The Carnival Has Come to Town

So, the yearly church carnival is this week. The DREADED carnival, that is.

If you haven't heard about the carnival that I bitch about every year, you can read about it here, here, here, here, here, and here.

This year, however, the stupid kids actually remember that we have a cop and so far haven't been little assholes.

As usual, yesterday was 'Family Night' at the carnival which meant free babysitting for parents.

The only exciting thing I saw was a carnie trying to flirt with a girl (dressed like a slut) right in front of her boyfriend. I thought there was going to be a fight, but the carnie's other carnie friends all started to crowd around the main carnie to back him up, and the guy and his girl left without a fight.

But even though yesterday was boring as fuck, I'm sure there will be more drama. It is, after all, a carnival.

Order Me This, Please!

What I can't stand is when a customer wants us to order something, and then when we do finally get the item in, they disappear and never come back and we are now stuck with that item.

And it's usually an item that will NEVER sell.

Most of the time it's some off-the-wall brand of expensive cigarette that only men in their 70s still smoke. It's usually "Order me 3 cartons a week! I'll be in to buy them!" Against my better judgement, I order them, and that's when the customer suddenly decides to stop smoking. Or dies. Or just disappears, never to be heard from again.

And the obvious solution would be to return the cigarettes to the place we ordered it from, but they don't take returns on cigarettes just because a customer didn't want them anymore.

So then those cigarettes sit there. And no matter how hard we try to sell them to customers, no one wants them because usually they are $10 a pack or some insane amount. And as they sit there, they go stale. And we end up having to get rid of them because after 5 years of sitting on the shelves, they would probably turn to dust if someone squeeze the pack.

So this is why I don't order items when customers say they want us to carry something. And now, when someone wants a strange pack of cigarettes, I usually make them prepay for the carton now. 

Product Review: Neuro-Bliss

I decided to review Neuro-Bliss for the sole reason that there is 'Happiness in Every Bottle' and I definitely need that. A few years ago I tried Neuro-Sleep but I don't think I ever posted a review on it. It must not have been that memorable. Or maybe it made me so sleepy that I forgot I drank it.

Anyways, Neuro-Bliss is supposed to de-stress my life. If one drink can take away the shitty and mean customers, then order me a pallet!

I decided to drink this before I went to work, figuring that if I did get yelled at by someone, then I'd let all of the negativity roll off of me and have a nice day.

I was all excited for this drink, so I chugged half of it until I realized it tasted like 7-Up. I'm not a fan of 7-Up, but I decided to drink the rest anyway because I really really wanted to be happy.

I guess I was expecting to watch the clouds part as the sun shined through and rainbows appear in the sky, but that didn't happen and I didn't feel any effects from it. When I got to work I immediately got yelled at by a customer because the bathroom was out of order. Okay, whatever, if that's the worst that can happen, fine by me.

Then a bunch of kids came in and spilled slushie all over the floor, so I went and got the mop and didn't say a word when I had to clean it all up.

After that a customer told me I shorted him $20. I politely told him he'd have to wait for the manager the next day to check the video footage. He told me I needed to go back to school and learn to add.

By this time I was guessing that I'd jinxed myself by drinking this Neuro-Bliss. I wanted so much to be happy and to feel like I was frolicking in a field of flowers, but that wasn't happening.

When I got into an argument with my co-worker about which one of us was going to clean up the puke at Pump #7, I gave up on this drink.

Fuck you, Neuro-Bliss. My day was shittier because of you! Maybe I need Neuro-Gasm to relax me a little. But I don't think they make that anymore.

Has this drink worked for anyone else out there? Did it give you the happiness it promised?

I'll Be Right Back

All too often a customer is at the register buying something when they forgot they left their money in their car or at home.

"Oh, shit. I forgot my wallet at home. I'll be right back!" they say as they run out the door.

Many times they come back. Sometimes they don't.

When they are buying prepackaged stuff that I can just throw back on the shelves, then it's no big deal.

But when they get coffee, doughnuts or anything else that they have to make and/or touch, it pisses me off.

That's perfectly good stuff that we have to throw away, all because you said you'd be right back. Asshole.

I'm assuming that since the customer had to go back home it made them late for work so they decided to skip coming back into the store.

If you've done this before, then screw you. I could be giving this stuff to the crazy woman that comes around all the time begging for food, but who knows if you've coughed or sneezed on it, thus transferring your cold to the crazy woman. Then she will come in coughing and sneezing on me and I'll have to look at puke on her jacket while boogers fly out of her nose.

Which means that the next time I see you, I'll give you the crustiest dirtiest money I can find as your change.

