People handing you their trash

[Despina83]

A couple times when I've cashiered, I've had people just hand me their trash without even asking if I can throw it out or thanking me, assuming that that's just part of my job. I was appalled when a lady hurriedly handed me some trash and said, "That's trash" before going back to unloading her cart. To her credit, when she tried it again moments later, she suddenly realized what she did and she was embarrassed and and apologetic. But the other day a guy just handed me a wad of trash that needed to be thrown out, without comment. When they do this, I don't comment either, I just toss it out while fuming inside. Do other cashiers get this a lot?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

As somebody who works on the salesfloor and doesn't cashier, I say they're at least trying to get the trash to the right place.

I have to deal with trash that's just shoved on a shelf or left in a shopping cart.

[bigjimaz]

Truthfully, I would much rather they handed it to me to discard than to leave it on the shelves, shove it in a crevice or just throw it on a floor. That is unless it was some disgusting mess or a dirty diaper. Then I would grab the can and let them toss it in.

[Sableonblonde]

Yes, when I cashiered at a food stand, people would occassionally do that even though there were garbage cans placed every twenty feet. But what was even more aggrivating was when people just LEFT their garbage sitting on my counter. I'd be so busy I wouldn't notice who did it, but I'd look over and there would be a cup or some napkins sitting at the edge of the counter. How could you possibly be so lazy and rude?

I would never hand my trash over to a cashier, even if there were no trash cans in sight. I'd hang onto it or put it in my purse until I found a trash can. And I have done that, plenty of times.

[blas]

Customers did that to me a lot at the gas station. They'd unwrap their pack of smokes and throw the cellophane at me and say "Throw this away for me!" or they'd just grumble. No thanks or nothing.

[Dreamstalker]

I sometimes get people handing me the cellophane from GW boxes, but the trashcan upstairs is pretty hidden and they're fairly polite about asking. At least it's clean plasticwrap (generally the regulars know enough to put food trash in the heavy-duty trash barrel in the game room).

[Pagan]

I once found a Mickey D's wrapper just laying in the middle of the floor. Realized that I had seen the douche eating it earlier. You're done with your burger? That's fine, just drop the wrapper wherever the hell you feel like!

Then there's the tissues with *stuff* on them. Unless I have other paper towels, I won't touch them.

As the instructor in my Clinical Prep class said, "If it's wet and not yours, don't touch it." Good advice I think.

[lightmylamb]

Oh man, I hate that.
Our tills were near the entrance, and people would come in, past a huge green garbage can sitting outside, and ask me to throw their stuff away, and usually when they were coming in from outside it would be like, peach pits and stuff. I did tell some people to use the trash can outside before, though.

[FuzzyKitten99]

People used to do it to me when I worked at McD's in drive thru. They would hand me trash through the window and TELL me to toss it. I wouldn't even touch it and just say I couldn't for sanitary reasons. Funny thing is, more and more people started doing it as time went on. I don't get it. Our managers eventually put a trash can on the sidewalk, just after the window, and we then would point to it whenever people would try and hand us trash.

I tells ya... some people's children.

[marasbaras]

I'll ask a cashier to toss something for me ... if I don't see a garbage can. Some stores hide them well. But, big bags of stuff ... nah, I'll hold onto those.

[powerboy]

As somebody who works on the salesfloor and doesn't cashier, I say they're at least trying to get the trash to the right place.

I have to deal with trash that's just shoved on a shelf or left in a shopping cart.

I had that when I was working at OfficeMax. I hated finding diapers in the shopping cart when I was a cart pusher at Walmart.

I'll ask a cashier to toss something for me ... if I don't see a garbage can. Some stores hide them well. But, big bags of stuff ... nah, I'll hold onto those.

I do the samething.

[Eric the Grey]

As a general rule, I don't do that, but for a while there I was handing the Safeway checkers the majority of the receipt that they gave me. I'd tear off the half-to-three quarters of the receipt that had nothing to do with my purchase and ask them to deal with it.

I mean really? What use is it to add TWO FEET (I measured it) to a receipt for the purchase of two items?

They seem to have changed, because lately, they've been a bit more reasonable.



Eric the Grey

[PepperElf]

if i need to toss out trash, i'll ask to use their trash basket. but i mean like a few pieces of paper only. otherwise i can wait until later

[VenomX]

Customers did that to me a lot at the gas station. They'd unwrap their pack of smokes and throw the cellophane at me and say "Throw this away for me!" or they'd just grumble. No thanks or nothing.

When they do that to me at work I always say, "ummm no. Theres a trash can right there and right over there. Do it yourself."

Once in a while they will then just leave it on the counter. When they do that I just tell them not to come back because they will NOT be sold anything by me.

[Norton]

This was one of my pet peeves when I worked in food service.
At the drive-thru, I'd say I couldn't handle garbage for sanitary reasons. At the counter, I'd point them to the two trashcans by the exits, and the trashcan they had to walk by to get to the counter.

I hated finding greasy wrappers and napkins on the counter I just cleaned. Customers would always leave garbage in blind spots that couldn't be seen from our side of the counter. Again I will point out that they had to walk right by a trashcan to get anywhere in the store!

I got pretty jaded at that job. It got to the point where someone would toss a wrapper at me and say "I don't want this." Without missing a beat I'd say "I don't want it either." and point them to the trashcans.