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Just would like to give you a rundown of some of the regular customers I had back when I worked at CVS in the mall.
The Stinkies
Reading this site, it seems everyone has a Stinky. That regular customer who never showers, looks gross, and is a little eccentric. Chances are there's some kind of brain imbalance, possibly even a little mental retardation which makes them the way they are. It's a sad case, but that is little consolation for the guys who have to work with him.
Now, our Stinkies are extraordinary. They have a stink radius of, and I'm not embellishing this, folks, maximum 60 feet. I will start smelling them approaching the store a good 30 seconds before I actually see them, at least on his worst days which are usually in the summer months when they're building up a sweat as they walk across the parking lot into the mall. They live in this mobile home park across the street from the mall.
This is their weekly routine: Every weekend one (or both) of them comes in and returns an unopened alarm clock which he bought the previous weekend. He then purchases a new alarm clock which we will no doubt see getting returned the next weekend. CVS has a very strict return policy which is actually in his favor: If electronics are unopened, they have a receipt, and it's within 14 days of the purchase, it's totally legit. Seeing that the clock is unopened, there's no way he's even cheating the system. They're just... well... a few bananas short of a full bunch.
Now, you'll notice that I've been talking about them in the plural. That's right, folks, there's two confirmed Stinkies, the two of them are twins (some theorize, thought, that their stink is so bad you're in fact seeing double). They wear the same stained black shirts every time we see them, they have gross shit on their beard, and they don't do much chit chat. There has never been a day where they didn't smell bad. And by bad, I mean they are a combination of garbage, poop, pee, old food, rotten milk, body odor, and bad breath. How they've survived this long without managing to catch a fatal infection is beyond me.
We seriously had one of those febreeze sprays in back of the counter for the sole purpose of dealing with "Stinky". There were also rumors that a third Stinky existed, but those rumors were never confirmed.
The Bag Lady
Another regular of ours looks like she's a full bunch of bananas until you look more closely and see she's cleverly replaced a couple of them with plantains to make it look like a full bunch. She had a love for bagged food. You know, chips, fritos, smartfood, that sort of thing. When she comes in, she's usually well-dressed, and smells way better than the Stinky Twins.
The first few times I saw her, I didn't see anything awry. I'd see her go into the snack aisle from my register, I'd hear some ruffling of bags, and she'd approach with her purchase. It wasn't until sometime later another customer actually came up to me to complain she was systematically crumpling every bag before she made her purchase.
At first I thought the customer was embellishing, or even trying to get her in trouble on purpose. That is, until I witnessed first-hand her habit. By crumpling, I mean violently squeezing the bag, no doubt crumpling the contents. I finally confronted her about this.
Me: "Excuse me, Ma'am. May I ask what you're doing? You can't damage the chips this way."
Bag Lady: "How else can I tell which bag has the most chips?"
Me: "
All the bags have about the same amount, but there's also a net weight stamped on the bottom. See?"
Bag Lady: "I don't know how that works."
Me: "It's easy. The more net weight, the more chips."
Bag Lady: "No, I don't want to do it that way."
Eventually the store manager actually banned her from the store after making a similar confrontation only this time the lady was far more belligerent and caused a scene.
The meticulous receipt reader
This was another woman who nearly got banned. One of the managers "banned" her but only when that manager was on duty. Every time she made her purchases, she'd go to the end of the counter and deeply analyze the receipt. Without any exception, she will always have something to challenge. "Why was this $1.95, it should have been $1.85!" When we informed her that this, just like most items in the store, were taxed, she'd huff about it and continue with her checking. It wasn't until she was holding up the line complaining about every item on her receipt that the aforementioned manager asked her to leave before she called security, and basically called her out on her repeated challenges. There might have been, maybe, one or two times something was actually our mistake, all the other times were just her trying to harass us.
Worst of all, she worked elsewhere in the mall. You'd think being a retail worker herself she'd realize just how much of a pain she was.
The sloths
Every so often you get the slow poke. The person who takes forever to do anything, waits until after you give them the total before they start fishing for their payment. Often times the slow pokes are very old people, and these women are no exception... but they took it to the next level.
