Cashier Perspective: The Basics

Off the belt today...


The Basics of Checkout

So here goes, today the cashier perspective. At our store we host at our registers. We do this when we do not have a customer in line to be available to answer questions and to let you know we are open and available. We're not there because we're bored. We're not there to trick you by our lane not being open yet these are the two most common comments we get.

Let me lay out the scenario for you.

I am standing at the end of my register because I have just finished with one customer but do not yet have another. I greet customers as they shop should they make eye contact, direct people who can't find items, etc. I see a customer coming with a full cart who looks like they're trying to find a checkout. Before I can ask if they are ready to check out they announce from 20 feet away, "You look bored."  (Well, in fact I am not but I smile and ask if they're ready to checkout.) They then reply, "Are you open?" (No, I'm trying to trick you.) "Have you been waiting for me?" (Yes, all my life, you specifically.)

Alternatively, I ask if they are ready to check out. If they say yes I say, 'I can help you here on Register 8'. I then walk around the rear to my side of the register to prepare to ring them up...I do not see them at my register.  This is because they have followed me behind the register into the next lane which is not open. I tell them to go around, perhaps repeating the register number in hopes this may guide them. Disoriented, they wildly scan their view upward to confirm that the lane they are now in is closed and see that my lane light is on, not the lane they're in. Did they expect me to hop over the belt to the register?

Also, if the cashier is standing at their register and their lane light is on you can assume they are open. On the flip side, if the light is off and they are finishing up with a customer who already has all their stuff on the belt, assume they are not open...that's what the light is for. (Insert lightbulb here.)

In our store we have a few simple questions we ask to help us process customers orders quickly and efficiently. We ask if they found everything they needed, if they have reusable bags, if they brought coupons, how they want their bags packed, etc. Let's take these one at a time.

1. Did you find everything you needed? The answer to this question is yes or no. Not the following... a)'You're price on bread is higher that the store down the road.' (thanks for the update,why are you here then?) b) I hope so. c) 'I didn't find a sack of money and/or a million dollars.' (always the response of men who think they're super witty and original) d) 'and then some.'

2. Do you have reusable bags? The answer to this question is yes or no. Not the following...
a) 'what?' b) 'I left them in my, car, house, garage', etc. c) 'Don't you have bags?' (Is this a serious question?)

3. Do you have coupons you'd like to use? The answer to this question is yes or no. Not the following...  a) 'I wish.'  b) 'not unless you have some you want to give me.' (has anyone ever had this happen before?) c) 'They expired yesterday.'

4. How heavy would you like your bags packed? We ask this if you have brought your own bags. Otherwise, Stores have standard bagging practices knowing the amount of weight their bags will hold, to prevent cross contamination of meats, cleaning products and fresh, refrigerated/frozen items. All our employees are trained to do this, you do not need to let us know what items should be bagged together. The answers may vary but should basically be light, medium or fill them up, not the following... a) 'I guess just put everything in them.'(what the hell does that mean?) b) 'regular' (who's regular, yours or mine?) c) direct us on every item you purchased as to which bag it needs to go into and with what other items.  

At the beginning of each lane there is a sign asking the customer to please leave their heavy items in their cart for us to scan manually so they do not have to lift it. FYI, that is also code for...the people helping you cash out today would prefer not to lift your and everyone elses cases of beer, water, pet food/litter, ice melt, rock salt, etc. a hundred times today. These items take up valuable space in the bagging area as well and do not need to be up there. Please follow directions not.... a) 'That's okay, I can get it.' (we are not actually interested in whether or not you can handle it) b) 'I need the exercise.' (we do not...join a gym) c) 'I don't mind.' (We do.)

Occasionally there will be an item that was stocked but was not registered into the computer system. When it does not scan we either ask you how much it was or send someone to check the price. Your comment should not be..."I guess it's free today!" No. No it is not. I don't know where this lame response began but it is used by a multitude of customers and should stop immediately.

Lastly we ask, "Would you like carry out service today?" It seems obvious that we mean help carrying your groceries out to your car. The answer, again, should be yes or no. Not the following     a) "What?" accompanied by a look that suggests we just asked if you're a prostitute on the side. b) 'I think I can handle it.' (is that a yes or a no?) c) 'Do I look that old?' (you're just asking for it with that one) d) 'Only if you come home with me and help me bring them into my house.' (Um, no, that's not the offer.)

