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I don't think people realize that many employers time their cashiers. When you get in line check to see you have your wallet and how you are going to pay, ready to go. Please don't get in line when you haven't finished shopping. In a retail store make sure all items you have chosen are priced. By all means be polite. We say How are you and Have a nice day but we can't talk about your purchases. We are hired to move the lines. The employers such as Ross, Target and Home Depot have all their employees timed. Stand off to one side and watch the cashiers work over a period of time and put your self in their shoes.
Target cashiers are timed. So are the cashiers at Ross. If you could see their screen say either fast transaction or go faster for each sale. Someone posted a snapshot of a Target cash register counting the amount of transactions the cashier was doing well on. Often at Ross the cashiers have no appropriate bags. People throw stuff at cashiers. The other day a man threw his credit card on the counter and it got lost in a pile of stuff he decided he didn't need. Thankfully the card was found. Probably one of the biggest problems is people who do not watch their children in the store. A child finds a toy rips it out of the box and plays with it while his parent ignores the situation. Another child is bouncing a ball and the parent ignores it. A child goes to an unattended register and shuts it off. It takes 30 minutes to reboot the register. People scream at cashiers and throw thing down. They scream at each other in line. They spend all their time in the wrong line because they won't read the sign which says returns only.
Target cashiers are timed. So are the cashiers at Ross. If you could see their screen say either fast transaction or go faster for each sale. Someone posted a snapshot of a Target cash register counting the amount of transactions the cashier was doing well on. Often at Ross the cashiers have no appropriate bags. People throw stuff at cashiers. The other day a man threw his credit card on the counter and it got lost in a pile of stuff he decided he didn't need. Thankfully the card was found. Probably one of the biggest problems is people who do not watch their children in the store. A child finds a toy rips it out of the box and plays with it while his parent ignores the situation. Another child is bouncing a ball and the parent ignores it. A child goes to an unattended register and shuts it off. It takes 30 minutes to reboot the register. People scream at cashiers and throw thing down. They scream at each other in line. They spend all their time in the wrong line because they won't read the sign which says returns only.
Walmart cashiers are also timed...SPH:Scans Per Hour. It puts a lot of pressure on cashiers because we are expected to get high numbers. At our last meeting I told them I don't CARE about the SPH anymore because I find myself getting irritated at my customers for 'slowing me down'. When they take forever to find 'exact change', can't work their debit/credit card, have to exchange an item...this happens with WIC a lot...the seconds are ticking by and "I" am on the hot seat. So, I don't care anymore. I don't want to be irritated with people over something like that. If my employer wants to hold it against me then so be it. When they say they want us to hit 1,000 SPH I say "Phooey". I average about 800+ and that's with never stopping. Our store is incredibly busy and it's just one large heaping basket, one after another, all day long. People think being a cashier is an 'easy and brainless' job but it isn't and it's a lot of pressure. No wonder I come home worn out every day.
Just about any job that involves a computer (and what job doesn't), times the worker. they time you down to the nano second. That applies to cashiers, also, telephone operators. Please, don't call an order line and rant on and on about how you don't like the product, the commercial, yadda, yadda, or expect the operator to wait while you go out to your car to get your credit card, etc, etc.
One job I had, the computer timed your breaks. You'd be prompted by the computer, you're now on break. If you were on a call, that wasn't taken into account. You were given 10 minutes, which started when the computer said, and ended when you logged back in. Oftentimes I would get 5 min or less for a break, and would be written up for excessive break time!
OTH, I find cashiers want to talk me to death, or fawn over my kids. I realized they were trying to distract me so they could double-scan items, especially relatively inexpensive items, so their scanrate would increase. I got so sick of being used like that, I finally changed stores. When the cashiers realized I would count the items and compare them to the total, they stopped their little game. Once I made them redo a basket with over 200 items, because I had caught them double-scanning. They learned after that not to pull that crap on me or they would end up screwing their stats big time! You reach the point where a nickel is a nickel, the only difference is if its in my pocket or their's!
A simple Hi or Hello is fine but I'd rather have them ring things up accurately than try to carry on a conversation.
As bad as no acknowledgment was the new lady yesterday. I was third in line and she robotically said exactly the same totally phony spiel to everyone in line.
"Thank you for shopping with us. It was a pleasure to serve you. Have a nice day." All that with not even a hint of a smile.
If she repeats that a hundred or so times a day, I predict she's going to get sick of her job sooner than later.
I mainly want the cashier to pay attention to what he/she is doing. The only time it would irk me is if the cashier were 'overly friendly' with the customer before me, then snub me. I have had that occur, and I just looked at the cashier after a minute or two and said, "Hi there, and how's your day going?" Some will respond in kind, some will still ignore you.
I think when we are in the store, we kind of expect the workers to speak to us first, but I guess us customers can just as well speak first too. HOWEVER, they're the ones who are the employees, so they should have better customer service.
I, too have been at the check out register often when the cashiers don't even say HI. They just ring up my stuff, tell me the price, & hand me the receipt. How rude is that?
Yes, it's too bad that it is the exception lately rather than the rule that cashiers actually acknowledge their customers. I realize it is a terrible job. I also don't want to carry on an extended conversation with the person checking me out--I'd rather they concentrate on getting my order rung up correctly.
I have "spoken" to them -- "Hi, how are you?" at first; also "Thank you" at the end and with no response from the checker at all! I wanted to scream, "I'm the reason you have a job, you know!" As I was walking away, she went back to her lively discussion with another employee. A friend of mine said one time the checker never said a single word to her and when the order was finished, she just turned the screen to face my friend so she could read the total.
I would just as soon they said nothing rather than staring off in space and saying that memorized phrase like a robot................"did you find everything you were looking for?"
we all have bad days, when cashiers have bad days they tend not to want to talk or might come off rude...it looks like a stressful job, therefore, i can usually tell from the body language of each cashier how they are doing, im usually nice and pleasant and quickly make my purchases and leave. no harm no foul....humans just have to realize that perfection is unachievable, we all have personalities and learning how to read and adjust comes in handy.
ive seen way too many adults throw fits at cashiers and i generally feel like ripping the angry jerks heads off...theres no need to yell at anyone, it certainly doesnt help the situation, and these people typically get paid minimum wage all to get sheit on day in and day out, cut them some slack
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