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Two for one-Scammers and Bad Moms
I used to work at one of the major pharmacy chains in the USA (rhymes with Allgreens!), and I've mentioned before having a militant manager and dealing with an old lady throwing boiling hot coffee on me and making racist remarks-but there's two more incidents that really stood out to me, and were part of why I wanted to leave that place so much.
As I mentioned on my other post, that was my very first job. I was as green as green could be, had lived a pretty sheltered life (small country town-not that this stopped some terrible things from happening to me, but for the most part I still tried to see the good in people before getting suspicious-that got beaten out of me quick!) and generally didn't think that people would pull some serious crap on me when I had done absolutely nothing to them to deserve such.
Oh, how naive I was.
So first up, the Scammer, and the reason why I will not take rolled coins anymore.
I was on the front register, as always, and one of the other kids working there came up to me and told me to keep an eye on this one guy-he looked suspicious. I honestly thought nothing of it because the man in question was black, and the other kid had made some...not outright racist, but less than tasteful jokes, and I'd been told to keep an eye on almost every non-white customer we'd had, and other than a few Hispanic children trying to steal things (pregnancy tests and candy, primarily) nothing had ever come of it.
Well, he came up to me and put some medical supplies and candy on, and of course I ran them through like usual. He put a bunch of rolls of dimes on the counter. One of my managers was nearby, and when she saw that I was going to open the packages to count the coins individually, as I thought was safer, she told me to just open the ends and make sure they were really dimes, and then take them still rolled because it would take too long otherwise. I obeyed, and sure enough, when I opened just the very ends and looked in, I saw dimes. So I took the rolls, gave the guy his change and sent him on his way.
A short while later I needed dimes in my change bins, so I opened up one of the rolls, and what did I find?
Pennies. He had placed a dime at each end of the roll, and filled the rest with pennies. When I called a manager to the front and showed them, she got mad at me and told me I should have opened them up all the way. Of course I was like
but being as timid as I was at the time, I didn't point out the fact that I had planned on doing that in the first place. We got a description of him and tried to find video footage of him from the cameras, but I don't think he was ever caught. I will never, ever take coin rolls from anyone now-if they try to pay me in them, if they're something larger like quarters I will open it and count them individually, if not then I will tell them I can't accept them. I'm not putting myself in that situation again.
And now, the Mom.
Still there at my first place of employment, I often had to chase little kids out of the candy aisle when they started opening things and eating them, or asking their parents to pay for the damaged products we could no longer sell, ect. Of course this usually got me yelled at by some biddy who thought the fact that she'd given birth made her more glorious than the sun and how dare I accuse her little angel of doing something like that, or that they weren't going to buy damaged products even if it was their kid that did the damaging, ect., so I've become pretty jaded against moms to begin with-but this one lady takes the cake.
She came in always wearing those goth/punk pants or shorts with suspenders that didn't fit, had her hair dyed multicolors and sticking out every which way, had that sagginess to her face that only comes from someone relatively young who has smoked or done drugs to the extent that it's aged them prematurely, and always smelled like cigarettes. She usually just came in to buy more smokes and make small talk, mentioning a daughter to me several times. I thought nothing but that I hoped she didn't smoke around the poor thing-I have severe asthma and even being near someone who smells like cigarettes can trigger a mild attack (it'll be very painful and hard to breathe, but I won't be gasping and struggling visibly, so most people can't tell when I'm hit with one of those-which is good or I never would have been able to work there) so it was painful enough when she came by at all-but once she came in with her daughter. Now, I don't like kids, but I will admit her daughter was adorable-all pudgy with a puff of blonde hair and big blue eyes and all, and she was QUIET. That alone was a huuuge plus for her, since I can't stand whiny noisy kids.
However, just because I think she's cute doesn't mean you can plop her on my counter (not even handing her to me, just setting her down on the edge of the countertop), tell me to "hold this for a minute" and run off to do your shopping! I was honestly dumbfounded, and she got a few shocked stares from some of the other customers too. The little girl was too young to sit up on her own, so I had to practically dive across the counter to catch her when she started rolling off the countertop, and had to hold her on my hip with one hand while checking out customers with the other. It took her mother close to half an hour to finish shopping, at which point I'd been asked several times if the girl was my child, why I had my kid there at work, and why the hell couldn't I get a babysitter for my kid, it was so irresponsible of me to bring my kid to work, ect. A few of the ones who told me those things were corrected by customers who had seen the other woman leave her child with me, and were apologetic. Of course a few of them left without being thusly corrected, and made comments about reporting to management and complaining and yadda yadda yadda. One of my managers came by and asked if that woman thought we were a daycare or something, but didn't offer to take the little girl so I could work properly (she was doing nothing at the moment) and instead simply left me juggling the child on my hip,with her chewing on my shirt, with the products I was trying to check out for customers. Mind you, there are only three registers in the store, and the one I was on was the main one that everyone goes to, the other two being in Cosmetics and the Photo department, so I was very busy the whole time.
When the mother finally returned, she didn't take her daughter until after she'd paid for everything (which entailed me trying to work the registers and scan her products and bag them one-handed) and she acted like I was such a good buddy of hers, then finally left with her daughter, leaving the smell of cigarettes in her wake.
