Holiday Drunks

One more holiday to go and then it's all over for this year. I can't wait to get back to normal.

Speaking of normal, I had a few drunk guys come in the other day. They were both around 50 years old and came into the store together. While one of the guys went to look for something to eat, the other one came up to my register. He bought a pack of cigarettes and starts to open them at the counter.

I stand there and watch as he pulls out one cigarette at a time, breaks it in half and lets it fall to the floor. At first I thought he was just having trouble grabbing a single cigarette out of the pack from his alcoholic shakes, but then I realized he was just being a drunk asshole and littering on my floor.

So I didn't say anything to him and he continued to break his cigarettes in half. While he's doing that his buddy comes up to the register to pay for his food.

So this guy starts telling me about how he can't stand the holidays because his in-laws are over and that he's been drinking for three days straight. He also said that he doesn't understand why a 6-pack of beer doesn't even give him a buzz anymore. The only thing I could think about was how this guy got someone to marry him.

So I've got this guy rambling on and wondering about why he has to drink more to feel the effects of alcohol, and the other guy still breaking cigarettes and dropping them on the ground.

I swear it's like these two were testing me.

There were so many things I could have said, so many points I could have made, and so much anger I could have let out. Especially because of all the tobacco now on my floor. But I was just too tired.

Instead, I politely and calmly told the first guy to stop making a fucking mess on my floor and told the second one that he should switch to hard liquor instead of just beer. I wished them a good day and told them to be careful driving because there were a lot of cops on the road today. After they left, I called the police and gave them the license plate number and reported a possible drunk driver leaving the parking lot.

Merry Christmas to Me

I got the best Christmas present of all this year. Food poisoning.

I'm not sure where it was from because I ate at a few different places that day...but I'm guessing it was from the restaurant where I found a nice juicy hair in my tuna salad.

Anyways, I ended up working on Christmas Eve in the morning and that's when I started feeling nauseous. Once I got home, I puked for 15 hours straight.

I was scheduled to work Christmas day but couldn't make it in because I was too weak. I did end up coming in a little later to hang out with my sister so she wouldn't have to suffer by herself.

What I don't understand is this: It's Christmas Day, and people are obsessively playing the lottery. Our lines were so long because we were held up by these idiots with their long list of lottery numbers. It wasn't so much the people that had received lottery tickets as a Christmas present...it was the people that should have gotten a lifetime membership to Gamblers Anonymous.

It's Christmas. Who gives a fuck about the lottery on Christmas???

I got so annoyed with these people because they should have been relaxing at home instead of coming in and playing their numbers.

This is the reason we get stuck being open on the holidays. If we didn't have these people addicted to the lottery, we would probably close.

Because of all these lottery players, I ended up getting nauseous from standing on my feet for so long typing their numbers in and had to go back home and rest.

So, thank you, lottery people, for pissing me off on Christmas. I hope your lottery numbers don't come up all year.

Christmas and All That Crap

Now I remember why I hate the holidays so much.

People are so fucking rude around Christmas time.

Yes, I get that you have to go buy gifts for everyone. I get that you have to fight through the crowds at the mall and I also get that everything is so freaking expensive.

But it's not my fault and you shouldn't treat me like shit when you come into my store.

I hate the holidays. It's full of people that don't say a word to us when they walk into the store. Almost everyone belts out what they want before we finish even saying 'Good Morning' to them. God forbid I make a mistake on the register because then I have to get yelled at about how I made a mistake and they aren't paying $20 for a pack of cigarettes. It's a mistake, you asshole, chill the fuck out while I fix it.

My favorite part about the holiday is Christmas morning. While everyone is waking up early or sitting around opening gifts with their family and getting ready to have the in-laws over for the holidays, there is a 3 hour window when I'm all by myself in the store and not one customer comes in that morning. It's bliss.

Merry Christmas, and remember to be friendly to your local cashier. They have the shitty job of ringing you up on Christmas morning.

Please Wipe Your Nose!

I hate wintertime. Another day of dry heaving for me.

This regular customer came in today. He's one of those that must have no feeling on his face because his nose is always dripping with snot.

Well today it was ridiculous. Having a hangover from last night's festivities, my stomach was already queasy enough.

So this customer walks in, and I can already see from across the store the snot glistening on his face. I look around, but my co-worker (I hate you) saw him coming first and went to go fill the cooler.

He walks up to my register and it was just as I confirmed; snot city. I look away, but the image is already burned in my brain, which is when the dry heaving starts.

The customer wants cigarettes but likes to stand at the register making small talk. I can't take anyone seriously that has slimy boogers running down their face. Don't you feel it gliding out of your nose? What about when it reaches your lips? Don't you taste it?? I don't understand what is wrong with some people!

So sadly, I made the mistake of looking at him again. This is when I see his mucous-y booger start to slowly drip down on the counter. It literally reminded me of the cheese on a piece of pizza, all stretchy like that.

And since he's looking down at his wallet, he finally notices the line of snot trailing towards the counter that is now almost a foot long hanging from his nose. He goes 'Oops' and sniffs it up back into his nose. I seriously almost puked on the floor when I saw that.

I had to walk away then and told him to leave his money on the counter while I tried to prevent myself from vomiting. I didn't even want to touch the money after he left, so I put on a latex glove and picked it up.

I ended up giving that dollar to the next customer that needed change back. I couldn't even stomach putting anything he touched in to my register.

Excuse me while I go dry heave again just thinking about it.

You Scratched it Where?

The last few days have been horrible at work. I just haven't felt like being there. I must be coming down with something. I'm not surprised either, after dealing with people like this:

A few days ago one of our regular lottery customers was playing some scratch-off tickets. Besides the fact that he was just standing there scratching them, I was irritated because I had to stop what I was doing every three minutes to get him some more tickets.

Well he bought his next batch and then asked for the bathroom key. Him being a regular, I handed the key over.

About twenty minutes later I see him walk out of the bathroom. I had forgotten he was even in there since he was gone so long.

He walks up to the register, hands me the key, and hands me his now scratched lottery tickets...which he had scratched while in the bathroom.

I didn't want to touch his toilet tickets but I had no choice. So I picked up the smallest corner of it and cashed it. I noticed that it was a little damp too. Who the hell knows why it was wet. Who am I kidding, I know exactly why it was wet. BECAUSE HE SCRATCHED THEM OFF IN THE BATHROOM WHILE TAKING A DUMP.

Shortly after that he left, but I was pretty grossed out for the rest of the day.

All I could smell was a faint toilet smell.

What if his swampy butt crack had an itch and he used his lottery ticket to scratch it? No wonder why I'm always getting sick if I have to deal with poop on our lottery tickets.

Every Breath You Take

Well even the snow doesn't keep the assholes off of the road.

We had a lady come in the other day who wanted to get gas in her car. It was early morning and she was on her way to work. The pump was set for her and she was on her merry way.

Since it is snowing around here and everyone forgets how to drive once the first snow of the season falls, we weren't that busy in the store.

So I notice that after this woman pumped her gas she sat in her car for a really long time. While I was watching her, I noticed she had those 'party plates' on her car, which means that not too long ago she got a DUI and now has to drive around with bright yellow license plates on her car.

After awhile she decided to come back inside because it was cold outside. We asked her if everything was okay.

"Yes, I'm fine. I turned my car off to get gas, and now it won't start up. I have a breathalyzer in the car and when I blow into it it won't start up. My husband is on his way up."

I don't know too much about those things, but if you blow into it and it won't start your car, doesn't that mean you aren't legally able to drive??

So, we figured that her husband was coming up there to drive her to work.

Not a chance.

When her husband pulled up, she ran outside. We watched as her husband blew into her breathalyzer to start her car up and off she went to work.

Jailbirds and Marijuana

We go through employees fairly quickly. It's a gas station, and there's a lot of turnover with people.

No big deal, we're used to it and used to the pains of training new hires.

We hired this new girl a few weeks ago. She's a manager at another store, so we figured she'd be pretty good. And she was.

She caught on pretty quickly, but always seemed out of it when I was around her.

I trained her on her first day and noticed the faint smell of marijuana on her. At first I thought it was a customer, but when the smell lingered around after an hour, I took a wild guess.

Then I started to notice how really out of it she was. Her eyes were red, she took awhile to turn her head when her name was called, and she generally didn't look like she gave a shit about anything.

She works the night shift at her other job, so while everyone else just thought she was tired from that job, I figured that she was just high.

Anyways, whatever. Over 60% of our customers come in smelling like it, and I was going to say something to her about it the next time I smelled it on her.

If there was a next time. She was supposed to show up at work on Saturday but never did. So I assumed that she ended up not liking it and decided to quit.

Well, today (Wednesday) the phone rings and it's her. She tells me that she's been in jail since she got out of her shift on Saturday and didn't get out until now. She apologized for missing work and was wondering when she could come back in for another shift.

...Really?

I didn't ask why she was in jail, because really I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, she was a no call no show, during TRAINING, which automatically ruins it for you.