Favorite Retail Blogs?

I like to read retail blogs. It's funny to see the other stuff people complain about, which is usually the stuff I mostly bitch about, too.

One of my favorites is The Pizza Man Blog. He doesn't post anymore, but his stories are hilarious.

Does anyone have any other retail/cashier sites they like? I need some new reading material.

If you have one or know of a good one, post it here.

The Missing Girls

I'm sure everyone has now heard of the Cleveland women that were missing for 10 years.

That's not far from us at all. I remember 9 years ago putting up flyers on our front door for one of the women that went missing. She was 14 at the time and it was scary. I remember customers commenting that she was probably a runaway. It's sad that so many people thought that. She was alive and being tortured the whole time, along with two others.

The house that they were found in is not located in the greatest area. There are tons of other houses around there boarded up and vacant looking, and that's probably why the house didn't really seem out of the norm around there.

Anyways, I'm glad that scumbag is caught and I hope he rots in hell. Reading about what he did to them for 10 years makes me sick.

This story makes me think about how we don't really know anyone. We could have customers that come in our store now that are hiding someone they kidnapped. We'd never know. It's creepy.

And then there's stories like this woman who was closing up at her gas station job and appears to have been abducted. As of now (two weeks later), she still hasn't been found.

This is why at the sign of anything strange at my store I'm always on the phone with the cops. Many think I overreact but I don't care. Any creepy motherfucker that comes in is always watched by me until they leave the store. And even then I write down their license plate just in case.

But even looking or acting creepy doesn't mean they are doing anything wrong. It's these "normal" ones that have everyone fooled.

I'm just still in shock that those girls were found. It's made me even more suspicious of people though, that's for sure.

Not Cool, BP. Not Cool.

Our night shift girl was working the other night and got a phone call at 11pm.

"Hello?"

"Yeah, I got $10 worth of gas there today and my credit card was charged $70. Why is that?"

"I'm not sure, you'll have to come in while the manager is here."

"So you don't know why my card was charged then?"

"No, sorry. I'm just the night girl. I don't work in the daytime."

"I want to know why I was charged $70. You're going to tell me ad fix it. See you in 10 minutes."

And with that he hung up on her.

She spent the rest of the night scared that some crazy guy was going to come in and harm her.

In the morning, I told her she should have called the cops. So I decided to look up what happened.

It showed on our caller ID that the call came from the BP gas station about 20 minutes from us. Once I saw this I got pissed and called around until I got the manager.

I explained to her what happened and wanted to know if it was a disgruntled customer really calling us or if some of her employees were fucking around on night shift.

She told me she'd look into it and would call me back.

A few days later, she finally called. And it was just like I expected. Her employees had called our store (as well as many others) because they were bored.

I didn't ask what she planned on doing with them, but i told her that it was hard enough to find people that wanted to work night shift and that we didn't need anyone trying to scare them. Especially people from another gas station.

If any of our employees pulled that, I'm not sure if I'd fire them or not. If they were a good worker but just got bored, I'd make them a list of crappy jobs that need to get done and have them do it. If they were a lazy ass and I knew they weren't going to last long, I'd probably cut their hours and wait for them to just quit.

But in either case, if they ended up making those prank calls again after I told them not to, they'd definitely be fired.

People piss me off sometimes. Do your fucking job instead of scaring other people. We're all in retail, we shouldn't be working against each other!

Do You Want the Job or Not?

I seriously don't understand people.

Once again, we are looking to hire someone. As usual, I get the job of calling the potential applicants.

"Hello?"

Me: Hi, is John there?

"Depends. Who wants to know?"

Me: Nevermind. I must have the wrong number.

Or, this last one I just called:

"Hi, is Steve there?"

"Uhhh, ..............yeah."

After I get done explaining who I am and what I'm calling for, I try to set up a time for him to come in for an interview.

Me: Will 10am Tuesday work?

Steve: *HUGE SIGH* *then a pause* Yeah, I guess so.

Me: You guess so?

Steve: Yeah, that'll be fine.

I don't know what the hell is wrong with everyone. You apply for a job and then act like it's inconvenient for you to come in for an interview?

Seriously so sick of people lately.

If only there were three of me we could run EVERY shift and not have to hire anyone! ;-)

Sandwich Woes

The reason I asked yesterday's question about the moldy sandwich was because we had this happen with a customer a few weeks ago.

He came in, bought a ham sandwich and a drink. About a few hours later, he came back to the store DEMANDING to see a manager. Naturally, I drew the short straw and had to go help him.