Fortunately, I almost always either had a backup clerk or the mall was empty, so they never truly ruined everyone else's day. Let me give you a rundown of a typical transation with these sweet but slow little old women:
They walk up to my counter at the slowest possible pace. If they walked any slower, they'd be moonwalking, albeit not with as much flair as Michael Jackson. They almost always had a hand-basket of at least a dozen items. For each item, they'd do the following: Slowly reach in... slowly take the item out... inspect it diligently... then carefully place it on the counter (not in my outreached hand). Each would take upwards of 15 seconds. Occasionally she would pause as she inspected the item to look at the nutrition facts or whatever. Do the math, it would take them a good 3 minutes to have all 12 items scanned.
While this is going on, they're always talking about whatever with eachother. Mostly idle chit-chat. They never even acknowledge my existance. I had to repeatedly give them their total before she'd jump, realize she was holding us all up, and would slowly look in her purse for her wallet.
It would take her another 30 seconds to get her wallet out, then she'd look at each and every bill she had before making a choice on which bills to take out. She'd count meticulously: "Okay, this is a 10... and a 5... and another 5... and a 1... oh, I think I have exact change!" At this point she'll unzip her change purse and count the myriad of dimes, nickels, and pennies. All over, the process of just getting the cash to pay for her stuff would take up to 5 minutes.
The next part was the quickest of the whole transaction: Punch in the cash entered and enter the cash into the till. If she had change, that would be another 2 of the slowest minutes imaginable, as I would watch her slowly take the money, put the bills in her billfold, put the coins in her change purse, and then s.l.o.w.l.y zip up the change purse. Followed by slowly taking each bag and lifting it off the counter.
At this point I wish her a nice day, hoping she takes the hint. She does. Eventually. She would continue to talk to her friend about whatever and within a few minutes would finally leave the line and continue out of the store. At this point 15-20 minutes would have passed since we started the transaction.
It was only one time I actually had a line to speak of (I was alone and manager was stuck in the office and couldn't leave for whatever reason), and fortunately after she was finally finished getting her change into their proper places and turned around, she was startled to find the long line of customers waiting to get their purchases done. And by startled I mean you could almost see the exclamation point over her head as she jumped much like a cartoon. The only good thing was that line actually started forming towards the end of the transaction, and they only had to wait for the last 3 minutes.
I just never found an easy and polite way to ask her to hurry up, not that any attempts would have been successful anyway.
The Stinkies
Reading this site, it seems everyone has a Stinky. That regular customer who never showers, looks gross, and is a little eccentric. Chances are there's some kind of brain imbalance, possibly even a little mental retardation which makes them the way they are. It's a sad case, but that is little consolation for the guys who have to work with him.
Now, our Stinkies are extraordinary. They have a stink radius of, and I'm not embellishing this, folks, maximum 60 feet. I will start smelling them approaching the store a good 30 seconds before I actually see them, at least on his worst days which are usually in the summer months when they're building up a sweat as they walk across the parking lot into the mall. They live in this mobile home park across the street from the mall.
This is their weekly routine: Every weekend one (or both) of them comes in and returns an unopened alarm clock which he bought the previous weekend. He then purchases a new alarm clock which we will no doubt see getting returned the next weekend. CVS has a very strict return policy which is actually in his favor: If electronics are unopened, they have a receipt, and it's within 14 days of the purchase, it's totally legit. Seeing that the clock is unopened, there's no way he's even cheating the system. They're just... well... a few bananas short of a full bunch.
Now, you'll notice that I've been talking about them in the plural. That's right, folks, there's two confirmed Stinkies, the two of them are twins (some theorize, thought, that their stink is so bad you're in fact seeing double). They wear the same stained black shirts every time we see them, they have gross shit on their beard, and they don't do much chit chat. There has never been a day where they didn't smell bad. And by bad, I mean they are a combination of garbage, poop, pee, old food, rotten milk, body odor, and bad breath. How they've survived this long without managing to catch a fatal infection is beyond me.
We seriously had one of those febreeze sprays in back of the counter for the sole purpose of dealing with "Stinky". There were also rumors that a third Stinky existed, but those rumors were never confirmed.
The Bag Lady
Another regular of ours looks like she's a full bunch of bananas until you look more closely and see she's cleverly replaced a couple of them with plantains to make it look like a full bunch. She had a love for bagged food. You know, chips, fritos, smartfood, that sort of thing. When she comes in, she's usually well-dressed, and smells way better than the Stinky Twins.
