I was watching an episode of Quantum Leap on Hulu the other day, in which Sam leaps into the life of an adult with some sort of mental disability and the IQ of a twelve year old. I'm sure that's not the PC way to say that, but I mean no harm. Anyway, he finds himself making mistakes and acting klutzy all the time as people treat him like he's less than human. It made me think about my time at Fred Meyer. Towards the end, I could hardly handle a day of work. Especially in the home department. I would go home and cry almost every night. I would even cry before work because I didn't want to go. This is an excessive amount of crying, even for me.
But I just couldn't take people treating me like I was less than human anymore. As I mentioned, I've been reading notalwaysright.com lately, and it's made me realize just how many truly horrible people I encountered. Almost every day I would experience somebody ignoring my polite small talk, rolling their eyes at me, questioning my answers, talking down to me, or doing something to make me feel like my life was worthless to them. Of course, the majority of the people I met were just shopping, neither evil nor good. But I think I took the evil ones worse than most people did. I think the work that I perform as well as my emotional reactions are very strongly related to what people expect from me and the way they treat me.
Towards the end I even started being nasty back to customers. I asked (in not a nice tone) that woman who wanted to speak to a boy why she needed to speak to a boy instead of me. And once, a customer came in while I was at the register in the home department and asked me if we had any tomato cages. I told him I wasn't sure, that they could be found either right around the corner on aisle 79 or in the small garden area at the front of the store. He became angry and asked me why I didn't know, insisted he didn't have time to look, indicated that it was my job to know the name and location of all (285,000 items) in our inventory. I asked him if he would like me to call my manager and ask if we had any. He yelled at me, "do you even KNOW what a tomato cage IS?!" I told him, yes, I do know what a tomato cage is, but I do not know if we have any.
He stormed away, yelling sarcastically, "Thanks, you've been SO HELPFUL."
I yelled something after him. I don't remember what I yelled, but it wasn't nice. I have to imagine he didn't hear me or I would have gotten hell from my manager, or the guy would have come back.
Normally you're supposed to just grin and bear it when customers yell at you, but I don't think that's fair. Everyone has a breaking point, and I think it would be better if retail employees were encouraged to say something like, "You are being rude and abusive, and do not have to serve you if you continue to act that way toward me." Just a statement of fact. That way it doesn't devolve into a shouting match, and rude customers don't get to just keep being rude to their fellow human beings.
11 November 2009
10 November 2009
Cashier Memories part II
So, I've been reading notalwaysright.com lately, and remembering how I once imagined writing down all my cashier experiences for posterity. I really don't want to forget all the hilarious, horrible, and wonderful things that happened to me. Here's a rundown of some of my "favorite" experiences.
When I was working in the electronics department, this woman came up to me and asked me if I could help her find a certain type of battery. She held up a AA battery and asked me if we had any "Ay-Ay minus 2010" batteries. I thought maybe she was joking, only she looked like such a normal baby boomer type woman. She was looking at the expiration date and the polarity and assumed that was part of the type of battery! I decided that I would explain a little about batteries to her, because I guess we all have to learn sometime. I walked her over to the batteries and showed her the four and eight packs, and she was so confused. She was so certain that she needed a AA2010, but the only number she could see was the 4 and the 8; she couldn't see the date on any of the batteries we had. I finally convinced her it didn't matter. She also told me that it came from her electric beater and she wasn't sure how to put the batteries back inside. I explained to her how most electronics have a little diagram showing which direction to put them in. She eventually left with some batteries after thanking me for taking the time to explain it to her. She was nice, but skeptical the whole time I talked to her. I told her we all have to learn sometime.
While I was working at the electronics department, I didn't really know everything that was going on there, because it was widely known that I wasn't going to be working there for more than a few months, and I never worked there more than 20 hours a week, usually less. Everything I learned was sort of on the fly. I of course asked a lot of questions and tried to learn as much as I could, but not being a big techy, I got asked a lot of questions I didn't know the answer to. My uncertainty was more a problem than my lack of knowledge. It always has been. That problem was compounded by the fact that the customers treated electronics customers like a virtual database of all things that run on electricity. In many ways it was nicer to work in electronics because the customers treated us with some respect because they assumed we knew something they didn't. People were often frustrated with me, and complained to my manager (who was awesome about it--really a nice guy who just wanted his employees to be happy and productive) a lot. But the worst was when people would ask me if they could talk to a male employee when they felt their needs weren't being met. Sometimes I really didn't know the answer, in which case it makes sense that they would ask if anyone else knew they answer, but the fact that they would say OUT LOUD that they wanted to talk to a male is just horrifying. How could anyone think that it's okay to say such a misogynist thing out loud to another human being? Even if men traditionally or statistically know more about electronics than women, shouldn't the question be "is there someone else who knows?" instead of "can I talk to one of the guys?" Not even "ask" one of the guys. They didn't even want to talk to me. I even had one woman (yes, even women did this) who wanted to know if we had a video in stock. When I told her we didn't, she asked to talk to a guy. What on earth would a guy know about our inventory that I didn't find on the computer? One time towards the end of my time there, when I was increasingly unwilling to grin and bear it when customers were horrible, a woman on the phone asked if she could talk to a boy, and I called her on it.
"Why do you need to talk to a boy? What can they tell you that I can't?"