I walked up to a man in his early 30's who looked distressed. His brows were furrowed and he was running his hand through his hair multiple times. The sprinkling of dandruff coming off of his head was lightly coating his black jacket and reminded me of the snow we still have here in Cleveland.

"Excuse me, are you the manager?" he said, rushing up to me.

"Yes," I replied, not wanting to talk any more than I should until I knew what the situation was.

He shoved a partially unwrapped sandwich at my face. "Here, take a bite of this," he said.

I pushed the sandwich away. "Please get that out of my face," I said politely.

"See?" he yelled. "You wouldn't eat it either!" He appeared to be hopping around daintily on his feet.

"What is the problem here, sir?" I just wanted to get this over with and not play games with this guy.

Suddenly he became very calm. Almost too calm. It was like someone flicked the off switch on his back. "I bought this sandwich this morning and I went to eat it at lunch and noticed that the wrapper was open and it's moldy. What are you going to do about it?"

He held out the sandwich once again and I grabbed it by the corner of the wrapper. Peering inside the sandwich, I noticed that it was definitely moldy. "You said you noticed that the package was open when you went to eat it?"

"Yes, I think someone opened it on purpose."

"Well, that's possible, we often get kids coming in and opening things--"

He cut me off. "I asked you once and you didn't answer. What are you going to do about it?"

I could tell this guy was going to be an asshole. A big one. "I will give you a refund on this sandwich."

He stared at me in what looked like disbelief. "Are you serious? That's it?"

"Umm,...what else did you want me to do?"

"I'd like something more than my money back. I mean, that moldy thing almost touched my lips!" As he said this he started gagging and I had to resist the urge to laugh. Watching people gag is probably the funniest thing on the planet.

Once he finished his dry heave dance, he straightened himself up and looked right at me. "What else are you going to give me?"

"I'm not going to 'give' you anything except for your money back, like I already said."

"That's unacceptable.I deserve at least a $50 gift card."

"A $50 gift card? No. A refund is the only thing I can do." By this point I had gone to the register and pulled out $1.99 to give back to him.

"I should be better compensated for this. If I had taken a bite, I could have gone to the hospital! Then you'd have to pay me a lot more than what I'm asking for!"

I didn't really give a shit about this customer by now since he was being a dick about it. "Like I said, sir. This is all I can do."

"Fine, I'll be contacting the news, then," he said. He threw the sandwich on the ground and stormed out.

I think it's funny when people say they'll be contacting the news. I hear this all the time, even in other places that I'm shopping at. Seriously. 99% of the time the news station won't give a fuck what you're complaining about unless you are an old person that is sending your life savings of $64,000 to someone in Nigeria.

And on top of all this the guy wanted a $50 gift card. Listen, I've gotten hair in my food at pretty much every restaurant within 10 miles of me and I'm not asking for anything. I simply tell the manager, get my food taken off the bill, and don't go there again until I forgot why I don't go there. Things happen. To me, hair is A LOT grosser than some mold on a sandwich.

What do you think this guy should have been given?

Sandwich Question

Let's say you were at a convenience store and bought a sandwich.

When you got home you realized the sandwich was moldy (because the package had been opened and you hadn't noticed that in the store).

What would you expect the store to do?

Spoiled Milk, Spoiled Customers

We don't run many specials in our store, but we're trying to change that.

Currently we have a milk special going on. 3 half gallons of milk for $5. That's a pretty good deal around here.

However, we've barely sold any. Why?

Because customers think we are trying to sell them milk with dates that are expiring soon.

Do places do this with specials? I would have never thought to put milk on sale if it was going bad soon. We usually just throw it out when it expires.

Anyways, this pisses me off. We're trying to bring new customers in the store and our usual shitty ones are asking us why we have it on sale. Fuck you.

I hope you take home a jug of this:

Not from our store, of course.

No Loyalty

Business has been slow lately, but it usually is this time of year. Our regular customers come in as usual, but those are slowly dwindling away, too.

Why?

Because our regular customers are starting to steal.

Theft has been out of control lately, but that was from people we had never seen before. I took pleasure in kicking those assholes out of the store.

When our regular customers steal, that pisses me off. Where's the loyalty? These customers know it's a family business and comment all the time on how they love coming into the store because of the friendly atmosphere, blah blah blah. Now I guess I just won't trust anyone.

We have a redheaded lady that comes in every day. She usually comes in and buys a coffee. Lately she's been buying a doughnut, too.

The other day I was just randomly watching the security cameras (probably because I didn't want to do my work), and I saw this redhead shove a doughnut into her purse. No bag, no tissue, just the doughnut. At first I thought I was just seeing things because who shoves a doughnut in their purse without anything covering it? Is it still enjoyable when it has all the debris and lint from your purse stuck to it?

