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Had two minor annoyances in my last couple of weeks at my old store (two weeks off before transferring to a new store in the same national chain):
1) I can't prove it, but I deserve a discount.
Our store offers a store credit and/or debit card. We set ours apart by offering 5% off on all items at all times. This is actually a really nice benefit (especially if you already have an employee discount) in my opinion, but it tends to bring out the suck.
Older woman is buying a giant cartload of stuff, $200+ easy, with her grandkids. As I'm ringing her stuff up, she remembers she has one of our credit cards and starts digging through her purse for it. The search goes on much longer than it should and I mentally brace for what comes next. She concludes that she forgot her card and asks if I can look it up using her driver's license.
Now I have a choice here. Not more than two hours prior I watched the cashier on the next lane get their butt chewed by a customer over this same issue. So I know for a fact the answer to her question is no. However, if I tell her that, she's going to spend the rest of the transaction arguing with me about it and she'll inevitably make me call my supervisor over. So I cut out the middle-man:
"I'm sorry ma'am, but I don't think we can. I can call my supervisor over to make sure if you'd like."
Of course she says yes, so I call my Sup over and give her the cliff's notes. She explains to the woman that we used to be able to do look-ups but corporate decided it was a "privacy issue" and now we lack that ability. The woman proceeds to argue that "every other store on the planet" can look up your credit card and that our inability to do so is ridiculous. My sup replies that the policy applies to all the stores in our chain, that corporate set that policy, and that we don't even have the option. Woman proceeds to request that we still give her the five percent off. My sup tells her that the best we can do is a $3 apology coupon to apologize for the inconvenience, the customer reiterates that she should get more like $15 off, and asks for the manager on duty. Sup tells the woman politely yet firmly that she is in charge of the front end right now and that no one in the store could do more than a $3 coupon. Customer relents but grumbles for the rest of the transaction about how ridiculous this is and how if she didn't have company coming she'd just tell us to forget it and this why she doesn't shop here much and every other store does it and blah blah blah blah. I think even her grandkids were getting annoyed with her by the end of it.
I really wish that the overall store manager, Boss of Bosses as I call him, had been around for that one. He once told a customer that if the fit they were throwing represented what their business was like, then no he didn't want their business. I doubt that this woman would have gotten even an apology coupon (or "just please shut up and stop bothering us" coupon in this case) from him. It's seems to be rather freeing to be the person who deals with complaints corporate sends us.
2) I know I got it down to less than a dollar, but it should be free.
Customer comes through my lane with something like three bottles of shampoo. Let's say they're $3.99 each. She hands me six coupons, three that give a dollar off and three that give three dollars off. All for this brand of shampoo. I note that each coupon says "Limit One Per Purchase", but my policy is that if the computer lets it go through without objection then I don't really care. I'm pretty sure that is actually how we're trained - scan coupon first, only read it if it gets rejected. Anyhow, by the time I'm done, she owes me pocket change. Less than a dollar, and while I suck at mental math I can see that it is right about what the sales tax ought to be. Which makes sense to me, but what the heck do I know.
She points out that, by her math, she shouldn't owe me anything. I tell her that I don't know for sure why, but that I defer to the computer since I can see that everything scanned properly and all the coupons came off. She asks for my supervisor. I dutifully call her over, explain the situation to her, and she tells the customer pretty much the same thing: I'm not sure why, but it looks like it's the sales tax. Customer keeps trying to argue that the items should be free, my supervisor points out that by the customer's math we'd owe her three cents. The point swoops over her head, as she says she's not worried about the three cents. At this point, I make a little show of examining the coupon and point out to my supervisor that the coupon has limitations that this customer is exceeding, hey maybe that's the reason this is happening. I'm told that it's fine as long as the computer took it, not quite picking up my intended message (this supervisor, while a perfectly nice woman, never struck me as an outside the box thinker). However, the customer miraculously takes my hint and decides to just hand me a dollar.
And my co-workers wondered why I greatly preferred pushing carts out in the parking lot to cashiering.