I mean come on, she could've used her one phone call in jail to call us, right?

I'm a Pampered Princess

We have a deli case that holds our freshly made sandwiches every day. This thing is about ten years old, but it has served us well.

Lately, though, it has started making lots of noise, probably signaling to us that it is dying soon.

Well yesterday, when I came in to work at 5am, the deli case was making this horrendous noise and I couldn't hear anything.

I asked the night shift girl how long it was doing this and she said all night. I probably would have shot someone if I had to listen to that sound all night.

So anyways, there wasn't anything I could do about the noise. Of course, though, I had to hear about it from every customer that walked in. Good thing I could barely hear anyone anyways from the noise.

After about an hour, I started getting pissed off because it was so loud in the store and I like to quietly wake up in the morning.

One of our regulars comes in.

"Wow, that thing sure is loud," he says as he walks over to it.

"Yep."

"I wonder what's wrong with it."

I look over at him, and notice that he's kicking the deli case in order to get it to stop. I run over to him. "I hope you didn't just kick that thing."

He didn't say anything but his face turned red.

"Because if it broke, you'd be responsible for breaking it and these things cost about $5,000."

"Well did you try unplugging it?"

Not that it was any of his business. "Yes, I already did but it won't unplug and I already hurt myself trying to do it."

"Oh, you're just like my daughter, a pampered princess."

Excuse me? I'm a pampered princess because I'm physically too weak to pull this massive plug out of the wall? A plug, by the way, that has a lock on it and you have to turn it a certain way to get it out.

Yeah, imagine me as a fucking pampered princess.

I was going to make a comment about his excessive lottery playing and point out the Gamblers Anonymous phone number to him, but instead I just smiled and cut him off while he was talking to tell him to have a nice day, which is MY code for 'You've pissed me off, now get out'.

Lesson #1: It's Rude to Point

We sell cigars. All different kinds of them. Our display kind of looks like this:



Yes, that's right. There are millions of them.

I don't smoke cigars, so sometimes it makes it a little difficult to find a certain kind when a customer asks for one.

But when they do the finger pointing thing, that's when I get annoyed.

Here is what I see:



followed by: "I'll take that one right there."

I turn to see where their finger is pointing, and all I see is this:



I turn back towards them and they are still trying to point me in the right direction of the little tiny cigar they want:



It gets a little confusing sometimes.

So then I ask them which brand they want, because to me, it's easier to tell me the name of what you want instead of me trying to guess where your stupid finger is pointing.

But instead of telling me the name, they start giving me directions.

"It's two over from the last one on the end but three rows up from that."

Huh?

So please, when you want to purchase something that there are a million brands of such as a cigar, just tell the cashier the name of what you want or we will be pointing our finger at you next time.

The After Holiday Blues

I hate going to work the day after a holiday.

Why?

Because then I have to answer a million questions that are all the same: "How was your Thanksgiving?"

At the beginning of the day I start out all smiley telling customers how my Thanksgiving was. By the middle of the day I give shorter answers but ask them how theirs was so I don't have to talk much.

By the end of my shift I'm giving one-word answers, and not even asking them how theirs was.

It's not the customers fault (this time), I just get tired of answering the same questions all day long.

It's like when I say 'Good morning' to people and I hear 'What's so good about it?'. I hear that about a thousand times a day, too.

It's gotten so that I just say 'Morning' to people just so I don't have to hear that comment.

It doesn't help that I hate the holidays too. I hate having to be all smiles during the Christmas season. And Christmas music? Don't even get me started on it.

I hate a lot of things, don't I?

Air Machine Woes

I really hate old people sometimes.

This old man came in the other day yelling about our air machine.

Old Fart: "Is there something wrong with your air machine? Because it's supposed to last three minutes and it sure as hell didn't because I didn't have time to fill up my tires."

Inwardly I rolled my eyes. This guy was so old it probably took him three minutes to just bend down.

Me: No, I haven't heard anybody tell us anything was wrong with it.

So instead of responding to me, he turns to my mom, who just happened to be visiting at the time.

Old Fart: You need to fix your air machine. Air used to be free here and now you charge 75 cents!!!

Me: That's because people kept breaking the machine so we hired a company that provides the air now. We don't have anything to do with it.

Well this guy wasn't going to listen to anything. He kept yelling at my mom, who DOESN'T EVEN WORK THERE.

Me: Do you want me to give you 75 cents of my own money to put into the machine?

I figured the asshole would say no.

Old Fart: Yes.

So I dug into my purse, found 75 cents and told him to follow me outside. He started back up with his complaining.

Old Fart: You know, in my day air didn't cost anything and we could fill our tires up as much as we wanted.

I put the 75 cents into the machine and turned to him. "You know what? I put my own money in here so you'd stop complaining, so please, just fill up your tires and leave," I said as I stormed away.

I don't get what part of "We have nothing to do with the air machine" he didn't understand. And why was he yelling at my mom? He's lucky I didn't punch him in his wrinkly old ball sack.

Educating the Customers

Another day, another douchebag.

I can't stand when customers pick on my co-workers.

The other day this regular customer walks in. I don't like him just because there's something about him that pisses me off.

So he comes in the store with another man that I've never seen before. The mystery man is talking to my co-worker and asking her questions:

Mystery Man: Did you graduate high school? (Like it's any of his business)

Co-worker: No.

So the regular customer pipes up: See, she's what you call a drop-out. You're a high school drop-out. You won't get any better job than this one.

Sadly, I wasn't there when this happened. If I was, I probably would have told him to go fuck himself with his high school diploma.

Unfortunately, we get this all the time. Customers always think it's their business to find out how far we've gotten with our education. And when I tell them I have a Bachelor's Degree, they ask "why the hell do you work here then?" or "What, you couldn't get a better job than this one?"

My answer? "None of your business."

And this is why when you get home those Twinkies you bought are smashed.

Applying to Cashier School

A lot of people talk about how cashiers should learn this or that at something called "cashier school". If I happen to make a mistake while ringing up a customer, they will think they are being funny by asking me why I wasn't taught that in cashier school.

Who the fuck would go to a cashier school?

Yes, I know they are only joking. I know there is no such thing as cashier school. But still. It's pretty rude. For one, we know we have shitty jobs, so you don't need to rub it in our faces by joking about a cashier school. I know how to count. I made something called a MISTAKE.

Two, most of the time we are just thrown into our jobs on the first day, having to fend for ourselves. We have to deal daily with people degrading us, picking on us, yelling at us to make themselves feel better, and even cleaning up after people. Trust me, no cashier gets paid enough to clean up the shit (literally!) that people leave behind.

Third, nobody can be taught everything there is to know in order to make every customer happy. That, and we just don't care enough.

Do you think we really want to hear your stupid jokes about attending a cashier school because we don't do something the correct way according to you? Every time you say that, you're calling us stupid. You're just too much of a pussy to say what you really mean.

How about this: If we aren't being openly rude to you, just let us do our jobs and shut the fuck up.

Double Counting Money

Whenever a customer hands me money, I always recount it in front of them before I put it in the register. There have been way too many times that I immediately threw a $5 or $10 bill into the register only to have the customer tell me they gave me a larger bill.

So now, I count everything out. Especially when a customer hands me $15 in $1 bills.

One of our regulars came in the other day buying beer. His total was $14.75 and he handed me 15 $1 bills. I started counting them.

Customer: Oh, I guess you don't trust me, so you have to recount it.

Me: I recount everything, it has nothing to do with trusting you or anything.

Customer: It's all there, you don't have to count it.

Me: Yes, I do.

Customer: So you don't trust me then.

Me: No, I guess I don't.

Customer: Well maybe I should shop at a place where I'm trusted.

Me: Are you serious? You're getting mad because I'm recounting your money to double check that it's all there?

Customer: Well I wouldn't lie to you.

Me: You know what, next time don't pay me in singles.

What does he expect really? Do people think I will take their word for how much money they give me and just let them walk out the door?

Does anyone have any idea how much money people short us? Tons of people will throw bills or coins on the counter, yell out how much gas they want, and leave the store. While we're counting it we discover that they short-changed us.

Let your cashier take the extra time to count out your money. Who knows, maybe you gave the cashier too much money and they will give it back to you. Or not. If you rush out of the store and you gave me $1 too much or something, I'm not running outside to you after you didn't even have the courtesy to wait around for me to count it.

Sticking Up for the Drunks

I worked night shift the other night and you know what makes me mad?

Well, pretty much everything, but this is specific.

When I see a drunk person drive up and walk into the store, one that can barely stand and is wobbling all over the place, I will call the cops on them.

It doesn't bother me one bit if you are drunk and have someone else driving you. It's if you are driving yourself and are in my store buying more beer. Or even cigarettes. Or anything. You shouldn't drive drunk. Period.

But what really gets me is the other customers in the store. If I'm on the phone with the police, calling this drunk in, some customers will tell me to "give the guy a break" or "that's mean, why call the cops on him?"

