Thursday, July 19, 2012

Retail Bupkus 3

So there I am, sitting on my register, dutifully taking people's orders and checking them out the door as swiftly and politely as possible. I just topped off the last customer with a friendly smile, a bad pun, and a "Have a good night!" before they get out of earshot.

"Hi! How are-"

"839 - 555 - 4926"

"......"

*several beeps later*

"Your total is 46.90-"

*vicious card swipe*

*several unnecessarily hard touch-screen stabs*

"There you go! have a good-"

*they are already out the door*

FUCK that person. FUCK them sideways with a rusty spike. Fuck them, and their shitty attitude, and their shitty face, and their shitty attitude, and their inability to fucking say hello to someone. FUCK EM. You work this damn job 8 hours out of your day, till the place CLOSES, and you have to stay for TWO HOURS almost afterwards cleaning up the fucking aftermath of their piranha-like shopping spree in your store, WHICH BY THE WAY YOU'VE BEEN TRYING TO FIX THE WHOLE TIME.

The LEAST every person who comes into your store could do is fucking grant you a polite greeting. "Hi" or "Hello" or "Top o' the mornin' to ya O'Mally!"

But no. THIS person is too fucking important to even bother pretending you are another human fucking being. If you dont want any human fucking contact, why dont you rocket your stupid ass off into the goddamn vacuum of space, where no one can hear you anyways because you obviously dont have a lot to say, other than spitting your fucking phone number at me to save 12 cents on your shitty fucking pet food.

FUCK em.....F-U-C-K T-H-E-M. Fuck em. You work your ass to the bone, and yes, there IS an ass bone, and all you want is a little bit of courtesy, since no matter what kind of shithole person you have to deal with, you have to keep a shit-stained smile on and powder their ass the entire time they are in your store's walls. All you ask is for a little fucking acknowledgement that you even EXIST.

Go to the fucking self-checkout lines if they have them you shit. Oh thats right. They dont exist in my store because our focus is on CUSTOMER SERVICE, as in, kissing your ass so you'll give us fives on a random survey YOU PROBABLY WONT BOTHER FILLING OUT. Well tough noogies jerk off. You HAVE to deal with people.

What's almost as bad, maybe worse, is when you get that person who goes:

"Yeah-hi- my number is: blah blah blah blah"

They dont even give you a proper greeting. As if to say to your face "Greeting you is so unimportant to me, but I know you're expecting one, so lemme just throw it in your face like soggy socks and get to you punching in my phone number for the goddamn discount I want, that I could SKIP if I just brought my card." Yeah, the card. The one that you get THREE COPIES of? The big one for your wallet, and the two KEYCHAIN ones?

How is it with 3 copies of the same card, 2 of which are literally able to be TETHERED to your keys, the one thing that even gives you ACCESS to the store, your stupid ass manages to LOSE THEM BOTH.

Speaking of losing them, I love when I get "I left it in the car."  No you jerk off. You either DONT have one, or you didnt bother attaching it to anything. If it was in your car, that means you left your KEYS in the car. Good job locking yourself out!

Another excuse I get is "Nah dont even bother..." it takes like seriously 5 seconds to put in a phone number. But your self-righteous ass cant be bothered for that long. Then you walk away and curse under your breath about how EXPENSIVE food is when if you had just let me put in your number, you would have gotten the discount! But if youre such a jackass, then you DESERVE to pay every penny.

And what REALLY burns my biscuit is when people HAVE the card ready, and instead of letting you scan it, THEY REACH OVER THE FUCKING COUNTER AND DO IT FOR YOU!!

NRRRRNRNNNNRRRRHHHHHH!!!

STOP!! JUST- PLEASE!! Mother fucker, I get to do ONE thing behind this counter, and thats scan barcodes all day. I really dont need YOU throwing off my rhythm by OBNOXIOUSLY reaching over my counter like a 4 year old eager to help your parent pay for shit at the store, AND THEN FAIL MISERABLY AT SCANNING THE FUCKER.

