Yes, we both have the same problem. You.

[Dreamstalker]

I was on register for 8 hours yesterday. Suck (ASM knows I can't be standing behind a register for more than 2 hours at a time or my feet/back starts hurting and making me a very cranky wolf). It wasn't too bad save for this 'lady' shortly after I came on.

We were shorthanded as usual (how? There are over 100 part-timers on the payroll). SC comes through my lane with an overflowing cart; usually not a problem. IF I have a bagger. One of the new cashier policies (which I sort of agree with in terms of keeping IPM reasonable) is that a cashier should not be bagging unless it's the end of an order. Where this policy falls apart is in the above scenario with a giant order and no bagger; I have to stop every so often to move fragile stuff like eggs to the side.

The lane lights do have a blinking 'help me' mode which generally goes ignored. So I'm indicating that I need a bagger NOW. I have totaled the order once or twice to bag myself, but SC doesn't like that and demands I continue. Um, I physically can't scan anything else until I clear the back belt (yes, stuff was backing up onto the scanner, I think some items may have been double scanned but if SC didn't care I didn't care). Then I run out of handled bags on my side.

SC: "Do WE have a problem here?" I wanted to take the leek I was holding and whack her repeatedly.
Me: "I don't have any bags. I think there are some down on the end."
SC: "Go get them!" At this point I am boxed in by a customer on the next lane.
Me: "I can't leave my register and I do not have anyone else to help bag. You'll see the bags down at the end, please get me some if you want me to start bagging."
SC: "I'm in a hurry!"
Next customer (NC): "Not enough of a hurry to help bag your own damn groceries so you can leave, I see." NC is a regular, and I know she is in a legitimate hurry (on her lunch break).
SC: (to NC): "You help me then!"
NC: "Hell no. You shouldn't have bought a full cart if you're in such a rush."
SC seethes for a bit.
NC: "Go on, help her. If you can load up a cart you can help bag. If you did you would be on your way by now."
SC: "I would rather not."
NC: (if looks could kill, SC would be a smoking pile in the next county)
Me: but can't say what I really wanted to...not that anyone would notice with all the noise, but knowing my luck SC would have complained to ASM who sides with SCs more often than not and thinks nothing of making cashiers look bad.

Finally a bagger shows up, and SC starts barking orders. Everything had to be bagged in a very specific order...which couldn't be done due to the way everything was cattywampus on the belt and bagging area (I got a finger smashed with a cantaloupe as she was trying to 'help' by flinging stuff all over...luckily no serious injury but I did get grumped at for damaging the precious melon ).

After I cashed SC out, I quickly rung up NC and, since everyone else in my line had left, was able to send her on her way through the next empty lane (NC slipped me $3 with the instructions "Your mocha therapy is on me today."). Only then did I bag SC's crap. Predictably, for all the hurry she was in she saw fit to stand around and bitch...clearly you have time to waste, so we will oblige.

Later I hear that her cantaloupe and eggs jumped ship in the parking lot. From what the cart jockey said, she seemed to think that balancing the bag with the eggs on top of everything else in her trunk was a good idea. If only they had broken in the trunk and she not noticed...

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Sounds to me like karma bit the SC in the end. Too bad you couldn't be a fly on the wall for when she found her eggs scrambled.

Sorry she gave you a hard time though . . . Mocha therapy is good BTW (I like coffee therapy myself.)

[Dreamstalker]

For some reason--probably now that the weather's warmer--all the kooks come out during midday (one of the reasons I prefer working nights). I don't quite understand how we can have so many on the payroll and still be almost constantly understaffed during the day...wait, I can. I think my store uses 'predictive scheduling' which has little to do with reality.

[drjonah]

For some reason--probably now that the weather's warmer--all the kooks come out during midday (one of the reasons I prefer working nights). I don't quite understand how we can have so many on the payroll and still be almost constantly understaffed during the day...wait, I can. I think my store uses 'predictive scheduling' which has little to do with reality.

Too many retailers rely on computer scheduling. When I worked at awful-mart, my ASM and I would laugh at what the computer deemed an acceptable schedule for the first of the month (5 cashiers at 11am yeah that won't be a problem at all).

My current job at Dollar Admiral is the same way. Technically we're not supposed to deviate the schedule from what the computer says. That is until I pointed out to my DM that the computer said that we didn't need ANYBODY working the first two hours the store was open. Not only that, but our location is a higher volume store with high shrink so loss prevention insists that two workers be in the store at all times. The computer doesn't seem to understand that. Well suddenly our DM had a change of heart and allows us to 'fix' what the computer says.

[Sleepwalker]

Often it is based on sales from the previous year, not taking into account that the weather is different, festivals, sports games and holidays are on different days, and the store itself may be having an ad blitz or super sale. That's before you even get into varying ability/training of the employees themselves. Slapping 5 trainees onto a 9 person shift is a recipe for disaster.