I'm trying to get the damn drunk off the road. I don't think these customers would like it if this drunk asshole killed someone in their family. It just pisses me off sometimes that people butt in like that and try sticking up for a drunk driver.

It still doesn't deter me from calling the cops though. I just wish I could tell them to mind their own fucking business.

Giving Back Change

Kathy over at The Junk Drawer brought up an interesting topic yesterday.

When giving back change, she urges cashiers all over the world to make sure they place the coins in the customer's hand BEFORE the bills are handed over. Why? Because many people spill their coins all over the place while attempting to put them in their purse or pockets.

So I asked myself what I usually do in this situation and whether or not I was guilty of what Kathy had described. And I realized that I DO give customers their coins first before their bills. The ones I like, at least.

When someone pisses me off, I tend to throw it all in their hand at once, causing the coins to spill all over the place. A little "Oops, sorry" along with my winning smile keeps me innocent and unsuspecting.

But I'd like to ask all customers out there to make it easy for us cashiers.

If you want your coins handed back to you, make sure you don't already have a ton of shit in your hand where we have to carefully place the coins in your hand. We don't want to touch you, we just want to be able to drop the coins into your open palm. If you are holding stuff in that hand, it makes us hard to drop the coins. Me, I do it anyways, and watch as the coins drop onto your keys and then onto the floor. Why? Because you shouldn't have had so much crap in your hands when I handed back your change.

If we can both work together here, I think we could end up with a wonderful relationship.

Customers and T-Shirts

Working at a gas station, I basically have to make sure I wear plain shirts with no pictures or writing on them. Why? Because every single customer will make a comment about it.

Here's a typical scenario:

Me: Good morning, sir. How can I help you?

Customer: *peering at my t-shirt* Old Navy...what's that? Are you in the military?

Me: Umm, no. It's a t-shirt from a store called Old Navy.

Customer: Well why is there a picture of a tree on it?

Me: I don't know, I just bought it like that.

Customer: *peering again* Old Navy...with a tree. That's weird.

Me: *wishing I was anywhere but here*

Usually I think the male customers 'pretend' to read my t-shirt so that they can take a glance at my boobs. Whatever they are doing, it makes me feel all dirty and violated when they look at my shirt.

So I've learned to wear plain shirts and sweaters, because 9 out of 10 customers will make comments about them.

I should get one made that says something like 'Stop staring at my tits, you pervert" or "Just buy your shit and get out" or "STOP STARING AT ME".

Hmm, I may be on to something here. What else could I get on a t-shirt to get my message across?

Halloween

Halloween was pretty much uneventful at the store this weekend. There is one thing I don't understand though that happens every year.

Some people get so pissed off that we won't sell them alcohol or cigarettes if they are wearing a mask or face paint.

Why would someone get mad about this? The cashier obviously can't see your face to tell if you're old enough. What are we supposed to do, use our x-ray vision?

It's usually the teens that get the angriest at us. We had a girl come in on Halloween that started yelling at my co-worker because he wouldn't sell her beer. She had a devil costume on complete with red facepaint.

She told us that we should have had a sign on the door specifying to take off masks or facepaint or else she wouldn't have come in. She looked 12 in her slutty devil outfit. After she left I put a sign on the door, but we still had people come in getting mad about having to take off their masks.

I honestly wish that everyone in the world was required to get a job in customer service at least once in their lives. That way they would understand how horrible working with the public can be.

Another Bathroom Story

I was working the other day when a lady came in.

"Can I use the bathroom?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, it's out of order."

"Out of order? I've had to go since yesterday. What am I supposed to do now?"

"...."

She turned and walked out of the store.

What the hell was that? She had to go since yesterday? Yeah, like I was really going to let her use it after hearing that. Who knows what kind of load she was going to drop in there.

I can't tell if she was lying to get me to feel bad, or if she was really telling the truth. Has she been walking into gas stations since yesterday waiting for one that will let her use it?

Shouldn't she be going home by now to use her own toilet?

Other Customers Around the City

I find it funny when I see rude customers when I'm out shopping.

I was at the bank the other day and there was a woman in the drive-thru. Well the inside of the bank was busy, so this woman outside was waiting for a little bit. When one of the bank tellers finally got to her, she said "Is there only one of you working today? What's the problem in there?"

And the poor bank teller apologized and was actually nice to her. To her face. Once she turned around toward us, she started making comments about the customer. If I were the bank teller, I would have told the woman to fuck off and go somewhere else. And then that would be the end of my bank teller career.

Then yesterday, I was at a store and was waiting in a long line. There was a woman in front of me that kept sighing incessantly. There was a problem with the woman in front of her, something with needing the manager, which was why we were all stopped in line. So this woman in front of me starts yelling at the cashier asking "What's taking so long?" and "Don't you know what you're doing?". The cashier kept his cool (what is with this new breed of shy/nice cashiers?) and just shrugged his shoulders at her.

I wanted to take the bag of frozen fish sticks I bought and slap her in the throat with it.

I guess I should be grateful for the crappy customers I have instead of these prissy older women that are now going around town being bitches to cashiers.

Emptying Your Ashtray

One thing I don't understand that happens A LOT, is why people will empty their ashtrays on the ground in the parking lot.

I mean, the garbage can is just a few feet away from your fat ass, so get out of your car and empty it in there.

I am always sweeping up piles of cigarette butts and ashes from the parking lot. I just don't understand why people have the nerve to litter openly like that. At least get out and dump it behind the building or something. Don't just leave your pile of butts all over the lot.

I wish I could catch one of these people sometime. I would scoop up their mess after they leave and wait for the next time they come into the store. Once inside, I would have my coworker distract them while I run outside, open their car door, and dump the ashtray contents all over their seat.

It's the same thing with people that come into the store and buy a drink. They will sometimes finish the drink before they get to their car, and then just throw the bottle on the ground.

People are pigs. I get paid to ring you up for your crap, not pick it up off the ground.

Morning Workers vs. Night Workers

One thing I can't stand is when customers in line think they are better than other customers just by what they are buying.

I have a lot of customers that work the night shift, and when they come in to my store at 6am, they are just getting off of work while others are just starting their day.

Well these night shift workers will often be buying beer after work so they can relax and watch tv or something before they go to bed. The same thing these other people working 9-5 do when they get off of work.

But somehow, the morning customers will look down on the customers buying beer this early in the morning, like they are some kind of a drunk or something. They have no clue that this person is just on a different work schedule than they are.

These morning snobs will usually roll their eyes or make comments about these customers after they leave. I hate that.

I usually inform these snobs that these customers are just getting off of work and that there's nothing wrong with buying beer at 6 in the morning. I then tell them they shouldn't talk about people behind their back and to be nice.

No one listens to me though.

Don't Hurt Yourself Now

So the other day I'm filling my cup with hot water to put my teabag in. I'm standing there talking to an annoying customer. I look up, and my coworker is not paying attention (as usual) to the line that has formed at the register.

As I'm running over there calling her name and going to help ring up customers, I hit one of the racks and end up spilling my hot boiling cup of water all over my arm and the floor. It hurt, bad.

While I'm standing there in a daze from the burning sensation, the customer that was talking to me goes "Oh, don't hurt yourself," with a smirk on his face. I wanted to tell him to fuck off, or even throw the rest of the hot water in his face to see how he liked it, but instead told him "Thanks for caring so much" and walked away.

Really? Do you really think I want to hear that fucking shit as I'm standing there with scalding hot water all over my arm? Fuck you, buddy.

I hate when people think they're funny by saying stuff like that. "Don't hurt yourself"? Am I supposed to be like "Oh gosh, mister, thanks. Even though I just burned myself, I was about to start cutting myself too just to make it hurt worse. But since you told me to not hurt myself, I guess I won't do it then. You've saved the day!"

Just once, when someone says something like that to me, I'd like to get a running start and push them in the chest as hard as I can. And then I'd watch it over and over again on the security cameras. While eating popcorn.

No Connection

Currently have shitty internet and a shitty computer that only works when it feels like it. I hate technology sometimes.

Looks like I'll be taking it out on the customers tomorrow!

Good luck to everyone that comes into my store in the morning.

Coffee Card Club

Sometimes I hate working in the morning.

We have one of those coffee clubs, where you buy 9 cups of coffee or so and get the 10th one free. Well we have those cards that people can get stamped.

Sometimes people take fucking forever to pull them out of their purse or wallet.

I don't know how many times I've said "I can just give you another one", but it's "Oh no, that's okay, I'll find it eventually."

Well I don't have until eventually, especially when there are angry customers waiting behind you!

Sometimes I want to take the coffee card stamper and start stamping all their clothes and money. Stamping away while telling them to hurry the fuck up.

I think it's time for my nap. Today just wasn't a good day with all those coffee people pissing me off.

No Scanner For You!

I hate it when customers think it's funny to scan their own items.

I had this guy come in one time doing this. I seriously think he did it to scam me and get free stuff.

