OMG! Water spilled on checkout!

[Lace Neil Singer]

Now, this happened yesterday. I had at about 3:30pm a considerable queue at my checkout. I was just about to serve the next customer when this old lady at the end of the queue started yelling, "Young lady, there's a spillage on the checkout. Clean it up at once!"

I looked down, and there's a minute smear of water on the belt, probably from a frozen item. I politely tell her that I can't clean it up right now, cuz I have to stay at my till. This isn't good enough for her, and she demands a cloth. I tell her I have no cloths (this is normal; we either have enough cloths to make a table cloth from, or none) but I can call a supervisor for one if she wants. She refuses, and sulkily puts her shopping on the belt, ostentatiously avoiding a wet patch that's about the size of a fingerprint.

I then apologized to the customer I was about to serve and served him. When I got to crazy old lady, by the way, not only had the water smudge dried up completely, but she said nothing to me about her insane hydrophobia or indeed, anything.

[reformedwaitress]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. People are crazy and just like to complain and there's nothing we can do about it but smile and nod.

Though if it's a fear, I probably can't really say anything. I'M terrified of fish and caterpillars.

[cheese]

Heh I get that all the time.. I feel really bad if I give them a cloth and make them clean it up themselves - I have no problem waiting until the spill moves up the belt and I can clean it when I can actually reach it, but apparently it has to be cleaned NOW. Most of the time its only water, either put stuff around it or put stuff on it that won't get soggy, its not that hard! The funniest thing is when I've just cleaned my belt (which we're meant to do if its dead, they do get pretty filthy) and is therefore all wet, and watching the customer stand at the end watching the belt go round, having to tell them that there probably isn't any dry patch, and watching them storm off

[Lace Neil Singer]

I've had that too; I've even had a duh brained customer ask me if the cleaner I was using on the belt had bleach in it. Yeah, like I'd be putting my hands anywhere near bleach!

[Becks]

Maybe she's related to the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz.

[alogram]

I used to work at a grocery store that had terrible procedures for wrapping meat....and it is really gross to constantly have your hands covered in blood and or "chicken juice". Heh....I can't think of a better way to put that.....

(Reminds me of Lewis Black..."There is no soy milk...it's soy JUICE")

That said, one of the few good things at Wal Mart was that they did have good packaging...

But people are weird (shocking, I know!) you either have the ones who freak the fuck out because of a little bit of water on the belt...or you have the ones who pay no attention and throw their stuff directly in the one spot that is messy.

I don't get it.