Honestly, I feel far more sorry for the child than I ever felt for myself, but I thought those stories belonged here.
As I mentioned on my other post, that was my very first job. I was as green as green could be, had lived a pretty sheltered life (small country town-not that this stopped some terrible things from happening to me, but for the most part I still tried to see the good in people before getting suspicious-that got beaten out of me quick!) and generally didn't think that people would pull some serious crap on me when I had done absolutely nothing to them to deserve such.
Oh, how naive I was.
So first up, the Scammer, and the reason why I will not take rolled coins anymore.
I was on the front register, as always, and one of the other kids working there came up to me and told me to keep an eye on this one guy-he looked suspicious. I honestly thought nothing of it because the man in question was black, and the other kid had made some...not outright racist, but less than tasteful jokes, and I'd been told to keep an eye on almost every non-white customer we'd had, and other than a few Hispanic children trying to steal things (pregnancy tests and candy, primarily) nothing had ever come of it.
Well, he came up to me and put some medical supplies and candy on, and of course I ran them through like usual. He put a bunch of rolls of dimes on the counter. One of my managers was nearby, and when she saw that I was going to open the packages to count the coins individually, as I thought was safer, she told me to just open the ends and make sure they were really dimes, and then take them still rolled because it would take too long otherwise. I obeyed, and sure enough, when I opened just the very ends and looked in, I saw dimes. So I took the rolls, gave the guy his change and sent him on his way.
A short while later I needed dimes in my change bins, so I opened up one of the rolls, and what did I find?
Pennies. He had placed a dime at each end of the roll, and filled the rest with pennies. When I called a manager to the front and showed them, she got mad at me and told me I should have opened them up all the way. Of course I was like
but being as timid as I was at the time, I didn't point out the fact that I had planned on doing that in the first place. We got a description of him and tried to find video footage of him from the cameras, but I don't think he was ever caught. I will never, ever take coin rolls from anyone now-if they try to pay me in them, if they're something larger like quarters I will open it and count them individually, if not then I will tell them I can't accept them. I'm not putting myself in that situation again.And now, the Mom.
Still there at my first place of employment, I often had to chase little kids out of the candy aisle when they started opening things and eating them, or asking their parents to pay for the damaged products we could no longer sell, ect. Of course this usually got me yelled at by some biddy who thought the fact that she'd given birth made her more glorious than the sun and how dare I accuse her little angel of doing something like that, or that they weren't going to buy damaged products even if it was their kid that did the damaging, ect., so I've become pretty jaded against moms to begin with-but this one lady takes the cake.
She came in always wearing those goth/punk pants or shorts with suspenders that didn't fit, had her hair dyed multicolors and sticking out every which way, had that sagginess to her face that only comes from someone relatively young who has smoked or done drugs to the extent that it's aged them prematurely, and always smelled like cigarettes. She usually just came in to buy more smokes and make small talk, mentioning a daughter to me several times. I thought nothing but that I hoped she didn't smoke around the poor thing-I have severe asthma and even being near someone who smells like cigarettes can trigger a mild attack (it'll be very painful and hard to breathe, but I won't be gasping and struggling visibly, so most people can't tell when I'm hit with one of those-which is good or I never would have been able to work there) so it was painful enough when she came by at all-but once she came in with her daughter. Now, I don't like kids, but I will admit her daughter was adorable-all pudgy with a puff of blonde hair and big blue eyes and all, and she was QUIET. That alone was a huuuge plus for her, since I can't stand whiny noisy kids.
However, just because I think she's cute doesn't mean you can plop her on my counter (not even handing her to me, just setting her down on the edge of the countertop), tell me to "hold this for a minute" and run off to do your shopping! I was honestly dumbfounded, and she got a few shocked stares from some of the other customers too. The little girl was too young to sit up on her own, so I had to practically dive across the counter to catch her when she started rolling off the countertop, and had to hold her on my hip with one hand while checking out customers with the other. It took her mother close to half an hour to finish shopping, at which point I'd been asked several times if the girl was my child, why I had my kid there at work, and why the hell couldn't I get a babysitter for my kid, it was so irresponsible of me to bring my kid to work, ect. A few of the ones who told me those things were corrected by customers who had seen the other woman leave her child with me, and were apologetic. Of course a few of them left without being thusly corrected, and made comments about reporting to management and complaining and yadda yadda yadda. One of my managers came by and asked if that woman thought we were a daycare or something, but didn't offer to take the little girl so I could work properly (she was doing nothing at the moment) and instead simply left me juggling the child on my hip,with her chewing on my shirt, with the products I was trying to check out for customers. Mind you, there are only three registers in the store, and the one I was on was the main one that everyone goes to, the other two being in Cosmetics and the Photo department, so I was very busy the whole time.
When the mother finally returned, she didn't take her daughter until after she'd paid for everything (which entailed me trying to work the registers and scan her products and bag them one-handed) and she acted like I was such a good buddy of hers, then finally left with her daughter, leaving the smell of cigarettes in her wake.
Honestly, I feel far more sorry for the child than I ever felt for myself, but I thought those stories belonged here.
typical. Management tells you to do something a certain way, you do as they tell you, then you get yelled at because "you should have done it the other way!"
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