He walks up to my register with a crapload of items, mostly candy bars. I'm talking about probably 15-20 various small items of candy. Something that would be easy to get messed up on.

He makes some small talk with me, flashing his bright yellow smile, and proceeds to pick up one of his items, reach over, and scan it with my scanner.

Once he did this, he stood back, fake smiling and softly laughing, probably trying to gauge my reaction. I played along, fakely laughing as well.

Well I guess he thought it was okay, because he started to scan more of his items into the register. Back then, I was too polite to say anything and thought I would get yelled at for 'being mean to a customer', so I just stood there, quietly supervising.

Well this guy quickly picked up speed, because soon I saw hands and candy flying everywhere, and the occasional scanner beep going off.

I wasn't sure what happened, it had all gone too fast. Next thing I know, I'm bagging his items up while he's handing me his money and telling me to keep the change.

He quickly said goodbye and got out of there. I look at the register and see that his total was $4.52. He had handed me $5 and told me to keep the change. There was no way all the shit he bought only came to $4.52. That bitch had scammed me.

So now, when people try to scan their own items, I get pissed. It is not your job to do my job. You are not making it easier on me by scanning your items. And if you happen to scan it twice by accident, then that's your fault and you're paying for it.

Cup After Cup After Cup

I got so pissed off the other morning when I came in to work. (What's new, right?)

Anyways, I'm standing at the register talking to my co-worker and watch as this woman walks in with a coffee mug. She takes a 16 oz. cup of ours and pours some cappuccino in it. She then takes a sip, and throws the cup out.

Next, she takes a 12 oz. cup, pours some cappuccino in it, takes a sip and then throws it out.

Finally she fills up her own coffee mug with coffee. Then she comes to the register.

"You know, I can give you a sample cup next time so you don't have to throw out those cups of ours."

She just looked at me and I could tell she wanted to say something bitchy.

"Okay," was all she said as she then disregarded me for the rest of the sale.

Again I ask, who do people think they are? How can someone be so freaking wasteful? She basically just walked in and started throwing our cups out. Do people not realize that those things cost money?

And then when I say something to her about it, she gets a look on her face like I'm just some stupid cashier and shouldn't even be talking to her. Dumb bitch.

I hope she got her freshly highlighted hair caught in her car window. And when she was trying to pull her hair out of the window, I hope she spilled her coffee all over her shirt and burned her boobs.

Could You BE Any Slower?

Why is it the first customer of the night is always the one to piss me off when I work night shift?

I was actually in a good mood when I came in to work.

This guy comes up to the register asking for cigarette specials. I tell him we don't have any and he just stands there looking at the cigarettes.

So then he starts asking me the price of some of the cigarettes. At first I tell him, but when he's on the 5th cigarette he wants to know the price for, I start to get irritated. First, the prices are right in front of the cigarettes. Second, I now have a line of people waiting behind him.

"How much are the Camels?"

"$5.12. I'm going to ring up these other people behind you until you decide what you want."

He stands to the side to let the next customer step up. "You know what? Nevermind, I'll just go to another gas station for cigarettes," he said angrily.

"You know what? Go somewhere else, I don't fucking care," was what I wanted to say, but didnt.

Instead I said nothing and after he left customers were talking about what a douche that guy had been.

I don't understand why some people think we have nothing better to do but stand up there and wait while you decide. Sure, it's my job to sell cigarettes, but not while you take 10 minutes to decide and hold up the line for the other customers.

Annoying Co-Workers

I work with an old lady every morning and every morning she drives me crazy. It's kind of a love/hate relationship, with me usually getting annoyed at the stuff she does.

One thing that I can't stand is when she makes a comment about items people purchase. If they buy a drink, she will look at it while ringing it up, checking out the calorie counts and things like that.

Or if someone buys candy, she tells them they should eat something more healthy.

I know she's joking around with the customers, but when I'm a customer somewhere, I hate when a cashier makes a comment about what I'm buying.

When I'm a customer, I just want to get in and out of the store. I usually don't want to make small talk about the Twinkie or Ding Dong that I'm buying. Just let me buy my shit and get out of there.

And that's what I know most of the customers are thinking when she's ringing them up.

I should have a friend come in while she working and buy condoms, duct tape and rope. Let's see what she has to say about that then.

Ma'am, You Need to Pay for That

We had this girl come in today and fill up her cup with coffee. Or so we thought..

After she filled it up, she went back outside to her car without even paying for it.

So my coworker ran after her. He told her that she needs to pay for the coffee she took.

"Oh, I didn't get coffee. I just filled my cup with creamer."

...Really? Like that shit doesn't cost anything?

I can't stand when customers come in and do that. Surprisingly we get tons of people that run in, fill their coffee mug from home up with a 'dash' of cream, and then run out.

I'd understand if they were buying other stuff in the store, but they aren't. They're leaving their car running to come in and steal our coffee creamer.

Half the time these are people I've never even seen before!

People have some nerve.

I told my co-worker next time to charge her 10 cents for it. Yeah, it's only 10 cents, but it's the point of the whole thing. Don't fucking come in the store and assume things are free.

Picking the Best of the Bunch

I love it when customers think they pull one over on me by handing me crumpled money or old money.

I love watching when they go through their wad of cash, looking for the most beat up bills they can find, and then slowly plucking them out of the bunch and handing them to me.

It's also funny when someone tries to disguise the fact that they are giving me a bill that's ripped or missing corners. They try to hide that bill in between others that are fully intact.

But it's okay, I always notice these things.

So when I'm giving you your change back after you carefully took the time to give me the shittiest money you had, I am taking my time looking for the crappiest and grossest coins I can find.

So don't be surprised when you get back a coin with a mystery substance on it. I may make it look like I don't notice what I've giving you, but I know exactly what I'm doing.

Text Away, Mo-Fo

This guy walked up to the register today staring down at his phone and texting.

"Can I help you?"

He just kept on texting. I stood there for about a minute and he still hadn't looked up.

"Okay, when you're finished texting, then I'll ring you up," I said as I walked away from the register.

Once I had said that, he had looked up, and watched me walk away from the register, probably thinking I was rude for doing so.

I never went back to the register to see if he was finished texting. I'm assuming my co-worker rang him up when she was finished with her customer, but I really don't care.

If you're that inconsiderate to walk up to the register, take up space and ignore me, then you should get treated the same.

I'll Pay You Later, I Promise

One of our regulars came in the other day.

"Is the boss here?" he asked.

"No, it's Sunday," I replied.

"Well, can I have a pack of cigarettes and I'll pay you back in a few days?" he looked at me.

Let me give you a little background on this guy. Sometimes we let our regulars do this and pay us a few days later. I understand hard times and all, but when you screw us over and don't come back for 6 months, well, we've learned our lesson and aren't going to let you get away with that again.

Which is precisely what this guy did. Six months ago, we gave him a pack of smokes and he said he'd pay us back on payday a few days later. He ended up coming in 6 months later, thinking we forgot about what he had done. But we caught him and got our money back. He even had to pay more, because cigarettes had gone up in price during that year.

And here he is, trying it again:

"No, you can't have cigarettes," I said.

"Why not?"

"Because we aren't going through this again. You didn't come back last time so you ruined it for yourself."

He gets an evil look in his eye. "I came back right away last time." Ahh, how he can so easily lie.

"Well, you're not getting any cigarettes from here, so go try somewhere else."

Apparently he had come into our store the night before and tried the same thing with other employees, telling them that the boss said it was okay if he took a pack of cigarettes.

I'm guessing he screwed over the other stores on our corner, because he was coming back around to us begging for cigarettes.

What's bad is that this guy DOES have money. When I refused to give him a pack of cigarettes one time, he pulled out a wad of $20s and paid for them that way.

An Employment Application

We get lots of applications in, sometimes from some less-than-desirable people.

One time a younger girl came in. She seemed very friendly, nicely dressed and maybe someone we'd have considered working with us.

"Can I have an application?" she asked as she walked up to my register.

"Sure!" I said happily. Finally someone normal-looking that we could possibly hire instead of these freak applications that we had been receiving.

So she took it outside, filled it out and brought it back in with a smile.

"What hours can you work?" I said, checking out the application.

"Oh, anything is fine with me. I can also come in to work on short notice too if someone were to call off." She seemed so perfect even her teeth sparkled.

I told her I'd give her application to the boss and he's be contacting her if interested. She smiled and walked out.

Upon further inspection of the application, I noticed this about one of the questions on it:

5. Have you ever been convicted of theft?

Her answer:

Yes, and I'm currently evading cops.

It seriously had to be some kind of joke, right? Who puts that? Sometimes it's bad to be too honest.

Just what I need; her calling off of work because Dog the Bounty Hunter found her.

Magnify This, You Jerk

Thank god I'm off for the next two days.

I had this regular customer come in today and hand me two Marlboro coupons, but wanted to buy Camel cigarettes with them.

I hate when people assume we'll take coupons for different products. We do this sometimes, but not all the time because then we get yelled at by the cigarette companies.

