well. We've done this before - heck, we've been instructed to do this - because the cashiers have hand-scanners that make it easier on everyone. But no, this particular cashier was having none of it. "You'll have to put those items on the belt." Huh? "It's company policy. You have to put the items on the belt, so I can transfer them to another shopping cart."
This, of course, is making no sense at all. We're talking about a fifty pound bag of dog food. When I put it in the cart, I was careful to make sure the bar code was easily readable from where she would be scanning it. She was instead insisting that I lift it up onto the belt (two times fifty is a hundred), so that she could then lift it into a second cart (three times fifty is a hundred fifty), which I would then wheel into the parking lot to lift into the car (two hundred) and then take home, where I would lift it out of the car (two fifty) to take it inside the house. By my count, that was an extra fifty pounds of lifting for me (der B does not lift like that), and a needless fifty pounds lifting for her.
But she was quite cross with us, like we owed her her job.
Interesting impass, right? I mean, when I'm checking out customers and I see that there's a lot of lifting to be done, I'll scoot around with my own hand scanner to scan items in my customer's carts, or help them lift the items onto my register's belt. This surprises them, but they are thankful for my help, particularly the older women who come my way. Nothing makes my day more than the smile of a older woman for whom I've made life easier. So it's not like I'm adverse to doing a little extra. But that's me, being helpful. There was nothing, nothing at all, that was helpful about this cashier.
Fortunately, or un-, the husky cashier at the next register came over and did the lifting for her/us. Der B was not happy with this - he'd had to put up with my bitchiness for an hour, and wasn't about to tolerate the same from a stranger, and would have loved to have a supervisor get involved. He's good at that.
On the ride home, I figured out what was really wrong. It wasn't just that cashier's attitude, which was more than negative. She was being agressively negative. We were supposed to serve her, and not the other way around, and she made sure we knew it. And that left a nasty taste in our mouths.
I did take note of her name, on her badge. If we encounter her again, and her attitude is the same, I'm gonna squawk. Loudly. I take pride in my work, and expect the same, or something resembling the same, from others.
The good news is, it's a pleasant, sunny day today. My shift at work should be a good one.