One final thought on checkout. Please do not assist the bagger! We have a rhythm, a plan and bagging standards we are expected to follow. If you start overpacking bags with random items that do not belong together, grabbing items the bagger has planned for certain bags, and generally interfering it only messes things up. If your bag is overpacked to a weight the bag can not handle don't be surprised when your items spill out in the parking lot. Let your bagger do their job. I have had more people throw a bag with bread and chips into the bottom of their cart without my knowing and then I go to put in a bag with canned goods or heavy items and I have to stop and rearrange the cart. There is a thing called cart placement, it does not include throwing crushable items into the bottom of the cart.

Though you may not realize it there are systems in place. They are not there to confuse or annoy you and hopefully we are good enough at our jobs to let you know how things will work the most efficiently and give you the best checkout experience we can provide. This will only work if you cooperate. Paying attention to register lights and reading the signs we have put out for you will go a long way.

Happy Shopping!

Self Checkout

Off the belt today... Self Checkout

"Can you come help me,
 it doesn't like my wine?"

The self checkout is not as easy as it seems. For those who don't understand its peculiarities it's downright frustrating. There are rules. People refuse to follow them and get mad at the machine. Then if you're not there in a nanosecond to help, they're mad at you, as if you have nothing else to do.

There are several things that trip up the average shopper at self checkout so I thought maybe I could shed some light to help your future attempts to calm this savage beast.


#1: The self checkout is an express checkout. It is intended for small orders only and is not able to handle your weeks worth of groceries and all your other needs and questions. If you have more than the limit for a regular express checkout for that store, please go to a regular checkout. Please.

#2: Willy-nilly moving, rearranging, lifting, shifting, or otherwise touching or moving the scale area will stop you in your tracks. The entire platform of the bagging area is a scale. It weighs each item...one at a time...including your children, and until each item registers you should not proceed with your next item and wonder why it freaks out.

#3: If you're purchasing an item that's age restricted, for heaven sakes, please go through the regular registers. It's more than annoying to leave your other duties, which includes leaving another customer who has chosen to go through the correct checkout lane, only to find out I have to check your ID, and no, I will not get you cigarettes on self-checkout.

#4: There's a little sticker on most of your produce with a 4 digit code on it. Please use this to enter your produce instead of searching relentlessly through category screens and holding up the express line. No one is interested in waiting for you to find where your carambola and 10 other produce items are while their ice cream is melting.

#5: Once the items have registered and you are at the screen to proceed ringing things up you may move things off the scale. This should really not be necessary if you only have an express lane amount of items or less, you should have plenty of room. If you have a bunch of large items that will not fit on the scale area...go to a regular checkout!

#6: The self checkout does not like to read coupons, especially meat coupons and you can't proceed without putting a coupon into the slot.  If you try to rip a meat coupon off your meat you will tear the plastic wrap, thus exposing your juicy, runny, bloody meat. Go to a regular checkout.

#7: Listen to and follow the prompts from the self scan voice, not what you think should happen or how you think it should work.

#8: In general, if you think it will take longer to go through a checkout with a trained cashier and management assistance at the ready than to go through self checkout...you're probably wrong.

#9: It isn't always the customer. Sometimes the self checkout machine just freaks out or it needs something only a qualified person can take care of. We appreciate you are in a hurry and will do our best to come and help you with whatever happens.

#10: I recently overheard a woman and her husband at the self checkout while I was in line as a customer in the express lane. They needed help and I was thinking 'I wish I had my badge with me so I could go help them' as it was an extremely busy day before Thanksgiving. The husband said, "How do they know if we need help"? and the wife snarled "They don't care".  Wow. I was kind of hurt since I was in the next line worrying about it and not even working. We do actually care, we're doing our best.

So there you have it. I'm sure I've left something out but you get the drift. Be patient, follow directions, don't try your own solutions, don't ring up large orders, age restricted items or coupons. Don't make me come down there...
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Who knew?

Off the belt today...

Who knew working at the grocery store would be such a foray into the Twilight Zone?  Not me, but here I am. I have witnessed some pretty interesting exhibitions of 'human' behavior in these short two years and I feel compelled to share them with the throng of others who have done their time as a clerk, cashier, bagger or supervisor. I am stumped after all I've witnesses that there has never to my knowledge been a successful comedy show about the grocery store. There seems to me to be a huge audience, unlimited writing material and plenty of humor. Perhaps the best method would be to use actual workers and customers instead of actors or use actual real world situations by interviewing those of us on the front lines for story material. And, okay, I am available as an actress if that would help. 