1) I can't prove it, but I deserve a discount.
Our store offers a store credit and/or debit card. We set ours apart by offering 5% off on all items at all times. This is actually a really nice benefit (especially if you already have an employee discount) in my opinion, but it tends to bring out the suck.
Older woman is buying a giant cartload of stuff, $200+ easy, with her grandkids. As I'm ringing her stuff up, she remembers she has one of our credit cards and starts digging through her purse for it. The search goes on much longer than it should and I mentally brace for what comes next. She concludes that she forgot her card and asks if I can look it up using her driver's license.
Now I have a choice here. Not more than two hours prior I watched the cashier on the next lane get their butt chewed by a customer over this same issue. So I know for a fact the answer to her question is no. However, if I tell her that, she's going to spend the rest of the transaction arguing with me about it and she'll inevitably make me call my supervisor over. So I cut out the middle-man:
"I'm sorry ma'am, but I don't think we can. I can call my supervisor over to make sure if you'd like."
Of course she says yes, so I call my Sup over and give her the cliff's notes. She explains to the woman that we used to be able to do look-ups but corporate decided it was a "privacy issue" and now we lack that ability. The woman proceeds to argue that "every other store on the planet" can look up your credit card and that our inability to do so is ridiculous. My sup replies that the policy applies to all the stores in our chain, that corporate set that policy, and that we don't even have the option. Woman proceeds to request that we still give her the five percent off. My sup tells her that the best we can do is a $3 apology coupon to apologize for the inconvenience, the customer reiterates that she should get more like $15 off, and asks for the manager on duty. Sup tells the woman politely yet firmly that she is in charge of the front end right now and that no one in the store could do more than a $3 coupon. Customer relents but grumbles for the rest of the transaction about how ridiculous this is and how if she didn't have company coming she'd just tell us to forget it and this why she doesn't shop here much and every other store does it and blah blah blah blah. I think even her grandkids were getting annoyed with her by the end of it.
I really wish that the overall store manager, Boss of Bosses as I call him, had been around for that one. He once told a customer that if the fit they were throwing represented what their business was like, then no he didn't want their business. I doubt that this woman would have gotten even an apology coupon (or "just please shut up and stop bothering us" coupon in this case) from him. It's seems to be rather freeing to be the person who deals with complaints corporate sends us.
2) I know I got it down to less than a dollar, but it should be free.
Customer comes through my lane with something like three bottles of shampoo. Let's say they're $3.99 each. She hands me six coupons, three that give a dollar off and three that give three dollars off. All for this brand of shampoo. I note that each coupon says "Limit One Per Purchase", but my policy is that if the computer lets it go through without objection then I don't really care. I'm pretty sure that is actually how we're trained - scan coupon first, only read it if it gets rejected. Anyhow, by the time I'm done, she owes me pocket change. Less than a dollar, and while I suck at mental math I can see that it is right about what the sales tax ought to be. Which makes sense to me, but what the heck do I know.
She points out that, by her math, she shouldn't owe me anything. I tell her that I don't know for sure why, but that I defer to the computer since I can see that everything scanned properly and all the coupons came off. She asks for my supervisor. I dutifully call her over, explain the situation to her, and she tells the customer pretty much the same thing: I'm not sure why, but it looks like it's the sales tax. Customer keeps trying to argue that the items should be free, my supervisor points out that by the customer's math we'd owe her three cents. The point swoops over her head, as she says she's not worried about the three cents. At this point, I make a little show of examining the coupon and point out to my supervisor that the coupon has limitations that this customer is exceeding, hey maybe that's the reason this is happening. I'm told that it's fine as long as the computer took it, not quite picking up my intended message (this supervisor, while a perfectly nice woman, never struck me as an outside the box thinker). However, the customer miraculously takes my hint and decides to just hand me a dollar.
And my co-workers wondered why I greatly preferred pushing carts out in the parking lot to cashiering.
Here's another one for the Good Boss Cloning Program! 
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