[otakuneko]

.

Sounds like their software was designed with very little input from someone who had even a modicum of Operations training. I had one class--one class--in Operations Management and I know I could do better.

At the very least, I'd build in a minimum staffing level

[MoonCat]

the computer said that we didn't need ANYBODY working the first two hours the store was open.

Computer says no?

[KhirasHY]

There is someone I know (not someone I'd call a friend, but more "friend of a friend" type) who I've always thought about talking about here, yet I never do. I'm not sure this person is an SC in part (I've never seen them bitch at people, but I'm sure they do), but they are just a terrible person in general. For instance, this person has come over to our house a few times...and they always complain because, I kid you not, our "floor is too hard." That should more or less sum up their basic approach to life.

Everything is a complaint or a fight with this person...what you and I could settle in terms of a calm, reasonable conversation about "what should we eat tonight" they turn into an immediate argument if it's not what they wanted. Ie, they are the person who asks "what would you like to eat" but then gets mad if your craving isn't what they had in mind, since it's not what they were hungry for! Since I can't stand this person, I would never go to the store with them...but they strike me as the exact type of person as the SC in this post...

[bainsidhe]

I got a finger smashed with a cantaloupe as she was trying to 'help' by flinging stuff all over.

*Big box retail* has a spinning bag holder so the cashier can bag and spin the bags around to the customer to put in their cart. Problem was, I'd have my arms in the bag and the customer would pull the spinner so they could grab the next bag. This of course resulted in metal bars slamming against my arms repeatedly through my shift. When I first started cashiering, I kept wondering why I had so many bruises. Cashiering is much more physical than it appears.

[MadonnaC]

as a professional forecaster (yes, I do have that in my title) I will never leave any time slot with less than 3 people - one to call out sick, one to be on vacation, and one to do the work.

Too often I see people rely on the almighty computer, and forget to apply common sense.

[Kit-Ginevra]

1.cattywampus? A Dr.Seuss creature?
2.What's the betting she returned with her squished eggs and melon and demanded a replacement as they were 'broken by the cashier whilst bagging'?

[DerangedHermit]

For some reason--probably now that the weather's warmer--all the kooks come out during midday (one of the reasons I prefer working nights). I don't quite understand how we can have so many on the payroll and still be almost constantly understaffed during the day...wait, I can. I think my store uses 'predictive scheduling' which has little to do with reality.

This company can't even predict the things that come out their rear end because their heads are in the way.

[sms001]

1.cattywampus?

Catty wampus [1840; American; chiefly Midlands and Southern U.S.; variant spellings catawampous, kattywampus, cattywampus, caddywompous and catawampus; "a humorous formation" of which the etymology is lost; perhaps the first element of catty wampus with the sense of 'fierce or destructive' < a variant on the American folk term catamount, an abbreviation for catamountain, which is 'a mountain lion'; or perhaps < the Greek root kata- 'implying disparagement or abuse'; perhaps the first element with the sense of 'askew or crooked' < a now obsolete verb cater (1577) 'to set or move diagonally' (< Middle French catre 'four' < Latin quattuor) and is seen in the word catty corner (originally spelled catercorner and meant 'four-cornered'), now meaning 'two items diagonally across from each other'; perhaps the second element < the Scots verb wampish 'to twist or wriggle'].

[Kit-Ginevra]

Ah you learn something each day.I'd never heard of cattycorner before Judge Judy...but then vocabulary skills on there being what they are,it could possibly have been a mangling of half a dozen other things...

I KNEW I'd seen it somewhere before and thought it was a strange critter...
http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~leonghw/...ttywampus.html

[Dreamstalker]

Slapping 5 trainees onto a 9 person shift is a recipe for disaster.

Or 4 trainees--two of whom hadn't even been given the basic register training--on a 6 person shift, on a day leading up to a religious holiday that gets extremely busy (and full of SCs) in these parts. That day it was only myself and J running everything. ASM was there, but he was doing who-knows-what (all I ever saw him do was 'help' bag).

I'm still asking for help with tags. There must be somebody on payroll who meets the shift requirements and doesn't have to be supervised...until that happens, I'm not killing myself trying to do the entire store. Everyone knows I can't, and the night crew lead wants to/needs to poach me sometimes to help them out. Some weeks I prefer stocking to be perfectly honest.

What's the betting she returned with her squished eggs and melon and demanded a replacement as they were 'broken by the cashier whilst bagging'?

The service desk veteran has denied complaints like that before; she wasn't on then so I didn't see what happened. If it were up to me, we would only replace an item a) before you leave the premises or b) if it's visibly damaged/unsellable (but if it's obviously no good, why did you buy it in the first place?). Once it leaves the store, perishable items have 48-hour return window and it's at the department head's discretion (that deli meat looks like you left it in the car, you say it fell out of the bag? if you're not an SC about it we can figure something out)