She just stuttered at me. I eventually transferred her to my manager, who is male.
Not everybody was horrible. There was a homeless man who used to come in to the store pretty regularly and mostly just return bottles for money, sometimes buying a bit of food or something. He was always nice, although odd. One day while I was cashiering in the home department he came through my line with more things than he usually got, and less practical: I believe he had some beer and cookies. He explained to me that it was his birthday so he was buying himself a treat. I wished him a happy birthday and rang him up. He pulled out a little plastic bag full of coins and counted them out carefully. Then, when I gave him his receipt, he pushed the little bag with the rest of his coins toward me.
"Here's a tip for your service," he said. "You're a good girl."
I was stunned.
"Thank you, but I can't accept that."
But he insisted I take it, saying he appreciated me. So I did, with another "thank you." When he left, I wasn't sure what to do with it. I looked down at the little bag, with maybe $5.00 in it. The beer and cookies had been worth less than that. It was probably literally all the money he had, and he wanted to give it to me, on his birthday, because he appreciated me. I felt a little like crying as I finally dropped the money into the little box at the end of the checkstand that collects change people leave for a local kids' charity. It just didn't seem like that five dollars in change would mean as much to anyone else that got it as it did to me.
I still think about him sometimes when I feel overwhelmed by all the evil in the world. Even Fred Meyer had its good moments.
When I was working in the electronics department, this woman came up to me and asked me if I could help her find a certain type of battery. She held up a AA battery and asked me if we had any "Ay-Ay minus 2010" batteries. I thought maybe she was joking, only she looked like such a normal baby boomer type woman. She was looking at the expiration date and the polarity and assumed that was part of the type of battery! I decided that I would explain a little about batteries to her, because I guess we all have to learn sometime. I walked her over to the batteries and showed her the four and eight packs, and she was so confused. She was so certain that she needed a AA2010, but the only number she could see was the 4 and the 8; she couldn't see the date on any of the batteries we had. I finally convinced her it didn't matter. She also told me that it came from her electric beater and she wasn't sure how to put the batteries back inside. I explained to her how most electronics have a little diagram showing which direction to put them in. She eventually left with some batteries after thanking me for taking the time to explain it to her. She was nice, but skeptical the whole time I talked to her. I told her we all have to learn sometime.
While I was working at the electronics department, I didn't really know everything that was going on there, because it was widely known that I wasn't going to be working there for more than a few months, and I never worked there more than 20 hours a week, usually less. Everything I learned was sort of on the fly. I of course asked a lot of questions and tried to learn as much as I could, but not being a big techy, I got asked a lot of questions I didn't know the answer to. My uncertainty was more a problem than my lack of knowledge. It always has been. That problem was compounded by the fact that the customers treated electronics customers like a virtual database of all things that run on electricity. In many ways it was nicer to work in electronics because the customers treated us with some respect because they assumed we knew something they didn't. People were often frustrated with me, and complained to my manager (who was awesome about it--really a nice guy who just wanted his employees to be happy and productive) a lot. But the worst was when people would ask me if they could talk to a male employee when they felt their needs weren't being met. Sometimes I really didn't know the answer, in which case it makes sense that they would ask if anyone else knew they answer, but the fact that they would say OUT LOUD that they wanted to talk to a male is just horrifying. How could anyone think that it's okay to say such a misogynist thing out loud to another human being? Even if men traditionally or statistically know more about electronics than women, shouldn't the question be "is there someone else who knows?" instead of "can I talk to one of the guys?" Not even "ask" one of the guys. They didn't even want to talk to me. I even had one woman (yes, even women did this) who wanted to know if we had a video in stock. When I told her we didn't, she asked to talk to a guy. What on earth would a guy know about our inventory that I didn't find on the computer? One time towards the end of my time there, when I was increasingly unwilling to grin and bear it when customers were horrible, a woman on the phone asked if she could talk to a boy, and I called her on it.
"Why do you need to talk to a boy? What can they tell you that I can't?"
She just stuttered at me. I eventually transferred her to my manager, who is male.
Not everybody was horrible. There was a homeless man who used to come in to the store pretty regularly and mostly just return bottles for money, sometimes buying a bit of food or something. He was always nice, although odd. One day while I was cashiering in the home department he came through my line with more things than he usually got, and less practical: I believe he had some beer and cookies. He explained to me that it was his birthday so he was buying himself a treat. I wished him a happy birthday and rang him up. He pulled out a little plastic bag full of coins and counted them out carefully. Then, when I gave him his receipt, he pushed the little bag with the rest of his coins toward me.
"Here's a tip for your service," he said. "You're a good girl."
I was stunned.
"Thank you, but I can't accept that."
But he insisted I take it, saying he appreciated me. So I did, with another "thank you." When he left, I wasn't sure what to do with it. I looked down at the little bag, with maybe $5.00 in it. The beer and cookies had been worth less than that. It was probably literally all the money he had, and he wanted to give it to me, on his birthday, because he appreciated me. I felt a little like crying as I finally dropped the money into the little box at the end of the checkstand that collects change people leave for a local kids' charity. It just didn't seem like that five dollars in change would mean as much to anyone else that got it as it did to me.
I still think about him sometimes when I feel overwhelmed by all the evil in the world. Even Fred Meyer had its good moments.
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