Thursday, September 30, 2010

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.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

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.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

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.

Monday, September 27, 2010

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.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

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.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

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.

Monday, September 20, 2010

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.

Friday, September 17, 2010

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.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

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.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

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.

Monday, September 13, 2010

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.

Friday, September 10, 2010

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.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

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!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

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.

Friday, September 3, 2010

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.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

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.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

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.
 

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