The following morning at work, I found that I was so slow, made tons of mistakes and said a lot of stupid things. Some highlights:
ME: [greeting two customers] Hi ladies! How are we today?
CUSTOMER #1: I'm fine.
(no response from the second lady, because the second lady was a guy-must leave eye glasses on)
ME: [greeting a couple] Hi! How are you guys?
CUSTOMERS: Great, thanks!
ME: [looks at woman's belly] How far along are you?
LADY: I'm not pregnant.
ME: [after scanning all groceries for a couple] Who is the "muscles" in this operation?
MAN: I am. I'm the manly man.
ME: [I handed him the heavy bags then held up his wine coolers] Would you like me to leave your girly drinks out or put them in a bag?
ME: [to customer] Would you like me to put your French bread in a bag?
CUSTOMER: No, that is okay.
ME: Good, because we don't have any bags big enough for the French bread.
ME: [to a customer, standing by her perpetually frowning daughter] Here is your receipt ma'am, and YOU [pointing to the girl and yelling] CHEER UP!!
GIRL: [Laughs (thank goodness)]
O.C.Daisy
Daisy was the one who told me I had to tie up my hair because a coworker complained. She is the one who ratted out Sally Spec. My hair was down when I walked into work, she reminded me again that it had to go up. She stood by me today and I noticed that she dispenses hand sanitizer after every customer. It was then that I noticed everything on her register has to be in a particular place or she loses her shit. As a test I will do little things when she is away, like tilt her code key 15 degrees, move her pen and move the paper bags an inch to the left. She comes back and sets everything straight. I find it interesting that she has O.C.D. and has a few teeth missing. Maybe it wasn't from poor dental hygiene, maybe she got in a fight. Maybe she lost those teeth from calcium depletion during pregnancy. She is a very nice and pleasant person and I like talking to her, she tells me about her kids all of the time, but seeing her makes me want to floss my teeth right on the spot.
Update: Sally Spec
Sally happened to be working at the register across from me, on the other side of O.C.Daisy. Her hair was down. I was not happy about it, but I figured someone would tell her to put her hair up. I didn't say a word to her. As I checked out customers I noticed there would be a lot of noise (someone paging overhead) about our French bread. This was the first of 10 announcements about it within the hour. Sally leaned over into my line of sight.
SALLY: Hey Miranda? Are we selling French bread? [she continued to check out a customer]
A joke? Did Sally just make a joke? I stood there for a second trying to figure out if somehow that was a criticism toward my work ethic. No, she actually made a joke. Is Sally being cool? Is it because she is a hypocrite today, leaving her hair down? I was so confused and still hung over. If this was her attempt to chill out and converse with me like a normal human being, good for her. I'll be nice.
Hawkeye
A man who looked like the stapler guy from "Office Space" came into my line with produce wearing a members only jacket. I accidentally rang up his bananas as organic, which would have cost him 60 cents more. I didn't catch this, but he sure did.
STAPLER GUY: You RANG those bananas up as ORGANIC. [yelling further] YOU RANG THEM UP AS ORGANIC!!!
ME: I'm so sorry, let fix that.
STAPLER GUY: THOSE ARE NOT ORGANIC!!!
Anything that anyone said that morning sounded like yelling already. His yelling was so loud it made my eyes cross. From that point on he stood in a lunge and stared at the screen as I rang up the rest of his groceries, his face one foot from the screen as if I might try to get away with overcharging him again. Come and get him, ladies.
Banshee
Banshee, one of our head cashiers, doesn't necessarily scream at any of us, but everything she says is in a command. Part drill sergeant, part cheerleader with an unfortunate voice. She was standing nearby when I paged her, slowly as usual. I knew I could have called her name out from my register but I thought it would be funny to call her from the speakers. She did not think it was funny. If any of us stand idle for more than 5 seconds, she bickers at us and makes us load up on bags even though there is no where to put them. The managers ask us to drop large amounts of cash in our vault to lower the possibility of theft, but Banshee will get pissed if you do it in the remaining hour of the day. Every time she comes over to my register for anything, I imagine I am being approached by the screaming banshee from Hallmark cards:
I wondered what her problem was. Today, Banshee's mother brought in Banshee's 5 month old baby. All of a sudden, we all saw the softer side to the screaming Banshee, the cooing soft voiced young mother. Pedantic Joe was the most in disbelief, as she bickers at him more than any of us (not a shock).
Later that day, while Banshee was on break I heard other people talking shit about her. Apparently she habitually doesn't let people on breaks on time and the managers aren't happy with her demeanor. I had never heard anyone talk badly about anyone else behind his or her back up to this point. It must mean she needs to lighten up.
Slow Motion
A customer of mine forgot one item in the store and she wasn't sure if she should go and get it since there were four people behind her in line. I told her to go ahead while I rang in the rest of her groceries. She really felt bad but went anyway. To entertain her child sitting in the grocery cart I would ring in items in slow motion. The little boy thought it was funny and we began to talk to each other in slow motion like Dory talks to the whales in "Finding Nemo." By the time the mom returned I was slow motion ringing in her last item. Her kid and I had a good time, however, I managed to piss off everyone else in line and they moved to other lines. Oh well. Next?
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