So I just sat there and watched as she came up to the register to pay for her coffee but not mentioning the doughnut at all.

Normally I'd race right out from the back room and confront this bitch, but Aunt Flow was visiting so my stomach cramps kept me confined to the back room.

My guess is that she's done this before since she so stealthily slid the doughnut into her purse. Right.

I've told everyone I work with and we're all on alert for the next time she does it. And there WILL be a next time. There always is.

It just really pisses me off because this isn't the first time a regular customer has stolen from us lately. It's happening WAY more than it should.

Leaving a Bad Taste in my Mouth

We carry Otis Spunkmeyer cookies for our customers. We bake them fresh every day and they taste really really good. We've had these cookies for over two years now.







The cookie above is my all-time abso-fucking-lute favorite. It is called a Carnival cookie. See it? Isn't it beautiful? Here, I'll show it to you again:

Eat me.

Recently, the Otis Spunkmeyer company has decided not to deliver to stores anymore. They now ship to big suppliers, who distribute the cookies to their customers. Otis Spunkmeyer's reasoning is that they want to focus on making their cookies and since they have recently gotten a lot of new business, it is costing too much to deliver to every store.

Fine, whatevs.

But what pisses me off is that now we can't find a company that can give us our product.

Correction: We have found a few companies that have these cookies, but they are raising the prices so high that it's impossible for us to make a profit on these cookies.

So instead, these new companies are promoting their own brand of cookies.

So I ask; How is this method possibly going to keep Otis Spunkmeyer in business? These distributors are trying to push their own cookies and raising the price on Otis cookies so that you don't have any choice but to go with the off-brand.

I mean, sure the Otis cookies are good, but customers will eat anything that is baked fresh. Customers eat the mysterious products we have on our shelves that have no expiration date and that have been sitting there for who knows how long.

But if we switch the brand of cookies, I doubt a lot of people are going to notice. Sure, we'll get a few people whose palettes have been offended, but they'll get over it.

Bad move on Otis Spunkmeyer's part. We will probably be changing over to a less expensive cookie. I hate when companies do this. Don't screw the little guys, we're the ones that put you on the map in the first place!!

Lay's Potato Chips

Has anyone tried any of these yet? Lay's has these three new flavors that you can vote on to pick which one stays.

Chicken & Waffles sounds disgusting to me. I'm afraid to try it.

The other two don't sound as bad, but that Chicken & Waffles scares me. I don't know what it is about it. I know a lot of people eat and enjoy Chicken & Waffles for dinner, but the thought of that in a chip? It's just wrong!

So tell me. Is it as gross as I think it is? Or does it taste pretty good?

Pumping Gas 101

There are right ways and wrong ways to pump gas. Working at my store for twenty years, I've seen it all.

This is the right way to pump gas:

And so is this:

  

Even this is correct:

 

 

 But what do I see a lot of the time? This:

And this: 

Seriously. Don't do that. You look like a fucking asshole and when we see you do this we are all inside the store laughing at you. Even the customers are laughing at you.

I also see this a lot:

And this:

When you do this:

 

 It usually results into this:

And when you do this:

It will probably turn into this:

 

  And this: 

 

So please. PAY ATTENTION AT THE PUMP AND DON'T BE A JERK.

Ringing Up Killers

I get a lot of emails from people working in retail that have their own stories to tell.

I love getting these emails because it lets me know that people are assholes all over the world, not just near me.

One reader, David, shared this interesting story with me:

"There was a man who pulled up outside one Monday evening and went nuts and started kicking his truck and cursing for about 10 minutes. I was off the next 2 days. When I came back on Thursday, tons of cops cars, helicopters and canine units were all over the place looking for this guy. It turns out, he had killed a man, wrapped him in a blanket, stuck him under his house and tried to burn everything. It didn't work. They estimated that he killed the man about 5:00pm on Monday, just a couple of hours before he went crazy in the parking lot."

This got me thinking. What if a customer in my store had just killed someone right before they came in to buy cigarettes or something? What if that dead body was currently in their car in our parking lot?

What if I told a killer to "Have a nice day," after he just got done chopping a person to pieces in order to hide the body? What if he smiled at me and thought about killing me, too, and eating me for dinner?

Thanks for the story, David. The next time a customer yells at me for not letting them use the bathroom, I'm going to assume they just killed someone and now needed to shit their pants.

Has anyone else ever rang up a murderer before? Or someone you suspected was one? Did they buy someone murder-y? Like duct tape, trash bags and cigarettes?

