#self scan problems

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Me every 5 minutes among the Coronavirus panic at work

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Dear Customer who was SCREAMING for help, Why is it SO DIFFICULT to believe I was in the middle of helping someone else and had to make you wait? It was 15 seconds, not 15 minutes. Please stop screaming in my face. Sincerely, A Retail Employee

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You know you're starting the descent to Retail Hell when you say "I love you" to your coworkers more than your own family because your coworkers take over self scan or your register for you allowing you to actually go home and get the hell outta Retail Hell for at least 8 hours.

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You know what I love?

How people can't do simple math. Like, they'll call me over to make sure $1 came off their $4 item. And I have to actually point to the item on the scren and show that it says -$1 underneath its $4. Or, even better, I have to open the calculator on my phone and physically type 4 - 1 for them.

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I'm on self scan today. Shocker. Anyway one of my coworkers took over so I could take my 15. When I came back from my break one of the registers was down. With my store this is a normal thing, so I'm assuming there was a problem with the belt or a cash dispensing error or something. The real reason it was closed? A customer accidentally clicked Spanish and since she was too lazy to change it back to English she thought it made more sense to just shut it down completely.

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My store's a week away from getting rid of plastic bags forever. Tonight my coworker, who was watching self scan, made sure to let every customer she helped know that. As she's setting out a fresh sleeve of bags for one of the self scans, a customer she just helped asked if she could have some more bags. Coworker complied and said she could give her a couple extra, and the customer ended up taking the whole sleeve right out of Coworker's hands. And before Cowroker could say anything else, the customer took ANOTHER sleeve of bags from one of the other self scans and ran out the door. True story.

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It's Sunday at self scan. Usually a mad house. I'm watching 5 machines, one of which has been acting up all day. Running back and forth between all of them. Customer at one register complained that there was a small spill and asked for paper towels. "I'm sorry I don't have any," I said. "Can't you call someone for them?" she questioned. Normally, yes. And by then I would have called for someone. Problem with that was, I just got over laryngitis. And with me that lasts anywhere from 2-7 days. My voice JUST came back the night before. Meaning she's damn lucky I was able to come to work and talk as much as I was. My throat's still a bit sore and I'm still occasionally coughing; if I scream across the store there's a good chance I'm not going to do much talking for the rest of the day. Gee, I wonder what my options are - potentially throw out my voice now and screw over the rest of my shift, or tell her I can't. I settled for the latter. "I'm sorry, I can't raise my voice. I just got over larnyigits," I apologized. "Well then can't you go get some??" she questioned. "I'm not allowed to leave self scan," I answered immediately. "Not even for 5 seconds?" she gasped. Lady it takes a hell of a lot longer than 5 seconds to find paper towels in my store. "Not when I have customers at every self scan," I told her. "Well that's a load of crock! You just don't wanna do anything," she accused me. She then proceeded to test her luck a minute later by packing her groceries and walked away from self scan without paying. Not only making me go after her, but raising my voice more than I should which ended up putting me into a coughing fit. She then proceeded to complain to my supervisor about it, who knew damn well I had to come to work all week communicating with a text to speech app on my phone. I'm not sure what annoyed me more - being put down for "not wanting to do anything" when I'm the one running between 5 or 6 self scan machines, helping people bag, organizing throwbacks, moving the hand baskets, and setting up bags on the rack every 30 minutes which is a hell of a lot more than doing nothing; or that she thought she was actually ENTITLED to a free order because she wasn't happy with my answer. -_-;

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This weekend I was stuck at self scan, which is even worse now than it usually is because there's no way in hell anyone should be watching it alone. But I was. -_-; And at self scan you get twice as many rude and annoying customers as on register because you're watching anywhere from 4 to 6 machines at once. So it can be overwhelming. Anyway there was this one customer who was definitely in the Top Ten Rudest Customers list. First I went over to help her with putting in a courtesy card. Then I had to go back over to help her with something else. Then about a coupon, because she didn't know where to put it. Then about the second coupon because it wasn't coming off. And that fourth time, as I was about to explain to her WHY the coupon wasn't coming off (spoiler - she would have had to Total it first) she snapped in THE rudest voice possible, "Can't I get any REAL customer service around here???" She also made another comment, which at this point I don't remember if it was about me or the store specifically. But since I couldn't have said anything to her face lest I get yelled at some more, I'd like to get this off my chest now. Lady, I been working 9 hour shifts the last four days in a row, which is more than I actually work in a normal week. I got ONE 15 minute break 3 of those shifts and I had to take a second 15 the last one because the store can't afford to have me eating lunch in the break room for a half hour (how dare I actually even WANT to eat to actually survive the shift!). The first shift I came in on no sleep. My second shift I got MAYBE two hours of sleep before. I came in early AND worked extra the shift after that. I was exhausted my within my first HOUR today. I, and my coworkers, are DROWNING right now. We're EXHAUSTED. Literally everyone has been puttng in extra time because of people like you coming in, panic buying, questioning us about things we can't answer because we honestly don't know (for the billionth time, no we don't know when we're getting the next shipment, and no, we don't know what's even ON the next shipment!), and treating us like worse sh-t than usual. I just finished getting over a cold last weekend which is a damn relief because the last thing I needed was to come to work coughing and people accusing me of having the Coronavirus when it was a stinking common cold, not to mention the other last thing I needed was to miss more work because I can't afford to miss more than MAYBE one day and that's pushing it. I just came over to help you FOUR times. When I have 5 other people screaming for me at the same time. Don't you dare say you're not getting any "real" customer service when I, and my coworkers, are working are damn as-es off all week to accomodate people like you. So kindly shut the f up. Rant over.