So, I think I'll start out this blog by talking about my worst customer. I was working the closing shift. It was just me and the assistant manager. I made the announcement over the intercom that we'd be closing in five minutes. Three minutes before we were going to close, a lady walked in with two or three young kids--looked to be about six years old. She gives them each a basket and says "I'll just be a minute". Mmm hmm. We all know how that goes. Now, we don't kick customers out right at closing time. We just don't let any other customers into the store. We let the customers already in the store finish their shopping. But of course, we like for them to finish up and get out asap. Usually the customers finish up within a few minutes of closing. The longer you stay after closing, the more pissed off we get.
Well, this lady who had come in with her kids three minutes before closing and gave them each baskets. I think they were doing their Christmas shopping--this was about a week before Christmas. It is also worth mentioning that there was one other customer in the store who had gotten in about ten or fifteen minutes before closing. Well, the lady who had the kids finally comes up to my register, which was the only one open as the others had already been taken down for the night. She puts the fifteen glasses she got onto the conveyor belt and says the'll be right back and goes, she says, to get her kids. Okay, no big deal. I ring up all her glasses, put them in newspaper, and bag them. Still no sign of this lady. A couple minutes go by. Still no sign. The other customer who was in the store comes up with a few items. I had to call the manager over to do a post-void (basically a refund procedure clearing the sale) so I could ring up this other customer and get her out of here.
Finally, this lady and her kids come up to the register. By this time we've been closed for about twenty minutes. I unwrap one of the glasses and scan it fifteen times. I ring up the stuff her kids brought up. I give her her total and she says "oh, you know what? I left my Discover gift card in the car." The assistant manager overheard her and asks if she has any other forms of payment, to which she replies in a snotty voice "Well, that's what I'd like to pay with." My manager unlocked the door for her to go out and get it. And she sends one of her SIX YEAR OLD kids to get it! When it's pitch black out! Oh, and this isn't a particularly safe area of town either. Finally, she got her stuff paid for and she left the store. Sigh
So this woman did just about everything annoying that a customer can do. What she didn't do I'll talk about later. First of all, she came in three minutes before closing with little kids! Umm...hello?! CLOSING SOON! Secondly, she deserted her stuff on the conveyor belt forever for who knows what reason, thus causing an unnecessary delay for the other customer and causing us to have to do a post void. Management frowns strongly upon post-voids. But the thing that really pissed me off was her attitude about her payment. Look lady, you have other forms of payment, and I don't know if you noticed, but we're closed. We have LIVES to get to. Here's an idea: use a different form of payment and use your Discover gift card at another place! You'll still be spending the same amount of money either way. Except in one way you'll avoid further pissing us off. Then she sends her six year old kid into the dead of night in the middle of an unsafe area of town. Someone call DCF.
Of course, in her defense, there are two things she didn't do that tend to be a pet peeve of cashiers: She didn't talk on her cellphone while at the register (actually, I don't mind people talking on their cell phone too much while at the register. It just means I don't have to talk to them). And she wasn't old. Oh how I despise old people! More on that in a future post.
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