Eye Wonder What He Was Doing

So, I've been gone for awhile. Got married, had a few kids, but now I'm back. And I see that customers are still the same assholes they've always been.

Who knew that you could use products and put them back on the shelf when you were done with them?

We had a guy come in the other day that was looking at our Health and Beauty section. I wasn't paying much attention because I was busy with other customers.

After awhile he came up to my register and asked for the bathroom key. I handed it to him, hoping he wasn't going to crap all over the place and mess the bathroom up.

About ten minutes later he emerged and handed me the key. He also walked over to the Health and Beauty section and put back a box of eye drops. Then he left.

The whole thing was shady to me, so I wrote down his license plate number and then went to watch the security cameras for when he came in. Apparently this jerk picked up the eye drops, asked me for the bathroom key, took the eye drops in with him, then put them back on the shelf when he was done.

I went back out to the front of the store and picked up the eye drops he had put back. Sure enough, the package was opened and there were still fresh droplets on the cap. That fucker had used the eye drops in our bathroom and then put them back.

It's a good thing I caught it or else some unsuspecting customer might have bought those and gotten pink eye or whatever the fuck this guy might have had.

Naturally I called the police, and they came out and took a report. From the license plate, they found out that the guy lived two towns over. Which for us means we are out of luck. No one wants to follow up on a $2.89 purchase. So of course that fucker got away with it.

Have you ever done anything like that before? Maybe not as extreme, but used a product and then put it back on the shelf?

Agree or Disagree?

Where Have All the Plungers Gone?

We had some guys come in and work on the outside canopy of our store a couple days ago. Since our bathroom is permanently out of order, we were nice enough to let these guys use the bathroom as they needed it.

Big mistake.

Please tell me how someone (besides a child), doesn't know how to use a plunger?

After one of the guys asked for the key to the bathroom, he went in and came right back out saying there was a problem in there and that it wasn't him. He then promptly left the store.

I, naturally, was elected to go in there.

As I suspected, some asshole clogged the toilet, which was bad enough, but then this fucking idiot stuck the plunger in upside down to try to get it unclogged.

Yes, that's right, the wooden stick of the plunger was stuffed into the toilet. And left there.

I just don't understand this. Was he trying to shove something even further down in there? Or did he just not really understand how a goddamn plunger works?

I was so disgusted that I left it in there for the next shift to clean up. Yeah, I know, I'm shitty, but someone else should feel my pain every day besides me.

I guess this is one of life's greatest mysteries. Who would do that to a poor plunger? Or maybe I'm the idiot and there's some new way to unclog a toilet that I've never heard of?

Someone help me out here.

It's C-C-C-C-Cold!!

So, its been freezing here in good old Cleveland. Temperatures in the negatives, etc. In other words, this is cold we aren't used to.

However, the news has sure been letting us know 24/7 how cold it's going to be here. Everyone knows, it's not a secret.

Yet every single day during this cold, customers have been coming in and that's all they're talking about. Fine, whatever, but when you come in to buy a 75 cent item, I'm not going to feel bad for you.

I've stopped making conversation with customers for right now. If they ask how I am, I'll say "Good." and that's it. I won't ask how they are, but I know they are dying for me to ask so they can inform me as to how cold it is.

Here is how my days have been going:

Old Guy: Hiya! How's it going? *slaps his 75 cent newspaper on the counter*

Me: Good. *looks out window*

Old Guy: *starts to shiver* Brr! It sure is cold out there, don't you think?

Me: *sighing on the inside* Yes, it's a chilly one.

Old Guy: Why are you working today? It's too cold for anyone to be out there in this!

Me: Well, then how would you get your newspaper?

Old Guy: *ignores what I said* Brr! It's freezing!

And so on, etc. Please, people. I know how cold it is. I know it sucks that I have to work, but don't make it worse asking me why I'm there when you're in there buying the gum/magazine/condoms you can't live without.

It's cold, I GET IT!

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?