Quitters, Guns, and Call Ins! Oh My! (Long!)

[SG15Z]

This week so far has been insane!!! We have been insanely busy and insanely short staffed. I can't wait for my vacation.

Monday!!

So yeah monday...... it was...... fun?

So I come in at 5pm as I'm 'closing' FES that night. First thing I notice is that the lines are obsenely long. I head over to the Deli to grab a quick bite before I clock in. I grab my stuff myself because they are insanely busy as well. Not a good sign.

So I eat, clock in, and head to my CSM who was currently bagging. (normal but still.) I come to find out the person who was in Fuel Center that night quit in the middle of her shift!

So one of my cashiers had to be sent out to the Fuel, but he had never closed and doesn't know what to do. So at 6 we were gonna send another cashier who knows a little bit out there until 10. But first I have to give a cashier her break then SCO theirs because we're behind on breaks! Joy!

After the breaks were done my CSM went off to do the midday pickup (which should be done before 5) and I spent my time bagging groceries and calling surge help. Note we had 4 cashiers (not counting SCO) scheduled that day, I went a full hour while the pickup was being done of having 7 registers opened. For those doing the math at home that's 3 backup cashiers up front for a full hour! >_<

So finally breaks are done, for the moment, and the CSM is done with the pickup! She goes over last minute things I need to know and leaves for the day as its time for her to go. Now the cashier being out in Fuel put me in a bind. One I'm short a checker, but I had an extra sacker that day and she knew how to check so not so bad. Two I need to give her two breaks probably around 8ish.

But no time to think about that now, another rush! Yay! Scan, scan, scan! Rush over! But crud it's still pretty busy. So in order to do breaks I have to stay on the register and send people to their breaks. Once those 2 cashiers were done I head to SCO. The SCO cashier then gave the Fuel/Cashier/idk anymore her 2 breaks at once, then took her break. It's now 9:30ish. I'm suppose to have started the final pickup by now, and I haven't even started picking up tills yet.

So I grab some Fritos and Bean Dip and eat and do my stuff with the tills at the same time as I'm obviously not getting a break today.

Here's a rundown of what I have to do to close down a till for the day:
1) Drop all 20s and big bills
2) Fill coin dispenser with all change still in till that will fit
3)Read numbers on coin dispenser to get and estimate on coin count and write it down and put paper in till.
4)Turn off customer display screen
5)Make sure I'm not still signed on
6) paper clip all checks and credit slips and pile them in a certain tray in the safe.
7)If you have keys to cash office put tills in safe
8) If not leave on floor in Booth for now
9) repeat with the other 10+ tills

Yeah it can take a while. So finally I'm ready! whew! So me and the MOD start the pickup, but halfway through the girl in Fuel hasn't come back inside yet and Fuel closed 30 minutes ago. So me and MOD go out there and decide to hold the pickup and go ahead and do the deposit for Fuel while I help her.

Turns out she was having problems counting down the till as she hadn't done it in a while. I help her out while MOD puts the Fuel Delivery in the computer. So then I go to print the Shift and Cash reports as well the accountant needs those. I press the [print report] button. Nothing. Try again. Nope. Damn it not again! So I have to call support center! Yay!

So fast forward 15 minutes later the reports finally print and we can finally start counting the safe drops. Finally we're done with Fuel! It's 11pm, great.

So we finish up the pickup and all is finally good. I then sort out returns real quick and clock out at 11:45!!! I'm suppose to leave at 10:30pm! >_<

*takes breath*

Tuesday!

So Tuesday I'm in the Pharamacy completely oblivious to the happenings up front. But I find out late when I notice the Boothie was still there even though she was suppose to leave and hour ago!

Well see the maitenence kid saw some kids outside the windows holding guns. Real Guns!!! And he tells the MOD and FES. The FES goes to peek out to see if she can see them when guess what. They're coming inside! And they both have the guns in there pants in a not-so-conciling manner. So they ask her questions and she's trying her hardest not to look at the guns afraid they might freak out. So police are called the kids eventually leave, and everyone spends about an hour doing incident reports for both the police and Kroger.

Granted I hard this stuff second hand and don't know the details but the FES says if she sees those guys again shes running the opposite direction.

Oh yeah it was insanely busy that day too.

Wednesday!!!

We're nearing the end of our tale...

So I am the morning FES 11am to 7pm. I clock in and look at the schedule. My 12pm checker has called in....... And there's only 2 people off that aren't Requested or at school. I call them. They can't come. Oh yeah it's also insanely busy too (and not just because I'm short one). Yeah. So long story short I feel really bad for the closing FES tonight. He had baskets upon baskets of Returns, and it's insanely busy. Me thinks tomorrow isn't gonna be much better. I hate graduation week.........

I'm just skipping today's madness details as I'm tired of typing.

*sigh* Just 2 days and 6 hours till my vacation, but who's counting?

[bean]

Good god man. At least you had some backup cashiers.

We have 4 baggers that all used to be cashiers - 2 of them kept coming up short and were put on "final" for cash handling for a year, so both stepped down to bagger. The other 2 got caught exploiting a bug in our register software and were demoted.

If it's busy, we'll still put 3 of them on a register, the 4th wants nothing to do with handling money again. One of them is damn fast and we wind up trying to keep up with each other if we're side by side.

We have the 1 drawer = 1 cashier rule, so it's easy to tell who's coming up over/short at the end of the day.

--

To close down a till in my store - which is done at the end of a cashier's shift - we do the following.

1: Cashier requests a final loan 1-2 hours before the end of their shift - basically makes sure there's 2 rolls of every coin and enough bills to make a $400 till.
2: Cashier signs out and gets EVERYTHING from the drawer - credit card slips, coupons, checks, all cash, all extra coins, everything, at the end of their shift, and takes it to the cash office.
3: Cashier builds the till up to $400 - 2 rolls of each coin + loose change, $60-80 in $1's, $60-100 in $5's, the rest split up among $10's and $20's, and runs a "chit" (calculator tape) showing how it's split up.
4: Cashier runs a chit for all checks, all coupons (separating vendor and store/competitor coupons), loans, pickups, cash, and returns if they did any (we can do them, we just have to have a FES come over with a key - if someone's been in my line for awhile and has an exchange/return I'll call a FES over instead of making them go to the service desk and wait in line again).
5: Cashier fills out paperwork for their deposit, supervisor counts the till and the cashier's deposit, both go into the safe.
6: Cashier signs paperwork, signs till back in, clocks out and leaves.

2-6 takes a good 15 minutes for someone who's really fast, 30+ for a beginner. I can do it in about 20 (this includes the FES verifying everything). I think most stores run similar to yours though (multiple people can ring on a drawer). Cash-up basically triple checks the deposits before they go to the bank, checks all the paperwork for accuracy, checks all coupons to make sure they're valid (if they're not, the cashier gets "points"), and builds loan tills.