One of my co-workers introduced me to the workplace cliche that “this job wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the customers,” which in my naivete I believed to be both original and uniquely applicable to my job. Today, instead of a single story, I’m going to share a number of brief complaints and observations:
1. I wear a green smock and make minimum wage. Do you really think they let me set or change the prices? If you think it’s expensive, go shop somewhere else. I could give a shit. A woman once came up to the counter with a two-liter bottle of generic soda, which rang up as 89 cents. She pointed out to me that it said 75 cents on the bottle. “That’s the manufacturer’s suggested retail price,” I explained.
“So you just choose to charge more than that?”
“Well, I don’t choose it, but yes, that’s what the store charges.”
“Well then I’ll go buy it at the grocery store,” she told me bitchily, leaving it on the counter.
I couldn’t help myself. “You’re going to walk across the parking lot and through the grocery store, then stand in line, to save 14 cents? I mean the gas alone…” but she was already out the door.
2. It’s not my ATM. It’s not even the 7-11’s ATM. Some bank or vending machine company or whatever pays us to keep it in the store. If you say, “It better be good, I got it from your ATM” when I check to see whether your $20 bill is counterfeit, you will be unfunny, unoriginal, and inaccurate. Seriously, like 10% of people whose bills I checked delivered some variation of that line. Most of them were trying to be witty but a few seemed offended, like I was accusing them of counterfeiting the money personally.
3. You don’t have to apologize for taking a penny from the “Give a Penny, Take a Penny” tray. You don’t have to tell me that, “I put pennies in here all the time”. I don’t give a shit. It’s fine. It’s right in the name. Also, it’s a penny. Although I did once see a guy take like twenty cents out of there so that he wouldn’t have to break a dollar. I didn’t say anything, but I judged him harshly.
4. I’m 16. Please don’t assume that I know smoker slang. If you want Marlboro’s, don’t ask for “Cowboys”. I will have no idea what you are talking about and tell you that we don’t sell that brand. (To be fair, this one might actually be my fault. Even among the teenagers who worked at the store, I was in the minority as a non-smoker, and I did actually learn the slang pretty quickly.)
5. Hold your temper. There’s really nothing of life or death importance going on at the 7-11, so just chill it back.
I once had a guy come in and ask for something like $4500 worth of money orders. We didn’t do a lot of money order business, so I was relatively new to it, but I knew the procedure. I asked my partner to cover the register while I double-counted the money. It was by far the most I’d ever seen or handled. Then I dropped it in the safe before printing the money orders.
There was a limit of $1000 per money order, so I warned him that it would need to be 5 separate orders, at $1 each, which he was fine with. I printed the first two, and then the machine told me that it was out of paper.
I was terrified to tell the guy this. After the way customers behaved when their credit cards got declined or the Slurpee machine was broken, I was literally shaking at the thought of telling this guy that I couldn’t print his money orders until the manager responded to the urgent page I sent him, nor could I return his money.
He was remarkably cool about it. He told me he’d buy a hot dog and a soda and wait. I gave them to him on the house (OK, so I can change the prices. That doesn’t mean I’m going to do it for your cheap ass). He waited patiently until the manager called me back and walked me through reloading the machine. I thanked him profusely.
If he can graciously accept the news that his $4500 is going to be in limbo for I don’t really know how long, then your fat ass can go a day without hazelnut-flavored creamer.
As someone who has worked many years of retail, I can relate to all the points in this post. Well said, sir.
Here’s the thing about unfunny jokes: they’re intended as smalltalk, not standup comedy. When someone in retail or any repetetive occupation complains that customers tell the same stupid jokes all the time, I have little sympathy. It’s the nature of things. Customers make the terrible joke about the $20 bill because it occurs to them that it’s better than silence. I promise you that every person in retail or whatever tedious job who complains about stupid customer humor has done the exact same thing to someone else in another circumstance. If you’re the 7-11 guy who hates the $20 bill ATM joke, then i promise that you made some joke somewhere, probably this week at the bank or the jiffy lube or in a cab or to the hot waitress at the Olive Garden that that person has heard one million times before you said it. And they probably graced your awful joke with a courtesy laugh because that’s what people do.
A very astute observation. It’s always amazing how different things look when considered as part of a big picture rather than just with your own myopic vision.
Another thing about the $20 joke is that it is a product of our ego and ingrained fight response. Your conscious brain might be aware that it is policy for the cashier to look at all $20s for counterfeit ($20s? really? Up here they look at $100s but not $20s..) but your hindbrain can’t help but see a threat. What if it does turn out to be counterfeit and he blames you? Better make sure that everyone knows I got it out of that atm over there..
What I’m really curious about is the customers that use their trip to 7-11 as some sort of therapy, taking out their angers and frustrations by berating cashiers or shelf stockers. So many people’s worlds must be oh so very small and dreary…
Very good point. I’m inclined to say that that excuses the people who were trying to be funny but not the ones who got all defensive about it, but I suppose noman has a fair explanation for their behavior. Maybe I just shouldn’t have been such a bitter teenager.
That still doesn’t change the thing Andrew was pointing out, which was that it is still incredibly annoying.
You’re right, it doesn’t change that. It also doesn’t change the fact the we all annoy people every day. Like I’m annoying you right now.
Wow. Tough times after Black Friday, eh?
But he’s gone back to being 16 again. Decent trade-off, I think.
🙂
Poker dealers could tell similar stories.
“How about dealing that jackpot, dealer?”
“This dealer always screws me.”
“NINE OF HEARTS! GIVE ME THE NINE OF HEARTS!”
etc.
Yeah, no doubt they have it worse. I think many people literally are going to the poker table for therapy, and in most cases they aren’t getting what they need.
I gave up a long time ago trying to understand why people play poker, including myself. But I agree we’re all looking for something, and poker almost invariably fails to provide it.
The closest story I have is when I was a teenager and picketing a grocery store because they bought grapes produced by scab laborers when the Arizona grape pickers were going on strike. One of the oblivious customers asked us “Who are the Arizona grape pickers”? After a long day of being on our feet and answering similar questions, we replied, “Well, they are pickers…of grapes…in Arizona!”
As for the person who griped about the extra 14 cents charged above the MSRP: She shouldn’t have been bitchy, and she should have put the product back, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a customer expressing their opinion like that to the supervisor or highest-ranking person on duty. If that was you, even as a kid, fine. She should have been polite and said to tell your boss that I refuse to pay more than a marked MSRP. (She also could contact your store’s owner or contact the national corporation.) As long as folks are civil I think it is fine that consumers express their dislike of a company policy or practice. Clearly you, the worker, don’t set company or store policy, but you are the front-line representative.