Day Two

So, I was five minutes late to work. Don't be alarmed, this store has an insanely lenient late policy. Once you have been late 25 times up to 30 minutes late you get a verbal warning. After another several many times you get a written warning, several more times, a final warning, then after several MORE times, your employment will be terminated. I'll give you a moment to laugh...

So again, I was five minutes late to work. I felt bad, but not that bad. I live 30 minutes away from this place and I still wasn't used to the traffic or what not. You know, excuses.

Cake Eyes

Before going to my register I stepped into the office to tuck in my shirt. The head cashier walked up to me.

HEAD CASHIER: What time did you punch in?
ME: Agh, five minutes late. I'm sorry.
HEAD CASHIER: [Hands me a sheet of paper] This is the new attendance policy. Give it a read, sign it and hand it in. It's a new point system. Every time you are late you get 1/2 a point penalty. Once you accumulate (whatever many, I wasn't really listening) points you lose your job. [She then turns away and goes back to her register]

Not a new attendance policy. This was the first thing I checked in the employee manual. The second thing I checked was vacation policy. This head cashier is an older woman with poorly dyed red hair. Over her eyelids she applies so much pasty blue eye shadow you would think it was war paint. Makeup, for many women, is useful for bringing out or emphasizing one's natural beauty. Cake Eyes had so much on her eyelids, above and below the crease, that you could see every wrinkle (every seemingly bottomless crevice) under the shadow. Her mother had failed her in this department.

Cake Eyes put me in a funk because never, before or after giving me the attendance policy speech, did she say, "Hi. How are you doing? What happened this morning?" She never talked to me for the rest of the day except to say, "You can go on break now." She was so nice to me the previous day. We talked about families. She apparently has a daughter who is training to supervise celebrity tours in Disneyland. I thought that was pretty cool. I wondered if my being five minutes late made things inconvenient for her or anyone else. Since there were only three customers in the store, they were fine. If it takes being late 25 times to get a verbal warning, why was I getting one now?

Sally Spec: Prologue

I learned that employees with long hair had to tie hair up. I immediately noticed a bunch of girls that had their hair down. I asked around if the head cashiers took that rule seriously. I heard from several that as long as your hair is out of your face it's cool. AWESOME. My hair is my favorite thing about my physical appearance. I was glad it wouldn't have to be in a bun or ponytail all summer. Two days later one of the cashiers came up to me and said, "You have to tie your hair."

I turned around and noticed other girls with their hair in buns. I learned later that we were ratted out. Some girl complained that she is the only one tying up her hair, that is what she was told to do in training and no one else was following the rules. I wanted to know who this girl was so I could instantly NOT like her.

Sally Spec: Chapter One

I found out who complained. I ended up having to work in the register next to her. I walk up to put my till in the register and she points out the "new" attendance policy to me right away, just like Cake Eyes.

SALLY SPEC: If you are late you get 1/2 a point.

As if I can't fucking read.

ME: Eh, it will be fine.
SALLY: But if you acquire [whatever many points, I wasn't fully paying attention] you'll get fired.
ME: I DON'T PLAN ON BEING LATE EVERYDAY!

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, inhale...exhale...

Okay, so I lost my cool. I didn't want to go there again. I would not go there again. I chose to do what I always do when a coworker pisses me off, I turned my focus to the customers. I was instantly cheered up by a little girl who did this:

My next customer pays with cash and hands me a twenty dollar bill and once the register opened I realized I never broke open the rolls of coins]

ME: [to the customer] Oops! I knew I was forgetting something!
SALLY: [turns to me] Before you start checking out customers, you need to open all of the rolls of coins.
ME: I know, I always do. Like I said, I forgot.
SALLY: Oh.

Later...

ME: [to the CUSTOMER, while ringing in poblano peppers and looking for the code in a code book] I believe poblano peppers are listed as pasilla green peppers. [then I found the code]
SALLY: Those are listed as pasilla green peppers, number [I don't fucking remember, I fucking hate this bitch]
ME: I got the number already.

...and later...

BITCH: [cleaning up papers and return items between registers] I am a clean freak, I need to have my side of this surface clean.
ME: [pulls out blank receipt paper, writes note to self: "Make a bigger mess."]

This girl has nothing better to say me. No friendly talk, just waiting for and pointing out my sporadic flaws. I think she thinks she is being helpful, or maybe she and Elvira are in this together and they are out to get me.

Sally Spec: Epilogue

In her last 30 minutes of working next to me, Sally turns around.

