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A few months ago I found myself in line behind a "price matcher" at Wal-Mart. This lady had a stack of newspaper advertisements with lower prices and she insisted in going through every item one by one and making the cashier reprice each one.
The people in line behind me pushed their carts to a different cashier.
OTOH, Amazon has a newly designed store that totally eliminates the check out line.
Walmart stopped doing the Price Match a year ago in October. People still try to do it though. And, as a cashier, I dealt with LOTS of what you describe.
Walmart is slowly going to all Self Scan AND something they are calling Scan With Me where an employee goes WITH you and scans your items. However that is just to 'train' people how to do it themselves, eventually. Some stores are experimenting with robots as well. One for inventory and stocking and one for maintenance. I wonder how many hours of cashier pay it costs for just one of those robots. I know that self checkout scanners are in the $3,000 range. You'd think for that they'd work better ALL the time!
LOL the green stamps and the coupon folders. We definitely used both of those! I got a lot of my first appliances through that stamp book.
Most of my kids Christmas stuff came from Green Stamps way back when. My daughter still has a little kids rocking chair I got for my son's 2nd Christmas. That was 56 years ago!
My first job at McDonald’s when I was a sophomore in high school, I recall being flabbergasted when a customer handed me a dollar and three cents for a 98 cent purchase. I tried to hand back the three cents along with her two cents change and she explained that she wanted a nickel back. Once I grasped the concept I was off and running with it, and took pride in mentally calculating this variation on change. Of course now the register does it for you, on those rare occasions a cashier is paid in cash.
I don't remember the stone age but my teacher, Socrates, used to talk about it. I try to be patient with people in front of me. Our grocery stores have a membership thing where you can get a gas discount somewhere. I'm not a member but the "system" just assumes everyone is unless told otherwise. Half the time there seems to be confusion on whether the card reader is or isn't pronpted based on my membership status so I have to stick my credit card in multiple times to get it to work. Different stores have different ways of doing it so I seem to always be wrong.
I worked as a cashier at Frank's Nursery and Crafts. We didn't get scanners until maybe 1992, so up until then we had to key the prices off the price tags. And we had to MEMORIZE the sales ads.... not too big of a deal until the Christmas Craft Sale Booklet came out each November. This was a booklet with around 75 pages showing holiday craft items and decorations. I remember dreading this because each page had a half-dozen or so tiny items on sale, some only a few cents off the regular price. But if you accidentally charged someone 59 cents instead of 55 cents for their unpainted plaster Christmas ornament, it was almost like you reached into their throat and pulled out their still-beating heart. Some people understood that it was a simple error and just asked you to correct it - no big deal. Others would literally scream at you and a manager would have to come over and calm them down and explain that we had to do all the sales from memory and we were not trying to steal anything from them.
I think everyone should have to work as a cashier or in fast food for at least a year when they are young. It gives you a whole new appreciation for the crap they have to put up with, and hopefully makes you a nicer person.
I couldn't agree with you more and have said the same thing for years. I have spent 50 years in some form of customer service, or another, and probably 'seen it all'. Worked in every phase of restaurant work, hotel front desk and the past 8 years in retail. Dealing with fellow human beings is quite the experience and I have a gazillion stories, both good and bad, to share. Whenever you think you've 'seen it all' though, something else happens! lol
I never figured out why those, still in the stone age, that must write a check at the check out, will not have the check book out until the entire order is rung up and totaled, then will start filling it in. It drives me crazy.
Rant over!
I don't know about other stores but at Walmart you don't have to till out a check or even sign it. It gets processed through the card reader, info imprinted and check back to customer. Some people insist on writing it out though because "That's how I do it!". Me: "Okay, but could you snap it up?" j/k lol They don't get their checkbook out and fill it in because they are too busy watching to make sure you don't overcharge them for something.
Use to help my mom with the green stamps. I was always in awe of the cashiers back then, as the good ones had the prices for unmarked fruit/stuff memorized, and I think were just as fast as the cashiers with scanners are today.
I remember having a class in school on how to make out a check, and sign it.
Only in my own printing company. But I DO remember before credit card scanners, when there was an actual paperBOOK you had to look up someone's credit cardnumber to be sure it was valid. Sheesh! With that imprinter machine....some places still keep them around for when the power goes out. But now the cc numbers are no longer embossed on many cards.
I remember those books and they were a real PAIN for a restaurant cashier!
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