Broken record customers drive my friend nuts.

[notalwaysright]

I have this friend who works as a cashier at a grocery store around here. She doesn't complain about her job. What, you say? Doesn't say anything bad at all? Well, not really, no. Maybe a comment here or there (usually about people not reading dates on coupons), but not like I complain. Here's why:

• She has a full time non-managerial job.
• She is part of a union, and it really does help. (Good health insurance)
• She has seniority, and thus gets to choose what shifts she will work.
• The store has a decent amount of pretty loyal customers, and her location is low key.
• Her personality is just not critical in any way. This can be unnerving, but not irritating. More like, I want to figure out how she does it.

So this chain of stores has not had a good year. Really, really bad. For a long time it wasn't known if the stores would even stay in business. This is where the Sighting comes in. For the first time, my friend was seriously ranting about the customers. I know it won't be the same for you guys since you don't know her, but this was really not her normal personality.

"Every single customer asks me if I'm worried about my job! I mean, one after the other, back to back to back. Of course I'm worried, but why do I need to talk to every customer about it? And they think I know more than is being reported... I don't! Stop asking if we're being bought out, or if the store will stay the same, I DON'T KNOW. And go away after I hand you the receipt, don't keep trying to talk to me when I'm helping someone else! Don't try to get into a big discussion about how dumb the conglomeration was to *do the thing which put the stores in this position,* nobody here had anything to do with it, we're just along for the stupid ride!"

Anyway, I know it's not as bad as a lot of stories, but this sort of thing went on for months and months. I was reminded of my friend's rant by Food Lady's posts, actually. Except hers are on a daily basis, and this was an aberration for this area. Also, after all that, my friend's job is safe and people have cooled down a bit.

[Slave to the Phone]

Does she wears forest green. Store name starts with an H? If she is caught up in that mess, she has my total sympathy.

I'd never ask anyone if they were worried about their job, friend or stranger. Especially not a stranger! That's totally beyond rude.

I did like the H store during the short time it was around after all the restructuring. They carried products I couldn't get anywhere else except online. Like everyone else in this area, I knew what was going on, but certainly didn't ask anyone working there if they were worried about their job. I'm not stupid or rude. Of course they were worried about their jobs, what sort of dummy would think they weren't.

[notalwaysright]

You're thinking of the right place. The location she works at is the oldest in operation, from I think the 40s. So that probably made it worst than if she worked at other locations, like the one near the university, which is bigger and obviously filled with people who are in a bigger hurry. This one is an old fashioned small neighborhood type store.

On a side note, I've mentioned it before, but people here are SUPER WEIRD about their grocery store opinions. In my home town people shopped where they liked and didn't really have strong opinions, or at least didn't talk about them much. Here? Here it's like people walk around with "Team JraderToes" or "Team Minco" signs all the bleeding time. Now we're getting a Whole Paycheck and I can only imagine the annoying smugness that is to come. And there is a big divide in the teams, upscale vs bargain which irritates me because there's no reason to be so obnoxious about it. "I only buy meat at the co-op!" Good for freaking you. Or the equally annoying, "Minco is the cheapest in town!" It also has the worst produce I've seen, including the dollar store.

(Stopping now, too much caffeine.)

[pudddykat]

Yeah H store didn't last long in my neck of the woods. 1. There was already too much competition and 2. the prices were not competitive. Because we have so many options they didn't have anything that couldn't be found elsewhere. I felt bad for the workers, I don't even think they lasted a year.

[bhskittykatt]

I have friends who work at H store. I figure if they wanna talk about it, they'll talk about it. They're under enough stress as it is though without me pointing it out.

As for the whole H store vs. A store, I could write an epic novel in Fratching about that...I'm not gonna inflict my rant upon the H store employees though.