Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Great Debates
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 11-11-2016, 04:39 PM
 
Location: Verde Valley AZ
8,775 posts, read 11,870,921 times
Reputation: 11485

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by snugglegirl05 View Post
Do you really want me to say how employees feel about customer who say "this is ridiculous, I know that *grocery store* can break my $100.00 bill for a $20.00 order?"

Since I've never had a situation where a customer would have to say such a thing to me, I can't say how I would feel. I would never get their dander up by telling them I couldn't break their bill. We'll do the best we can to accommodate even though it might take some time.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 11-11-2016, 04:54 PM
 
Location: Verde Valley AZ
8,775 posts, read 11,870,921 times
Reputation: 11485
Quote:
Originally Posted by Retriever View Post
"but not only that some of the checkout girls start chatting or asking young children with the parent questions while we all stand seething, surely the checkouts should be trained to be polite to customers but if there is a big queue to cut the gab and get on with it..."

That is one of my pet peeves, but instead of at a supermarket, I experienced it repeatedly at the CSA where I used to be a member. The CSA originally allowed members to select their weekly vegetable allotments from cooler chests, on an honor basis. Apparently, some members abused that privilege by taking too much, so I do understand the CSA management's decision to require members to go into the farm's retail store in order to pick up the weekly allotment.

However, what should have been a relatively quick and smooth process was turned into a nightmare of standing and waiting by the White Trash chicks who were behind the counter in that retail store. The entire process involved giving your name, the clerk checking your name off on a list, and then handing the box of produce to the customer. That process should take no more than...maybe...30 seconds per CSA member.

However, those White Trash chicks would blatantly ignore the CSA members who were waiting, while engaging in extended inane conversations about...their boyfriends...their kids...the weather...and anything else that you could possibly imagine (with the exception of anything connected to the business where they were working), while allowing the line of members to grow ever longer and longer. Most of us were too polite to try to get them to pay attention to their work, and most of us simply looked at each other in frustration as the customer queue grew longer and longer.

The weekly pickup process sometimes entailed as much as 15 minutes of standing while being ignored, and I finally sent an e-mail to the farm's owners in the hope that they could motivate their employees to actually do their jobs properly. However, nothing changed, and when the next growing season arrived, I opted to NOT continue my membership in that CSA.

Customer service really does matter, and one of the surest ways for a business to alienate their customers is to allow the staff to ignore customers while engaging in their own--inane--conversations.


I read and hear this stuff all the time and I really wonder how it happens. In my store the employees RARELY get to talk to one another on the registers. For one thing they are a ways apart and for another we are ALL so busy all the time there's no time for any of that. If someone needs some quick help we can do that but there's NEVER any standing around just talking. And if anyone does you can be sure there'll be a CSM there to tell them to "get busy doing something". I do have one co worker who, when she replaces me on a register, will stand behind me and talk. I've told her to shut up and let me finish what I'm doing. She did. lol And she's better about it now.


When I think about it I don't see employees in other stores around town just jabbering at each other either. Sometimes two people can be on a break and standing around talking and maybe people think they are actually on the clock or something. Breaks and lunch are the only times any of us have any kind of 'talking'.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-11-2016, 05:05 PM
 
Location: Verde Valley AZ
8,775 posts, read 11,870,921 times
Reputation: 11485
Quote:
Originally Posted by snugglegirl05 View Post
Well of course no one will give away the fact to a customer that there is a safe in the store with money in it for security reasons. Why should a customer know that there is a safe in the store with money in it?

As for security guards, the company has to pay for them, and so it is an expense that they may or may not want to spend. The company may decide for money reasons only to have a security guard at certain times of the day.

I think it's safe to assume, as a customer, that there probably IS a safe somewhere in the store. Even convenience stores have them, in the floor, and people know that. My store has a 'money machine', as we call it. We can only access it through a hand scan. We used to have a big drawer FULL of money, right smack in the middle of the store and up front. Everyone and their Dutch uncle knew it was there and I used to worry what would happen if someone tried to rob it. The 'money machine' is, without a doubt, way safer but it's a PITA when it jams or breaks down.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-11-2016, 05:16 PM
 
Location: Verde Valley AZ
8,775 posts, read 11,870,921 times
Reputation: 11485
Quote:
Originally Posted by IndyDancer View Post
LOL, one of my favorite lines... "Store X does it"... then why don't you got to Store X and we'll all be happier. People used to pull this line on me when I worked at McD's as a teenager. Best I could do was shrug - if someplace else does it better to your liking, then you should go to that someplace else, that's what capitalism is about. I had no power to change store policy (or prices).




I think the problem is that demand exceeds supply for customer service jobs, wrt qualified people. The jobs don't pay well, and we're seeing that reflected in the customer service we receive today.



Anyways, I haven't worked a cash register job in years, but given the increased frequency of debit/credit card use, it seems like there would be less cash in the drawer these days than when I was growing up. I'd be interested to hear from anyone that actually does do cashier work (esp if you've been in the biz for a long time) on this.

