Day Eight

It's time for the 72 hour sale! This was pure madness. So many people came through my line that I didn't have time to talk to most of them. Two cashier contests were in effect. One was to sell French bread. Whoever sold the most would get a $30 gift card. The other contest was to sign up customers for our store's mailing list. Whoever signed up the most people would win a $50 gift card. Some people were really into it. I was when I started signing people up on the wrong day, one week ago. Not now. I think I'll act like I care whenever the manager walks by.

JV

JV was probably a junior varsity quarterback in high school. He has a "former high school athlete" vibe. When I first met him I kind of expected him to be one of those turds who say, "Dude, bro," all of the time but he surprised me. He was polite and mature. He probably loves and respects his mother. When we trained together I saw the year he was born on his application, while we were signing papers. He was born in 1992. He is practically a fetus.

We got to work next to each other today. It was fun at first, but then I noticed that whenever a customer would ask me a question, he would be quick to answer it for me. Okay...

So then I noticed whenever I was looking up a code for some obscure fruit or vegetable, he would lean over to see what I was trying to find, then he would tell me the number. Again, I will not learn a code if I don't look them up myself. Maybe he will notice my ignoring him...

Then when someone told me to page the manager, JV told me how to page, what buttons to push and what to say.  I joked, saying, "Ok boss," whenever he would be bossy, but he didn't seem to understand that he was pissing me off.

What the hell was this kid's problem? How is it possible that anyone could be worse the Pedantic Joe and Elvira put together?! Disappointing. By now everyone else has left me alone and figured I knew what I was doing. Is pissing me off a rite of passage at this frickin' store? I will find a peaceful way to make him aware of how he acts. This is better than having to punch him in the larynx so that the only person he can talk to is himself.

Old Man #3

ME: How are you doing today?
OLD MAN: [old man voice, with a heavy New York accent] I'm here, that is all I can say.
ME: [after ringing up his groceries] That will be $16.14.
OLD MAN: $16.14! That's practically nothing! I should have just ran outta here!
ME: We would have never caught you.

He was on a walker.

Observation:

Women who carry Louis Vuitton purses do not give a shit about coupons. They also are not very talkative, they just want you to ring up their items so they don't have to be among commoners for too long. For the record, I hate blatant insignia as a pattern. Any woman who can afford Vuitton should just wait another paycheck (or allowance) and hold out for Prada. I did notice that women who carry Coach or Dooney & Bourke purses are more friendly and responsive. Still, they are ugly expensive purses. Just an observation.
 
Doin' the Don't

This lady was third in line when I first heard her scolding her toddler. The store was pretty busy at the moment. Her child was screaming and grabbing for everything he could, candy, French bread, lollipops, you name it. This mom was yelling at her kid to behave, but the boy wouldn't chill out. I decided to move faster on my current customer just to get the fussy child and yelling mother out of earshot. When the mom rolled her cart up, I saw a bottle in the child's right hand, a more than half empty 20 oz. bottle of Mountain Dew. Mother of the year, folks.

Caught

Sally Spec walks up to my register and picks up a strip of receipt paper, the paper that holds all of the notes to the current day's blog entry.

SALLY: [holding my notes] Is this about the customers? Who is JV?
ME: It's not always about the customers, sometimes I make up characters.
SALLY: Oh. [hands me my notes]

Holy shit. Too close. None of the people at work know I write this blog and none of them are my Facebook friends. If a few of them saw what I have written so far they probably wouldn't dig it. Thank goodness I write on the receipt paper with people's nicknames. What I write about anyone is not my fully formed opinion of a person, but how I happen to experience him or her that day. I think everyone I work with has the capacity to be a better person no matter how much they might have pissed me off in the first eight days. I will keep my notes in my back pocket from now on.