So I told him that we don't do that with coupons but that I'd take them just this one time.

So I go to ring up his $1 off coupon, and look at the expiration date. They expired in July.

By this time I've got a line of people behind him.

"I'm not taking these, they're expired," I say as I hand them back to him.

What does he do then? He pulls out a magnifying glass from his pocket to look at the expiration dates. "It's only $1. You can take these."

"No, I can't." I wasn't getting stuck paying for this guy's coupons.

So he threw 75 cents on the counter for his newspaper, and walked away, not wanting the cigarettes I guess.

I bet you can guess what I wanted to do with that magnifying glass of his.

The God Guy

We name some of our regular customers so that when we're talking about them, we know who we're referring to.

There's this one customer we call the God Guy. We call him this because he used to leave religious literature on our counters every morning. I'm not sure why he stopped that, but he still comes in every day to buy stuff. He used to be cool, until I caught him semi-stealing.

He gets a cup of coffee every morning, but sometimes he brings in his old coffee cup to get the refill price.

One day, I saw him walk in with nothing in his hand. When he got his coffee, he came to my register to ring it up.

"Is that a new one or a refill?" I asked him.

"It's a refill," he said, looking down at the counter.

"A refill? I didn't see a cup in your hand when you walked in," I said as I scrutinized his cup to see if it looked old or new.

He looked up sharply at me. "It's a refill," he said, and I swear I saw the devil staring back at me. I've never gotten the evil eye like that before.

"Okay," I stuttered as I rang him up. After he left, it bugged the crap out of me, so I had to go look it up on tape to see if I was right. Sure enough, he walked in empty-handed, took a brand new cup and passed it off as a refill.

About an hour later, the God Guy came back in. He walked up to me.

"I need you to charge me for the full price. I didn't have a refill this morning, I had gotten a new cup."

"So you lied?" I said, pissed because I hate when people do that shit.

"Yes, please charge me for a new one."

So I did. But now he can't be trusted. I make sure I keep an eye on him whenever he's in the store.

And before anyone says or thinks "At least he came back in", that's bullshit. He shouldn't have stolen in the first place.

Just a Small White Bag

This lady came up to me the other day and leaned in close to me at the register.

She whispered, "Um. Hi. Can I throw away a small white bag into your dumpster?" She was holding her hands up to indicate the size of the bag, which looked like it was about the size of a basketball.

I wondered why she was whispering this to me. "We have garbage cans outside the door right there, you can throw it in there."

"Well it's just a small white bag. They wouldn't let me throw it away in their dumpster over there," she pointed towards the gas station across the street.

This had me curious as to why they wouldn't let her throw this 'small white bag' out at the other gas station. I didn't really want to find out why, though.

"We have trash cans outside. If you can fit it in there, you can throw it out. Otherwise you'll have to go somewhere else."

She nodded at me and walked out. I wanted to see what she would do, but all she ended up doing was getting in her car and driving away.

Small white bag my ass. She probably wanted to throw a dead body in there.

I'm Sorry, We're Closing

When I worked in a drug store many many years ago, we closed every night around 9pm.

The thing that sucked about this was when people would come into the store at 8:55pm and start shopping around.

One of the rules in our store was that we couldn't tell them we were closing, we just had to ask them if they needed any help and wait for them to leave the store.

That never worked with me. I had no patience for people 'browsing' at 9 o'clock, especially when the same people did this all the time and knew perfectly well when we closed.

When someone came into the store right before closing, I'd quickly have an inward temper tantrum, and then I would wait until the clock hit exactly 9pm. Then I would go into the back room and start flipping off certain lights in the store to give them a hint that we were closing.

If that didn't work, I'd walk towards the front of the store and yell out to my coworker that it was 9 o'clock and that she could lock the doors now.

If the customer still hadn't gotten the hint, I'd walk up to them and ask them if they needed any help. Most of the time I heard, "Nope. Just looking." which pissed me off even more.

Since I didn't really care about the rules, I'd then tell them that we were closed.

"Oh, you are?" was what I usually heard, and that's when they'd glance around at the store, finally noticing that we were standing in the dark from all the lights being shut off.

Fortunately for me, (yeah right), the place I'm at now is open 24 hours. So people can come in and 'browse' whenever they want.

Where Did You Wipe That?

Every morning when I come into work, I have to walk around the store and clean up other people's crap.

We have tons of trash cans all over the store, yet people still feel the need to place their empty fountain drinks, or McDonald's wrappers on our shelves next to products we sell.

The worst is when people stick their used gum to the shelves. I wish I could see who does that, and hand it back to them with their change when they come up to the register.

However, the worst story I ever heard was when I worked at a drug store.

My manager at the drug store was watching this woman walk down the aisles with her kid. I don't remember how old the kid was, but I do remember that it wore diapers.

As the woman is walking, she's asking the kid if it went to the bathroom. She ends up sticking her hand in the kid's pants to check, and coming back up with a handful of poop on her fingers.

So what does she do?

She takes the poopy hand and wipes it off on the shelf she's standing next to.

Then she walks away with the kid and leaves the store.

My manager saw this whole thing happen and ended up having to clean the kid's shit off the shelves.

This is why hate people sometimes.

Go Find Your Own Directions

Well, it happened again.

Some asshole came in today and demanded to know why the bathroom was out of order.

I told him someone broke it and he left.

Then he comes back in with a piece of paper and asks me where a certain street is. I wasn't sure, so I took out the map.

As I was looking it up, another customer was standing at the counter, and he asked the man what he was looking for.

As soon as I found it on the map, I started pointing in the direction that he should go. He didn't even look at me. Why?

Because now that a man was in the store and able to possibly help him, anything I said didn't matter.

And this guy didn't know where it was either. He was asking the guy what the address was, like he'd really be able to tell where it is exactly by the street numbers. He was just stalling for time so he could figure out where the street might be.

So he saw me point towards a certain direction, and then was all "Oh it's up that way. (pointing the same way I had) Yeah, just go up that way and you'll see it."

I was so pissed that I crumpled up the map and walked away.

I hate when customers completely ignore me, the cashier that KNOWS DIRECTIONS, because another man walks in the store.

So the customer that ended up cutting me off to give the guy directions was all "Yeah, just call me Mr. Map. I know where everything is."

Okay, Mr. Fuckface, I'll remember that for next time.

Seeing Customers Outside of the Store

It's bad enough when I have to see the same sucky customers every day, but when I see them out around town it's even worse!

If I'm out shopping or something and run into one of them, I can't pretend I have work to do or anything, so I'm usually stuck talking to them. It's always the same too:

Customer: Oh hey, I know you!

Me (sighing inwardly): Yeah, it's me.

Customer: You work at that gas station! (They say this like they can't believe I'm actually out with the human race.)

Me: Yep, they let me out of the cage today.

Customer: Hahahahahhah that's funny.

And so this is how it goes every single time. I cringe when I run into one of the talkers, because then I know I'm stuck for awhile. It's like I'm someone they haven't seen in forever, so they have to update me on everything, even though they see me every. single. day.

It makes me want to stay at home on my days off and become a hermit.

Do You Have 23 Cents?

Yesterday I had a woman come in my line and brought up two cans of Red Bull for me to ring up.

They are currently on sale, two for $3.00 plus tax.

Her total came to $3.23. When I told her that, she handed me three singles.

"I need 23 more cents."

She just stared at me, so I said it again. "Your total is $3.23 and you gave me $3.00. I still need 23 more cents."

We were busy and had about 4 customers in each line. She starts looking around at the customers, just standing there staring at them. Now I was getting annoyed because she was holding up the line.

"Do you have 23 cents?" I said, while watching her continue to look around at other customers. She focused her sights on the guy who was behind her in line. She stared at him until he gave her 23 cents, still not saying one word.

She then handed me the money and walked out of the store. No thank you to the guy, nothing. It was weird. Maybe she should lay off the Red Bull.

I just wanted to whip a quarter at the back of her head as she was walking away. But with my luck she would have fell, broken her arms and legs, and sued me for my millions.

Come On Now, Are You Serious?

One of my lovely readers commented on a post I made the other day about someone pressing the credit card reader buttons with his car keys. Here is what they wrote:

Why did your dumb ass management put out a machine with an attached pen that NOBODY can use? Really?! And do you really want to piss off a car-key-wielding customer? Because unless you personally paid for that credit card machine, why not let him sign it with anything he wants to use?
Susanne

Really Susanne? Are you a fucking idiot? Let him sign the credit card reader with his car keys?

Tell me, Susanne, why should I let a customer get away with breaking something just because I didn't personally pay for it?

As for the "dumbass management", the credit card reader is going to need something called an upgrade, which means it will be done at a later time. The pen is attached because eventually customers will be signing with it. Do I really need to explain this to you? I guess I do, since you think it's okay for a customer to sign their signature with their car keys.

I appreciate all the thought provoking comments you leave. But don't say dumb shit just to say dumb shit. At least try to make SOME sense when trying to make me look like an idiot.