I've cashiered most of my working life and many years and in different venues. Today I see people pay a LOT with cash. I take in many $100 bills every day and a ton of everything else...except tens. We haven't had tens in our drawers for over a year unless the customers give them to us. By the end of the day our registers are pretty much full of bills. I do believe that more do pay with debit/credit than cash though. Next time I look at my cashier report I'll make note of how much cash/checks vs cards differ.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-11-2016, 05:22 PM
 
Location: Verde Valley AZ
8,775 posts, read 11,870,921 times
Reputation: 11485
Quote:
Originally Posted by IonRedline08 View Post
My question about Grocery Stores, is why they don't queue everyone up and take everyone at the next available, instead of having to play the "i'll check this line to see how full it is" game.. It always gets my goat when someone opens up a new lane and the person behind me runs over there..

I have asked the same question many times. It just makes sense to me. Our CSMs will go direct people to the different registers when we are really busy but they don't do it enough. And people WILL stop at the closest register, even if there's a line and another register with no waiting just two down. That's why I like working the registers on either end of the store and not in the middle. People are sometimes just too lazy to walk that far and I've pulled them out of other lines to my register.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-11-2016, 07:08 PM
 
5,198 posts, read 5,260,534 times
Reputation: 13249
Quote:
Originally Posted by RbccL View Post
It's the attitude in the previous posts '"I haven't cashiered since high school I'm not using self serve, I know you have the money you just don't want to get it, ever get behind someone on welfare day?" That kind of entitlement, that's what the reaction is to, not being able to be empathetic and using superior attitude. "Shrugs" . We all get our our own impressions, sometimes from a culmination of statements.

Aaah,

So when you answer my post, you are answering ALL of my posts rolled into one?

Making assumptions, which, again, says more about you.

Good evening.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-11-2016, 08:36 PM
 
52 posts, read 98,699 times
Reputation: 40
there have been times i let multiple people holding items in their hands go ahead of me. i have specifically let older people, women with babies, etc. go ahead when i get a good vibe. now that i think about it out of the thousands of times i have been in line with stuff in my hands i am pretty sure i can count on one hand how many times i have been offered to go ahead by people that are stocked up.

kind of crazy when you think about it. but for whatever reason i don't let this bother me. best not to judge a book by its cover and they are in fact ahead of me in line.

what i can't stand is the people who are so self consumed that they don't treat the conveyor like community property and foul up loading their stuff all over the thing instead of making it compact. and for me in my life a majority of the time people don't even push their carts up and put a divider on the belt. so many times i am blocked by them and end up grabbing the stick as soon as their stuff starts to move and i can make my way in. i have got many dirty looks to. i have learned not to dare touch something that isn't mine on that belt are all hell can break loose.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-13-2016, 01:26 PM
 
Location: London U.K.
2,587 posts, read 1,582,394 times
Reputation: 5781
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazy-Cat-Lady View Post
Last time I was in England that was almost the case. It was impressive but technklgical advancement will mean fewer jobs ultimately.


I live in central London, I'm not a regular habitué of supermarkets, but at least once every 10 to 14 days I find myself pushing a cart, (trolley over here), with my wife at either Waitrose or Tesco and I've yet to see anything like that, getting to the checkout and a magic wand is waved at the contents rather than put each item through a scanner to arrive at a total.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-13-2016, 04:10 PM
 
19,056 posts, read 25,194,032 times
Reputation: 25372
Quote:
Originally Posted by damac2004 View Post
what i can't stand is the people who are so self consumed that they don't treat the conveyor like community property and foul up loading their stuff all over the thing instead of making it compact.
The most extreme example of this that I ever experienced was a woman (please note that I did not use the term "lady") who bought a very large quantity of many different types of produce, but failed to place the common items together in bags that were segregated by produce type. Visualize a conveyor belt filled with "loose" apples, pears, potatoes, onions, various greens, and...God only knows...what other produce items--all intermingled.

The result was that the cashier had to take a close look at the code label on each individual produce item, and then weigh each single item and enter its code separately. What should have been possible to process within just a couple of minutes--maximum--turned into a 20 minute comedy of errors, all because that anal sphincter of a customer chose to just throw her un-sorted, un-bagged produce onto the belt in a helter-skelter manner, with no semblance of organization.

And, of course, at the end of this excruciatingly long checkout process, she chose to pay with cash and to do the classic...Let's mine the bottom of the purse for that elusive penny...routine. If murder wasn't illegal, both the casher and I would have been tempted to strangle that dizzy, totally inconsiderate broad.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 11-13-2016, 07:03 PM
 
Location: Sunny South Florida
8,041 posts, read 4,720,959 times
Reputation: 10061
Quote:
My question about Grocery Stores, is why they don't queue everyone up and take everyone at the next available, instead of having to play the "i'll check this line to see how full it is" game.. It always gets my goat when someone opens up a new lane and the person behind me runs over there..
This is becoming common in department stores like TJ Maxx, but I doubt it would catch on in a place like a high-volume supermarket due to the higher number of customers. Seeing a total of forty people waiting at eight individual registers (five per register) doesn't have the same shock value as seeing one line of (the same) forty people. You feel like customer #41 rather than customer #6, even though the system you mention might actually have a quicker checking-out time in the end. Unfortunately it's all about appearances, and a single, forty-person line would make them feel like they're in the Soviet Union.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Great Debates

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top