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This would have gone to General Work Chat or something, but apparently this lady raised a stink at the service desk before doing the rest of her shopping.
I'm manning express to cover a coworker's 15-minute break, and I've just started the break when Life Story Lady comes up with her order. She explains she wants a running subtotal so she doesn't go over the amount of money she has on her <Store> gift card.
Our registers don't automatically give running subtotals, but it's not too difficult to do one, just hitting "Total" twice after each item, to show the total with tax included, and then open the register back to scan-mode. I scan her things, keep the subtotal going, and when all's said and done, she has just enough on the card to cover it. While doing the running subtotal, she's even handing me the items one at a time after looking at the total. Nothing sucky about this, it wasn't busy, and she clearly had the items prioritized, so if we hit the magic number early, she had the things she needed most already rung up.
As she pays for her stuff, she starts to go on about how she was glad her math skills were up to snuff, since she'd been trying to keep track of how much it was likely to cost in the end. I nod and agree that not everyone does that so much anymore. Just being friendly and making some small talk.
Well, LSL then starts talking all about how she never was able to do well in Trig at school because of a bad teacher, but math was always her strongest suit, and I again just nod in appropriate Friendly Cashier fashion and agree that "Bad teachers can make an easy subject hard."
LSL continues on, talking about jobs she's held, and then moves on to talk about her family, commenting that one of her sons -- very bright and smart, by her account, with multiple degrees -- had "thrown it all away" to become a cop in the NYPD and was trying to get into the FBI. I, personally, have all the respect in the world for people who decide to go into law enforcement, and said so.
LSL continues to ramble on, talking about her other son, about this that and the other, clearly trying to make a Sob Story, but honestly, nothing about it seemed that sad to me, even if it might have been to her. And her order had already been finished and paid for. She had the receipt in her hand, but spent the next ten minutes after that talking at me.
Maybe it was my fault for being Friendly Cashier Guy, and maybe I didn't exude the right amount of "Dear god, make her go away!!!" But my coworkers finally seemed to notice, and paged the express cashier back from break, and about the same time, another customer came up, which finally nudged LSL into leaving.
As I headed back up to the regular registers, EC comments, "What did she say?" I respond, "Her life story, apparently." EC nods, mentions she'd raised a stink about a return earlier, and was glad to see her leaving.
That wasn't a fun night, either. I had to go out and do carts by myself later (JB is on vacation this week), and they wouldn't let me go out half an hour earlier than usual to make up for not having JB there. It was warm, sticky, and mildly unpleasant (like a party guest who won't go home), and I didn't have enough time to get flatbed carts brought up, or neaten the lot to my satisfaction. Then I had to drag two carts of damages to the back, come back up to drag a pushcart with car batteries to the back, and then put the jewelry covers on, which is a bit tiring to me. Work wasn't finished when I got done with all that, but I told my supervisor, "I did carts by myself, took damages back, took those batteries back, and did jewelry covers. I'm going home." She agreed.
Sigh.
I'm manning express to cover a coworker's 15-minute break, and I've just started the break when Life Story Lady comes up with her order. She explains she wants a running subtotal so she doesn't go over the amount of money she has on her <Store> gift card.
Our registers don't automatically give running subtotals, but it's not too difficult to do one, just hitting "Total" twice after each item, to show the total with tax included, and then open the register back to scan-mode. I scan her things, keep the subtotal going, and when all's said and done, she has just enough on the card to cover it. While doing the running subtotal, she's even handing me the items one at a time after looking at the total. Nothing sucky about this, it wasn't busy, and she clearly had the items prioritized, so if we hit the magic number early, she had the things she needed most already rung up.
As she pays for her stuff, she starts to go on about how she was glad her math skills were up to snuff, since she'd been trying to keep track of how much it was likely to cost in the end. I nod and agree that not everyone does that so much anymore. Just being friendly and making some small talk.
Well, LSL then starts talking all about how she never was able to do well in Trig at school because of a bad teacher, but math was always her strongest suit, and I again just nod in appropriate Friendly Cashier fashion and agree that "Bad teachers can make an easy subject hard."
LSL continues on, talking about jobs she's held, and then moves on to talk about her family, commenting that one of her sons -- very bright and smart, by her account, with multiple degrees -- had "thrown it all away" to become a cop in the NYPD and was trying to get into the FBI. I, personally, have all the respect in the world for people who decide to go into law enforcement, and said so.
LSL continues to ramble on, talking about her other son, about this that and the other, clearly trying to make a Sob Story, but honestly, nothing about it seemed that sad to me, even if it might have been to her. And her order had already been finished and paid for. She had the receipt in her hand, but spent the next ten minutes after that talking at me.
Maybe it was my fault for being Friendly Cashier Guy, and maybe I didn't exude the right amount of "Dear god, make her go away!!!" But my coworkers finally seemed to notice, and paged the express cashier back from break, and about the same time, another customer came up, which finally nudged LSL into leaving.
As I headed back up to the regular registers, EC comments, "What did she say?" I respond, "Her life story, apparently." EC nods, mentions she'd raised a stink about a return earlier, and was glad to see her leaving.
That wasn't a fun night, either. I had to go out and do carts by myself later (JB is on vacation this week), and they wouldn't let me go out half an hour earlier than usual to make up for not having JB there. It was warm, sticky, and mildly unpleasant (like a party guest who won't go home), and I didn't have enough time to get flatbed carts brought up, or neaten the lot to my satisfaction. Then I had to drag two carts of damages to the back, come back up to drag a pushcart with car batteries to the back, and then put the jewelry covers on, which is a bit tiring to me. Work wasn't finished when I got done with all that, but I told my supervisor, "I did carts by myself, took damages back, took those batteries back, and did jewelry covers. I'm going home." She agreed.
Sigh.
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