Another Drive-Off? Really?

We had another drive-off yesterday. This time from a deaf guy.

This guy came in and with hand gestures, told the cashier he wanted a piece of paper. So she hands him one and he writes:

I don't know how much gas my car will take, so here is my credit card so you will turn the pump on

He hands her his credit card, she turns the pump on, and he pumps his gas.

When he gets done pumping his $45 in gas, he gets in his car and peels away.

The cashier tries charging his card and it comes up as 'suspicious activity'.

Naturally we called the police, but who knows if this guy will be found.

I'm honestly surprised that no one has done this to us before. It'd be so easy to hand a cashier an old credit card and tell her you'll be back in afterwards to pay for your gas with the card.

Then you pump as much gas as you can, and get the hell out of there.

I have no idea if that was even his real name on the card, or if he stole someone's credit card. Even though it's shitty what he did, it was a good scam on us. But now we know, and won't fall for it again. At least I hope not.

Credit Card Reader Comes Back to Haunt Me

Have I told you how much I hate our credit card reader machine thingy? I think I have.

Well yesterday we got new ones. Our credit card readers before were obviously a little confusing to most of our customers, but these aren't much better. At least I don't have to tell them to "press the blue credit or debit key" because now, this one has a credit or debit button that you can press on the screen. Easy enough, right?

Not for our customers. The first customer I got, I told him to press credit or debit, and he started hitting the screen with his car keys. I quickly yelled at him not to do that, that there was a pen to use. Do people really have no regard for things that aren't theirs? If he had scratched our brand new screen, do you think he would have paid for it? I doubt it.

This customer's act of dumbassery managed to annoy me for the rest of the day, so I was like a hawk watching every customer to make sure they didn't try to damage the screen either. No one else did. So that made me conclude that this moron was one of a kind.

There was absolutely no point in giving us cashiers the extra aggravation, though. There is a 'pen' attached to sign your signature on the screen, but that part isn't hooked up and will require another software upgrade. So for now, I have to keep telling people not to sign with the credit card reader pen, and to sign with the real pen we have sitting there.

Ugh, I'm getting annoyed even talking about it.

Wow, You're Such a Good Mother

I was stocking Red Bull yesterday when two teenagers came in and walked towards the back of the store. Of course they looked at me when they walked in, and I quickly became suspicious when I caught them glancing at me again while standing behind a rack of snacks.

I ran into the beer cooler to get a better look at them through the cooler doors and sure enough, they were shoving stuff into their pockets. I raced outside to confront them.

"Did you need help with something?" I said, while glaring at the two.

"Nope," was the response of the older one, who then started texting on his cell phone. The other one turned to walk away from me.

"Empty your pockets," I replied.

"What for?" said the younger thief.

"Because I said so. Empty your pockets or I'll do it for you." By then we were near the front of the store. They both emptied their pockets and set everything they stole on the front counter. I don't know how, but they had shoved a bunch of beef jerky, peanuts, oreos and nutter butters in their pockets. "I'm calling the police," I said as they set the last of their loot on the counter.

The two turned to walk out the store and I followed them. They walked towards a beat up shitty looking car with a woman inside. Once they got in the car, I approached the woman. "These kids were caught stealing in our store. I need you to stay here until the police get here."

She looked a little rough around the edges, and gave me an evil glare. "My kids don't steal," she spat as she quickly put the car in reverse and pulled out. I couldn't do anything but get the license plate, so that's what I did.

The police ended up finding them, and when I looked back on the security cameras, I saw that the woman (their mother?) had come in at the same time as the kids and was distracting the other cashier by asking for directions while her kids stole everything they could.

So the cops arrested the older kid (he had a warrant out for his arrest) and gave the younger kid a ticket for stealing and the mother a ticket for obstructing justice. We're going to hand over the security tapes so they can try and prove that she was in on it with them by trying to distract the cashier.

Fine example of parenting, Mom. You've earned yourself an award. Be proud, I don't give these out to just anyone!

Don't Leave the Pump Unattended

People don't read signs around here much. There's a sign on all of the gas pumps that states not to leave them unattended while pumping gas. Why?

Not only is it dangerous, but because it's your fault if it spills all over the ground.

We had a lady pull up to the pump the other day and start pumping her gas. As it was pumping, she came inside to buy some other stuff, all while talking on her cell phone.

Well while she was gone, her gas pump decided to keep pumping onto the ground once her gas tank was full.

None of us noticed it, because we were too busy dealing with the rush of customers in the store. When the lady went outside and saw this, she stormed back in, coming straight to me, of course.

"Now, I want you to tell me who's going to refund me all the money that just spilled out all over the ground," she said, staring me directly in the eye, while STILL on her cell phone.

"What are you talking about?" I needed to buy more time to access her and the situation.

"I came in here FOR A SECOND and while I was gone, your pump didn't shut off and now gas has spilled all over the ground. I want my credit card refunded."

"I'm sorry, but you aren't supposed to walk away from the pump while getting gas, and that's the reason why."

"Well it's YOUR pump that isn't working right. That's not my fault. I want a refund."

"You can't get a refund. Like I said, you left the pump and came in here. We have signs out there for a reason. You're even on your cell phone and not paying attention to anything but that. If you want a refund, you'll have to call the main office number, but I doubt anyone will give you one."

"I ONLY WANTED $15 IN GAS AND NOW IT CHARGED MY CREDIT CARD $40! Give me my money back!" she screamed. By then other customers were looking at her shaking their heads.

"I'm not giving you anything. If you'd like, I can call the police and they can sort it out."

At the mention of the police, she got even angrier and turned around and left. She yelled a few choice words at me as she left, just like they always do when they're walking away. Just once I'd like to magically teleport myself outside so as their cussing me out to my back, they can then walk right into me and crap their pants, wondering how I got outside so fast.

Labor Day Weekend

Ahh, a holiday weekend, my favorite.

The thing I hate about holidays is hearing this:

"You have to work today? On a holiday? That sucks!"

"You shouldn't have to work."

"No one should have to work on a holiday."

"You're stuck working today? Aww, too bad."

Yes, don't remind me. Don't remind me that YOU are the reason I have to work a holiday. If you weren't here, and no one came into the store, I could be sleeping off a hangover or something. We could close down the store and actually take a holiday off.

But instead, I have to get reminded by every other customer that I'm stuck at work.

Please don't remind us. Trust me, we are already aware of this fact.

Have a great weekend! I'll be stuck at work, hating all of you.

I'll Take Your Coins

I love it when customers are broke. Why?

Because many will raid their parents/grandparents/spouses stash and end up paying for their purchases in old coins. And that means that I get to add to my coin collection.

I get lots of old and exotic looking coins from these people. I think it's probably the only time I genuinely smile in the store.

The sad part is that most of these people end up buying things like Black and Milds or Swisher cigarillos with this money. At least use the old coins for milk or bread or something. Even condoms. Those are a necessity, right?

So if you have a broke family member, make sure to hide your old coin collection, because they just might bring them in to pay for a pack of Phillie Blunts. I sure won't turn them away.

Not in the Mood Today

I hate when I'm crabby yet am still forced to make jokes with the regular customers.

I mean, god forbid I don't have a smile on my face, then everyone wants to know what's wrong, or makes a comment about how cranky I am, which just makes me even crankier.

If your regular cashier looks like she's had a hell of a night, don't make it worse by commenting on it.

It may be hard to believe, but sometimes I just don't want to be at work dealing with people. I'm either tired, or just don't feel like talking that day. When I answer you back with one-word answers, don't get louder trying to be funny in order to make me laugh. I'm not in the mood.

That's all people did today, annoy the fuck out of me. No one did anything in particular, except my co-worker because she's old and becoming senile, but that's a daily thing with her.

NOTE: If you notice your cashier just doesn't look like he/she wants to talk today, he/she probably doesn't. Leave him/her alone. Don't ask a million times what's wrong. It's probably none of your business. So instead of being labeled as an annoying customer, just pay for your stuff and get out.

Stand There and Wait

"Okay, your total is $3.54."

The customer hands me a wad of bills. "Put the rest in gas on pump #7," he says as he walks away.

This scenario happens a lot. A customer will want their change in gas. But the problem is that they are walking away before I can tell them what that total in gas will be.

I'm sure a lot of people add it up in their heads, but most of them just trust the cashier to set their gas pump for the correct amount.

There are also the customers wanting gas that hand me a wad of bills and walk away before I have a chance to count it all out to make sure it's all there.

Please don't do that.

It's bad enough that we have to uncrumple all of your bills. The least you can do is stand there until we count it all. What would you do if I set your gas pump for $2 less than you gave me? You couldn't prove it because all of the money is safely in the cash register after you leave the store. And I'd walk out of that store with 2 crisp dollars in my wallet.

Actually, if I did this to every person that does that to us every day, I'd probably leave the store with 20 crisp dollars in my pocket. Adult bookstore here I come!