Product Review: Nickles Chocolate Delight

I was bored and hungry at work the other day. This is dangerous because I will often peruse the store and find the unhealthiest piece of junk food and devour it.

I guess it's a good thing I stand on my feet all day. That's mostly the only exercise I get.

So when I was walking through Aisle 2, I came upon this mysterious package:

Now, a chocolate delight could be almost anything. And since I've tried everything in the store, I wondered how this could have slipped past me and when exactly we had gotten it. But then I remembered that the Hostess Company died and we were left without Twinkies forever.

Anyway, I decided to buy this, rip open the package and feast my eyes on this:

Kind of looks like a piece of poop, doesn't it? No? Well, I thought so.

I wanted to try an experiment and place this on the floor of the public bathroom next to the toilet to see what customers would do when they saw this. Would they leave the bathroom immediately and not say a word about what they saw? Or would they bend down to get a closer look (which would be disgusting because then you are getting closer to what could possibly be someone else's shit).

Would any of them tell us there was something mysterious on the floor?

I was all set to conduct my experiment and when I headed toward the bathroom carrying this in the palm of my hand, my dad asked me what I was doing so I had to tell him.

Then he told me, "No." That I wasn't allowed to do that. So there went that.

I walked, defeated, into the back office where I sat on the chair and silently devoured it.

Even though it's not that attractive looking, I have to say that this thing was fucking delicious.

There was marshmallow on the inside, which added to its sweetness. The best part was the top; it tasted like frosting on a cake.

About a minute later it was gone and I was licking my fingers trying to get every last bit of it.

Normally I don't care for this stuff, but I'll have to make sure I avoid Aisle 2 for awhile so I don't eat one of these every day. Either that, or I could let one go moldy and that way I won't be tempted by it again.

I would definitely eat one of these again, but I won't. I want to make sure I can still fit through the door to go to work.

So True...

Donation Jars Are Not Your Personal ATM

A few days ago I saw this story in the news about a guy that stole a donation jar at a convenience store. The jar was there to help out a 2 year old boy with stage 4 cancer.

Seriously. What kind of scum steals a donation jar?

I had glanced at the story when I first read it and tried finding it tonight to post here, so I had Googled something like 'guy stealing donation jar' thinking this story would pop up.

But no, apparently there are tons of other people that steal donation jars.

I'm not surprised, though. We used to have donation jars at our registers, but it got too risky with all the shady people coming in all the time. So we quit doing it just because it would suck if it got stolen. I mean, customers steal everything else off of our counters, why not those, right?

Anyways, they apparently have identified the man that took the donation jar and he's wanted for taking them from other stores, too! People can be such assholes...

A Simple Fix

Everyone knows that we keep our bathroom out of order at all times so we don't have to clean up the shit messes, but sometimes we let people have the key and they still fuck it up in there and break something.

I've figured out a way around this.

All I have to do is wait for a plumber to come in and want to use the bathroom. When I tell him that the toilet's broken, he will usually ask what's wrong with it. Plus, men always want to fix something that's broken, even if they don't know what they are doing.

But a plumber is golden. Most of the time it's a simple fix.

And if the plumber wants to use our bathroom bad enough, he will fix it for us. For free.

This has now worked twice. I've let a plumber use the bathroom and voila! Working again!

I wonder what else I can get people to fix around there. Any ideas?

Happy New Year

Jesus, I just realized that I only made 23 posts last year. That's not enough to share with the world how shitty some of my customers are.

So my new year's resolution is to tell you more stories. I'll start with one now.

We have signs up at all the gas pumps that say the customer must pay inside before they are allowed to pump gas. These signs have been up for over two years now and are pretty much up at every gas station in the city.

So any tool that comes in wanting to know why we aren't turning their pump on for them is just that...a tool.

Last week a guy stood out there for about 5 minutes waiting for us to turn his pump on. Finally he came inside.

"Why aren't you turning the pump on outside? Can't you see I'm standing there? It's fucking freezing!" he said, shivering and staring me down.

I went into my usual spiel. "Sorry, the pumps are pay first if you are paying cash. But you can pay with a credit card out there if you'd like."

He stared at me while I stared at the snow on his beard. "So I have to pay you first if I want to pump gas?"

"Yes."

"Not for me, I'm white!" he said as he turned around and headed out the door.

It took me a minute to process what he meant by that until I realized he was probably being a racist bastard.

So we watched him drive across the street to the other gas station and stand at their pump for 5 minutes before he went inside. About a minute later he came out, got into his car and drove away.

I guess they didn't know either.