The first few times I saw her, I didn't see anything awry. I'd see her go into the snack aisle from my register, I'd hear some ruffling of bags, and she'd approach with her purchase. It wasn't until sometime later another customer actually came up to me to complain she was systematically crumpling every bag before she made her purchase.
At first I thought the customer was embellishing, or even trying to get her in trouble on purpose. That is, until I witnessed first-hand her habit. By crumpling, I mean violently squeezing the bag, no doubt crumpling the contents. I finally confronted her about this.
Me: "Excuse me, Ma'am. May I ask what you're doing? You can't damage the chips this way."
Bag Lady: "How else can I tell which bag has the most chips?"
Me: "
All the bags have about the same amount, but there's also a net weight stamped on the bottom. See?"Bag Lady: "I don't know how that works."
Me: "It's easy. The more net weight, the more chips."
Bag Lady: "No, I don't want to do it that way."
Eventually the store manager actually banned her from the store after making a similar confrontation only this time the lady was far more belligerent and caused a scene.
The meticulous receipt reader
This was another woman who nearly got banned. One of the managers "banned" her but only when that manager was on duty. Every time she made her purchases, she'd go to the end of the counter and deeply analyze the receipt. Without any exception, she will always have something to challenge. "Why was this $1.95, it should have been $1.85!" When we informed her that this, just like most items in the store, were taxed, she'd huff about it and continue with her checking. It wasn't until she was holding up the line complaining about every item on her receipt that the aforementioned manager asked her to leave before she called security, and basically called her out on her repeated challenges. There might have been, maybe, one or two times something was actually our mistake, all the other times were just her trying to harass us.
Worst of all, she worked elsewhere in the mall. You'd think being a retail worker herself she'd realize just how much of a pain she was.
The sloths
Every so often you get the slow poke. The person who takes forever to do anything, waits until after you give them the total before they start fishing for their payment. Often times the slow pokes are very old people, and these women are no exception... but they took it to the next level.
Fortunately, I almost always either had a backup clerk or the mall was empty, so they never truly ruined everyone else's day. Let me give you a rundown of a typical transation with these sweet but slow little old women:
They walk up to my counter at the slowest possible pace. If they walked any slower, they'd be moonwalking, albeit not with as much flair as Michael Jackson. They almost always had a hand-basket of at least a dozen items. For each item, they'd do the following: Slowly reach in... slowly take the item out... inspect it diligently... then carefully place it on the counter (not in my outreached hand). Each would take upwards of 15 seconds. Occasionally she would pause as she inspected the item to look at the nutrition facts or whatever. Do the math, it would take them a good 3 minutes to have all 12 items scanned.
While this is going on, they're always talking about whatever with eachother. Mostly idle chit-chat. They never even acknowledge my existance. I had to repeatedly give them their total before she'd jump, realize she was holding us all up, and would slowly look in her purse for her wallet.
It would take her another 30 seconds to get her wallet out, then she'd look at each and every bill she had before making a choice on which bills to take out. She'd count meticulously: "Okay, this is a 10... and a 5... and another 5... and a 1... oh, I think I have exact change!" At this point she'll unzip her change purse and count the myriad of dimes, nickels, and pennies. All over, the process of just getting the cash to pay for her stuff would take up to 5 minutes.
The next part was the quickest of the whole transaction: Punch in the cash entered and enter the cash into the till. If she had change, that would be another 2 of the slowest minutes imaginable, as I would watch her slowly take the money, put the bills in her billfold, put the coins in her change purse, and then s.l.o.w.l.y zip up the change purse. Followed by slowly taking each bag and lifting it off the counter.
At this point I wish her a nice day, hoping she takes the hint. She does. Eventually. She would continue to talk to her friend about whatever and within a few minutes would finally leave the line and continue out of the store. At this point 15-20 minutes would have passed since we started the transaction.
It was only one time I actually had a line to speak of (I was alone and manager was stuck in the office and couldn't leave for whatever reason), and fortunately after she was finally finished getting her change into their proper places and turned around, she was startled to find the long line of customers waiting to get their purchases done. And by startled I mean you could almost see the exclamation point over her head as she jumped much like a cartoon. The only good thing was that line actually started forming towards the end of the transaction, and they only had to wait for the last 3 minutes.
I just never found an easy and polite way to ask her to hurry up, not that any attempts would have been successful anyway.
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