But I am an honest cashier. Others aren't though. Please take the few extra seconds and wait there until the cashier verifies the amount you have given him/her. Do that or risk having your money pocketed.

Only One Register

I hate when lines build up at my register. There's just something about seeing 5 or 6 people waiting for me to ring them up that drives me crazy and I just have to get them in and out of the store.

It especially sucks when one of our registers break, which is what happened the other day.

We only have two registers and usually when I'm working by myself I use both of those registers to ring up customers simultaneously. I rely on being able to work quickly.

So when one of the registers decided it didn't want to work anymore, I seriously almost went crazy.

We had to revert back to the old days, when we had to stand there, one customer at a time, and wait for them to finish pulling money out of their pockets or purses. I never realized how easy it had been for me to walk over to the other register while ringing up one of these slow fucks and go ring up someone else.

I took our second register for granted, and it paid me back, big time.

Friday was the day from hell. When the register stopped working, I was with one of my older co-workers, who can sometimes be very slow and has a tendency to mess up when she gets nervous or forced to hurry.

All I could do was stand there and supervise, because as soon as the other register broke, she ran to the good one and guarded it with her life.

I don't even remember most of the morning because I think I blacked out a few times from the frustration of it all. It was as if customers were moving in slow motion that day, and the ones waiting in line were giving me the evilest looks they have ever given me.

Please note: If a cashier yells down the line of people waiting for you to 'Please have your money out and ready before you get to the register', then seriously, please have your money out BEFORE you get to the register. It saves us all time and prevents me from potentially slashing your tires later on.

I Miss All The Fun

I swear all the fun stuff happens when I'm not there.

Our night shift girl got 'assaulted' last night.

Apparently this drunk woman got dropped off at our store. She went up to the register and started yelling at the night shift girl, who we will call Callie.

She started yelling at Callie that she needed to make a phone call, and Callie told her to use the pay phone outside, which only made the drunk girl angrier.

So the drunk girl pulls out her cell phone and proceeds to go towards the back of the store and do some drunk dialing. At this time, Callie grabs one of our magazines from the magazine rack (against our rules) and leans over the counter, reading all about Sandra Bullock or Twilight, or whoever is on the cover this week.

Drunk girl comes back up to the register and continues yelling at Callie again. Callie ignores her and keeps reading, and then the drunk girl tries to rip the magazine away from Callie, but Callie holds on strong and pulls it towards her. While all this is happening, the poor magazine is getting ripped to shreds.

So Callie gets on the phone with the police, and drunk girl runs out of the store. It's funny how they are too drunk to understand anything, yet when you mention the cops they bolt out of the store.

I'm glad I wasn't working, because as soon as that bitch tried to grab the magazine out of my hands, I would have punched her in the face.

I guess the drunk girl ended up getting arrested, and Callie is going to press charges. What I'd like to know though, is who the hell is going to pay for the magazine??

Things I Hate: Sales Reps

I have a cold. All day I was sneezing and my nose was running. I had no idea that that much snot could come out of a schnoz. It's so bad that it's dripping onto the floor before I can run to get a tissue. Don't worry though, it's dripping onto my floor at home, not at work. Although I wouldn't care if it was. I'd let it drip onto your purchase if I could.

My runny nose reminds me of how much I can't stand the sales reps that come in. They think I have nothing better to do than stand around and listen to them talk about the energy drinks or chewing gum specials that they have. I don't give a shit about this stuff and I know it's apparent on my face, yet they still go on and on.

My favorite is when a "newb" comes in. Those are the sales reps that probably started just that day, and are following our regular sales rep around. Our normal rep walks around all high and mighty because they have someone who will actually listen to them for a day. While I feel bad for the newbs, I hate them as well.

I seriously hate standing there listening to these people. When I see one come in, I try to run in the back room but sometimes I'm caught off guard. I try to tell them that I'm not a manager (even though I am), but they never let me get a word in. So I have to just stand there and take it. So after they finish, I tell them that they will have to wait for the boss to come in, and then they end up giving me like 10 business cards as different ways to get ahold of them like their product is the most important thing on the goddamn planet.

I wish my powers of snot worked in my favor today when one of them came in. They brought in a free sample of an energy drink, and I wish I could have let my nose drip all over it. I'm sure that would have got them out of the store.

Aren't You Afraid of Working?

I work a lot of night shifts and people always ask me the same question: "Aren't you scared working by yourself at night?"

I used to be. Not so much anymore though.

Of course I'll always be afraid that I'll get robbed or shot, but luckily the police frequent our area often, so that lowers the chances of would-be robbers coming in.

As for everything else though, I don't let shit bother me anymore.

I used to be paranoid when a group of punks or drunks would walk in. But now I just put on my 'night shift face' and handle any problems they throw at me. I also don't hesitate to call the cops if someone tries starting shit in the store. When people see your hand reaching down for the phone, they tend to get nervous and just leave.

The area my store is in is slowly becoming worse, and in about 10-15 years I probably won't want to work there anymore. All the old people in the community are dying or getting thrown in nursing homes, and the losers moving in are what this city is going to become. Our biggest seller will most likely be Swisher Cigarillos.

Ask me in 10-15 years if I'm afraid of working alone at night, and I'll say hell yes. But by then I'll probably be carrying a shotgun to work.

Changing the Gas Prices

We have one of those old gas price signs where we have to go outside with the long pole and change the gas price numbers that way.

A lot of stores these days have digital ones, but not us. We like to keep it old school.

However, the one thing I can't stand is when I go outside to change the price, and people bother me or yell shit at me along the way.

I've been called many names when raising the gas prices. People driving in their cars will yell profanities at me or flick me off if the gas was something like 239 and is raising to 299. Like them yelling at me will somehow cause me to say 'Oh, you're right, I shouldn't raise it. Thank you for swearing at me. Because of you, that made me realize that gas should be cheap."

Well people, I don't make the gas prices, I'm just doing as I'm told.

Even people in our parking lot will stop me along the way and ask if the price is going up or down. And if it's going up, they worry that they aren't getting it at the cheaper price because they "were in the parking lot before I started walking outside, so they should get the cheaper price". Don't have a fucking heart attack, I don't raise the price of gas until the sign outside says it first.

Raising the gas prices is one of the worst jobs for a cashier. No one should have to take that kind of abuse.

Although, anytime I lower the price, people act like my fucking best friend. The worst thing about that though is the customers that will storm in after I've lowered the price and tell me "I bought gas this morning and you lowered the price? I want a refund of the difference." Uhh, no.

It's okay, I remember every one of you that has cursed at me or given me the finger. You'll get yours one day.

Come On Already!

Well I survived night shift. No one really pissed me off. Some did, however, irritate me.

It's interesting to see how people pause when their credit card declines. I must have gotten a lot of broke people in last night.

I inform them with "Your card declined" and have to wait as they mentally start to wonder why it declined. They eventually pull out another card or use cash, but it's those 30 seconds when we're both standing there not saying anything that annoys me.

It's even worse when it happens on night shift because there are no other customers around, so I have to just stand there while they figure out in their head what the hell they bought that would make their card decline.

People, I don't have time for this. Even though I pretty much have nothing else to do, I do not want to stand there and wait. Waiting is the worst thing a cashier has to be subjected to.

I honestly would probably rather clean the bathroom (the employee bathroom, not the public one) instead of waiting for you to pull out another card. So let's move it along here. When I tell you your card declined, just say 'Oh, okay. Here's another one" and be done with it so you can get out of my face.

Night Shift

Why the fuck do people bitch and moan about needing more hours, and then call off their shift?

You stubbed your toe? Oh here, take a week off with pay then.

What's that? Your arm hurts and you can't come into work tonight? Why don't I break it so you can feel real pain?

Sometimes my coworkers are real assholes.

Working night shift tonight. Customers better watch out because I'm gonna be feisty.

Gonna go get some sleep.

Things I Hate: Loud Cooler Customers

I hate restocking the cooler. It's not so bad once I get used to the cold, but I have to get in my little zone in order to get it all done or else I get lazy and work slow.

One thing I really hate though, is when I'm stocking the cooler and a customer opens a cooler door and sees me in there. Then I hear:

"Hey you! Do you have any Molson Triple X back there?"

But to me, because of the loudness of the cooler, it sounds like "Hey neiow. Fod Fdsoi neme eeoe bryt ecow?"

If I don't answer, they just repeat their question all over again.

My point? Don't fucking open the cooler doors and yell shit to me. Go ask the cashier at the front counter if we have something.

However, that's not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing is when a customer will actually come into the cooler with me and ask me his stupid question.

Who do some people think they are that they can walk into restricted areas?

When I'm in my zone, it kinda sucks to look up and see someone standing right in front of me inside the cooler. It gives my poor little cashier heart quite a scare. These idiots are lucky I don't carry a weapon with me.

So like I said, walk your ass up to the front counter and bother the cashier up there with your drinking problem. If I'm filling the cooler, I will always tell you that we're out of stock, because I'm too pissed off that you actually bothered me while I was working.