They dont even ever pull out the wallet sized card. Its ALWAYS the TINY card thats spposed to go on your key chain that WE'RE supposed to zap with out scan-guns. You know? You hold it up, we zap it like Captain fucking Kirk, and your discount gets applied. What the HELL are you doing rubbing it all over the conveyor belt and smacking it against the table scanner? You dont even know where the hell the laser is!! Just- STOP!!

In an attempt to make things go faster, you are just looking like a jackass and totally throwing off the cashier's rhythm of scanning and bagging!! Plus, IT TAKES MORE TIME since YOU cant figure out HOW to scan it. Just let us fucking do it! Thats OUR JOB!!! Wanna trade paychecks Mr. "I'm too busy to wait half a second for you to pick up the scanner gun?"

And I love when people tell you "Lemme get my card out...NOT LIKE IT DOES ANYTHING."

To those people, I just wanna skip the club card and give them the finger until they finish paying. They ALWAYS end up buying something stupid like...aquarium tubing or....fuckin....lawn...urine...protection pills or some shit. Items that arent usually sold very often. Items that RARELY get used or bought. So they NEVER go on sale because- DUH- No one buys them so theres no point in putting them on SALE. The point of a sale is to lower the price of an item so that more people will BUY the item in such bulk that it ends up making a profit ANYWAYS. It's a win-win baby.

So dont bitch and moan you arent saving any money on your goddamn dog collar reflector for your 4am walks in pitch darkness. You're only going to buy it ONCE so why the hell should they lower the price on it and not make the maximum amount of money on it they can for such a rarely bought item?

And even when I explain how the card works, and how the sale prices work, and the coupons you get and how much money you save, I STILL get dirty looks and unimpressed scoffs.

Going back to what I was saying at the start, with the vicious screen stabs. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! ITS A TOUCH SCREEN. YOU ARE CONFIRMING YOUR DEBIT CARD PIN, NOT SLAYING DRACULA!! TOUCH....THE SCREEN.....STOP TRYING TO KILL IT LIKE ITS A VILLAGE BURNING DRAGON.

You are not some weird version of Kenshiro from First of the North Star. You cant go around jamming fingers into the PIN Pad's touch screen like it has fucking pressure points. ITS A SCREEN.

I love it when they JAB it with the pen after breaking their finger didnt work. I'm waiting for the day our screens BREAK from all the cranky old hags stabbing it with their bony fingers. Using the pen doesnt make it any easier, it just makes a louder clacking sound.

And guess what! I tried this! TOUCHING IT LIGHTLY YIELDS BETTER RESULTS. People seem to jump from: "It didnt register what button I pressed" to "It must be broken. Better punch the fucker." It's a touch screen! Maybe it didnt recognize your button press since you have such cold, deathly fingers. STABBING it wont fix it! It's not PERFECT. But if you just lightly touch it with the pad of your finger, it WORKS.

Oh- but GOD FORBID you tell some of these women that come through to use their finger and not their gruesomely long nails.

*Tack.....tack...tack....tack...tacktacktacktacktacktacktack*

"Use your finger"

"I AM USING MY FINGER"

"Okay Methuselah...Use your fingerTIP...."

"THIS IS MY FINGERTIP!!"

"THE PAD OF YOUR FINGER. NOT YOUR NAIL. YOUR SKIN."

"I hate these things...they never work.."


There is just NO pleasing these people. They can fuck all and go get the grumpy out of their assholes and be at the very least a MODERATELY happy human being when coming into a business establishment and show some self fucking control when violently slashing their credit cards through the reader like they're beheading the queen, or stab the touch screen, or I dont know- STOP REACHING ACROSS THE COUNTER TO SCAN YOUR TINY LITTLE CARD AAAAUUUUUUHHHHH!!!

I need a minute.....