SALLY: Does you head ever hurt from having your hair in a ponytail for a long time?
ME: Yeah, I try to keep my hair loosely tied so it doesn't hurt.

Holy shit, progress. She went from pointing out my flaws to complaining about her own problems. I'll take it.

The Parent Teacher

Screaming toddlers frequent grocery stores all of the time, most of the time it's because they didn't get whatever nutritionally deficient food item they wanted. I have prompts for every time a child screams or cries in my line, one of which is, "Awwww, life is hard..." The parent usually laughs. I have seen really awesome parents ignore the screaming child, unwilling to respond and enable this bad behavior. I have seen other parents give the child whatever they want (this child is likely to scream again). I thought I had parents properly categorized until this one particular dad walked up with his toddler. The toddler was making a noise that was the most unpleasant of all, a grating scream/yell. The dad had just taken a bag of cashews away from the toddler so that I could ring it in. Oh hell, the screaming. When the child turned his face, I noticed he had down syndrome.

The father smiled at the child and hugged him. The child would scream again, then the father would hug him and kiss him on the cheek. This happened over an over until it was time to pay for groceries. I handed the dad the cashews to give back to the boy and the dad swiped his credit card. I tried my best to distract the boy while his dad was busy but the boy went silent and gave me the "stranger danger" vibe. Good boy. I handed the father his receipt, he gave his son another smile, hug and kiss and went on his way. I was so thankful to witness this. It was the definition of love.

Old Man #1

ME: Hi! How are you doing today?
OLD MAN: [no response]
ME: Did you find everything okay?
OLD MAN: [no response, pressed lips in a slight frown]

Okay, I get it. For whatever reason this guy does not want to talk.

ME: Credit or debit?
OLD MAN: [no response]

Damn. Okay, can't win this one over. I handed him his receipt and upon taking it he looked up at me, smiled and said, "Hi!"

Thor

This 9 or 10 year old kid would grab every bag of groceries after my coworker helped bag them. He would hang the thin bags over both elbow joints and he would pose in a "tickets to the gun show" kind of way. As the bags accumulated I knew the groceries had to be getting dangerously heavier for this kid. He assured me he was fine. You can guess what happened next...

I Have Tattoos and I Don't Want To Talk

A twenty something female walks through my line wearing sunglasses. When I asked her how she was doing I'm sure she might have said, "Fine." At least I saw her lips form what looked like the word, maybe. The rest of the responses were similar. Mouth movement, no audible sound. She had a big colorful tattoo all of the way down her arm. I asked her how long it took to get the tattoo, she replied, "It took three months." Success! An actual audible sentence! I then told her I had a tattoo, but that it only took 15 minutes and it hurt like hell. She did not give a shit. With most people that have tattoos it is pretty easy to strike up a conversation about body art. Not with this girl. She just wanted to get out. Hint taken. Okay, get this girl out of here. Then her receipt printed and it looked like this:

The Infamous Patti

Ever since I got to this store I was told that a head cashier was on vacation who I would probably end up hating to work with. The day before Patti showed up, I was closing out my drawer with another head cashier. "Patti is coming in tomorrow. You have fun with that,"  and she laughed. I asked what was wrong with Patti. I was given a long list of why Patti is hard to work with, including being really slow. I wasn't sure to trust that. I don't like it when anyone talks shit about someone else to make up my mind for me about how I am not going to like this person. The next day came and Patti showed up in the middle of my shift after the warm welcome from Cake Eyes and Sally Spec. Patti walks right up to me.

PATTI: Hi! I heard you snuck in while I was on vacation! I'm Patti, are you Miranda? [she shakes my hand] It's so nice to meet you.

Patti was quick to respond to my pages, she helped bag my customers' groceries and joined in on my conversations with them. Then when I had to close out my drawer Patti was swift. She was neither slow nor difficult to work with and she was kind. Why all of the shit talking? What the hell is wrong with people?

Dirty Harry

It had been a long semi-miserable day at work. The only thing that got me through the worst parts of it was the fact that it was all good writing material. One of my last customers walks up to me. He is wearing a dirty t-shirt and his hands and arms were dirty. He handed me his drink and food and smiled big with the most kind greeting I had heard all day.

HARRY: How are you doing today?
ME: I'm great. Thanks for asking! How are you?
HARRY: I'm doing fantastic. Today is a good day.
ME: [relieved] Wow, thank you so much for being happy and positive.
HARRY: Sure! There's no sense in goin' through life hatin' life.

...and that is the gospel truth.