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

If you think that giving us rolled change helps us out, it doesn't. No cashier (that I know of) likes to take rolled change. Why? Because we have to open it up and count it.

Back before I became the sarcastic and mean cashier that I am today, I was a pretty nice person. I know, I know. Hard to believe, but it's true.

I would happily accept coins rolled in wrappers just like they were bills. I never thought I had to look inside and count it all out.

That is, until the day I took a roll of dimes. I was naive when I saw the boss walk up to me the next day. I thought he was coming to give me a medal for my excellent customer service. Little did I know that I was about to get yelled at because the roll of dimes I took ended up only having 2 dimes in it; one on each end, and the rest was filled with pennies. So the roll I assumed had $5 worth of dimes in it, only had about 40 cents of change inside.

Since then, I cringe when I see people bring in rolled change. Some even get mad when I make them wait to count it out. I don't care though. About 75% of the time their rolls are short a quarter, or a dime, or whatever.

If you HAVE to bring in rolled coins to pay for your shit, don't bitch about it when we open them up and count them one by one. Once again, we are not a bank.

I Can Only Dream

The best days I have at work are when the lottery machine is down.

I love telling the gamblers that they can't get their tickets. I love seeing the lost look in their eyes as they try and figure out where else they can go to get their Pick 3 and Pick 4 numbers.

It's so nice and peaceful when the lottery machine doesn't work.

The real customers get in and out so much faster when there aren't lottery players around.

If only I could live in a world without lottery, my job would be a very pleasant one. That is, until someone pukes, shits, steals, yells at me or breaks something. Then it'd just be a regular crappy day.

Please Watch Where You Puke

Yesterday some asshole puked on the ground...next to the garbage can. Sadly this happens all the time.

Did they not want to mess up the garbage in the can with their puke?

This bothers me every time it happens because I just don't understand why. Can someone explain to me why you would puke NEXT to the garbage can instead of IN it?

Do we shit next to the toilet instead of in it? No. Well, most of us don't anyway.

It would have been so easy to just tie up the garbage can with the fresh puke in it and take it to the dumpster. But no, I had to take out the binoculars, confirm from inside the store that it was puke, and con one of my co-workers into hosing it down.

The funny part was that I got to watch my co-worker clean it up without trying to puke herself.

We made a deal though, I had to ring up the next 10 customers that she can't stand. Fine by me, I'll do anything to avoid vomit.

We Sell Cars, Too!

We sometimes let our regular customers set cars outside in our parking lot to sell. We're on a busy intersection, so people get lots of calls on their cars when they sell them at our place.

I walked in to work last night and a customer inquired about a car that is currently sitting outside for sale.

Customer: How much is that car outside?

Me: I don't know, I just got here and haven't seen it until now.

Customer: Is anyone here that knows about the car?

Me: No, it's 10pm, no one is here that could help you.

Customer: So, you just let people park their cars to sell and don't know anything about them?

Me (getting pissed): There should be a phone number on the car, why don't you call it and ask?

Customer: Still, you guys should know something about it.

Me: It's not my car. Call the person that is selling it, they'll help you.

At this point I walk away because he's being an idiot. It's not my car, it's not anyone that works here's car, so I don't know why this guy was being such a fuckface.

How hard is it to call a freaking number listed on the car? Why do people think they will get all this information at 10 o'clock at night? Come back during normal hours, asshole.

I think he was trying to bully me just because he had no one else to pick on.

Does That Answer Your Question?

One of my readers, Steve G., posted an interesting comment the other day. He said:

"I must cop to often using gas stations as trash disposals. Anytime my car gets loaded up with newspapers and what not, I fill up a grocery bag and chuck it in their trashes, as opposed to using my home trash. Am I a bad person?"

Steve G., you suck. We always give the evil eye to those customers that empty their whole life into our garbage cans. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you only threw a tiny grocery bag away.

We usually get the people that fill up those Hefty trash bags and try to throw them away in our trash cans. I've seen people go as far as shoving them down as hard as they can into the cans so that they fit.

I'm waiting for someone to actually step into the garbage can to stomp down on their trash to make it fit.

If the trash cans are full (and they usually are on my shift because I don't do trash), people will leave their garbage on the ground next to the can.

One time I saw a girl cleaning out her car and setting a bunch of empty 6-packs of beer on the ground. She then came into the store to buy more beer and I told her to go pick those up and throw them in the garbage can. She gave me the evil drunk sneer, but did as she was told.

So, Steve G., you may not be a horrible person, but you will probably earn a crushed Twinkie the next time you buy one from your local cashier.

Until then, this landfill of smelly trash is just for you. Try shoving this in a garbage can.



Have a great day!

Thank God It's Over

FINALLY! The carnival is over with for this year.

It was a horrible weekend. I had to go home a few times because I got so stressed out. Who stressed me out?

Teenagers.

I swear if I ever have kids, I'm going to keep them as a baby, send them off to relatives between ages 12-25, and then have them come back as an adult.

We hire a police officer for this event, and I couldn't believe the way these kids were mouthing off to him.

He would only let 2 of them in the store at a time, and they would get angry looks on their pimply teenage faces and ask him why more of them couldn't come into the store.

I'm sorry, but if a cop told me to do something, I would shut up and do it.

I also couldn't believe the way some of these girls were dressed. It was hooker central this weekend at the church carnival. These parents HAVE to know what their kids look like when they leave the house. The hair on these teenage girls was atrocious. Is the ratty-fried-with-a-straightener-hairspray look coming back in style again?

The best part of the weekend was when this guy got arrested. Apparently he pulled into the parking lot, parked his car to block everyone in, and got out and started walking around in circles. The cop thought it was suspicious, so he ran his plates and found out the guy had a felony warrant for breaking and entering.

What an idiot to come to a carnival and act like a douchebag so you get caught. It's always fun to see someone get handcuffed though.

As usual we caught people stealing (with a cop in the store!) and also found products on the shelves that people half drank/ate and then set back down. (Who takes a sip of water and then puts it back in the cooler?)

Hopefully by this time next year I will have won the lottery so I can buy out the carnival and shut it down immediately.

At least life can get back to the normal shitty customers.

Come One, Come All to the Carnival

The carnival started yesterday. As usual, the shitty teens and tweens decided to grace us with their presence.

We only let 2 kids in the store at a time. Why? It just gets too hard to watch all of them and most of them tend to linger around in the store when they are with their group.

It's funny how these little shits get all offended when we only let 2 of them in at a time. There ARE some good kids that don't give us a problem, but the majority of them are assholes.

I used to watch and yell at the kids myself, but I couldn't take it anymore, so we decided to hire policemen to watch the place.

These kids just mouth off to the policemen, too.

They must know that they can't get arrested for being shits.

Some kid with an afro was a real jerk yesterday. He was bouncing this big ball throughout the store, taking his time, and kept staring at me. I wanted to grab that ball and throw it as hard as I could at his face. Just because he had an afro. I think he wanted to steal, but I couldn't take my eyes off his out of control hair, so he saw that I was watching him.

I hope the rest of the weekend goes by uneventful. I'm working every night during the carnival just to make sure everything goes smoothly.

Some of these kids and their crappy attitudes makes me never want to have kids myself.

Let's hope I don't end up in jail for getting into a fight with one of the mouthy kid's parents. If I do, I'll leave an address for you to write to me. Please send cake. With a file in it. I don't want to become someone's girlfriend.

Hiding the Energy Drinks from Mom

We get mothers coming in all the time that are regular customers. The thing that pisses me off is when they tell us to not sell their kids energy drinks if they happen to come into the store by themselves.

Watch your own fucking kids, people.

It's not our job to make sure little Johnny only buys the pre-approved beverages that you want him to.

If he wants an energy drink and has the money for it, then he's getting an energy drink. Two if he can afford it.

I don't care if he's bouncing off the walls later on in the day. It's not my problem. If you want to limit what he can have, then come with him to the store. I am not his caretaker, you are.

The next time someone comes in and tells me what to do regarding their kid, I'm going to give the kid free energy drinks just because I can.

You Want To Wash What?

As I've explained before, I rarely let anyone use the bathroom. This is one of the reasons why.

A woman came in the other day and wanted to use the bathroom to wash out her bunny's cage.

That's right, her bunny's HUGE cage that he lives and poops in.

I told her no, of course, and she just kind of stood there holding this massive plastic cage with a wire top.

It makes me wonder how the hell she was going to wash it in there. There is no utility sink or anything else big enough to hose that thing down.

Knowing our luck with people and the bathroom, she was probably going to shove all that hay and bedding down the toilet until it clogged. And then proceed to take a piss or shit on top of that.

I figured she lived out of town or something and that she was hoping to make a stop to clean out the cage, but I asked her where she was from and she said she lived in the next town over. Seriously?

So I told her to check with the gas station across the street and they might have a bathroom she could use to clean out her rabbit's cage.

Hey, I had to. They're our competition!