Cart Mayhem

Off the belt today...one from my other blog.

Hello everyone,

Well here I am in the long slumber of a Maine winter. It has been bone chilling, sub-zero cold this year and I've spent lots of time by the fire. I have however been lucky enough to get outside daily at my job. I've been working at the local grocery store since October and it's been eye opening in many respects. I've learned a lot about myself, my patience threshold, and about the public in general. You wouldn't think being a cashier would be all that challenging and from a physical perspective it's not. From a relational one it can be mind boggling. Someone once told me, as we labored together at a restaurant, "Never over-estimate the general public". I remember her comment daily. Overall our customers are pretty good. They seem to be able to handle themselves in the store, most are pretty polite and congenial....then they go outside. Something happens in the vestibule between the store and the parking lot that seems to make them loose their minds and their manners. It is some twilight zone type phenomenon I have yet to figure out but it does lessen my optimism about people sometimes. Prepare yourselves for my grocery cart rant. Any of you who have worked where you have to collect grocery carts will feel me here. Please understand that I know it's my job to collect carts and that there are some of our customers who have disabilities and are not able to do more than they do. I have no problem with either of those things. What I do have a problem with are the following. If you do any of these I still love you but here's the world from the collectors perspective.

1. We have 2 sizes of carts, large and walker style short ones. They look nothing alike and there is no alternate universe I am aware of where they would fit together. Every day people try to jam them together anyway. I find them jumbled together in the corral (the ones that make it to the corral) like a cyclone deposited them there where I must then wade through, re-order, pull apart, push together correctly and then separate and tether them in order to bring them back to the store to start the cycle all over again. Needless to say this takes a lot more time than if people put them in the corral by size and actually pushed their cart into the one in front of it.

2. People who are unable to locate the apparently invisible carriage return corral 12 feet from their parking space. This baffles me. They are enormous, covered in signage and available to the public. No special training is required for use yet people seem to prefer leaving their cart next to their car where during the next soft breeze it will careen into the closest available parked car or, God forbid, me.

3. Snowbanks are not authorized carriage return areas. Ok, just work with me here. Is it really easier to heave your cart up into a snowbank than to roll it across the flat parking area and into the corral? Really?

4. Hanging your cart off the rail of the carriage corral. Ok, I'm pretty strong and agile for a chick my age but come on. It's not a coat rack.

5. Parking at the far reaches of the parking lot and not returning your cart to a corral. Yup, I get that you want the exercise, or maybe you don't want to park near lots of other people but hey, I'm getting plenty of exercise already so I don't need you to strategically plan my next workout routine, okay?

6. I'm pushing a huge line of carts that took me 20 minutes to collect from all non-corral areas of the lot. It's freezing out. The lot is slippery. I'm on a roll. You make me stop on the incline so you can pass and I have to practically get a running start to get them going again on the hill. Thank you.

7. Your cart is not a trash receptacle. Please use designated cans for your trash. I really don't want or have the means to collect your beer cans, fast-food lunch leftovers, shopping lists, used sanitary wipes, leftover bakery cookies half slimed by your toddler or your wet shopping flyers. Nope, I'm good.

8. You're done shopping at our store. You spot the mall next door. You think, hey, I'll go over there. Hey, I think I'll bring my cart with me. No. The cart is not available for road trips, especially since no one ever brings them back and I get to go to said mall to rescue them. It's still freezing (or raining, or snowing) and I'm too busy with 1 through 7 anyway.

9. Motorized scooters. These are available for in the store for customers who have a hard time walking. They have a huge sign on them, facing the rider that says IN STORE USE ONLY in red. This is apparently indecipherable because they always take them out to the parking lot and leave them there where the battery dies and I have to manually haul them in backwards to charge them up. FYI, they are not light. They also will not run without sitting on them so if it's raining or snowing I get a nice wet seat for a couple of hours. Also it takes forever (think Dr. Nefario from Despicable Me).

10. Leaving your cart right outside the entrance or exit door. No. Ok, last week I was going out to get carts and the woman in front of me with her service dog could not leave the store because some stooge decided to leave their cart in front of the door as they were leaving. Really? You couldn't have left it in the hall 5 feet behind you?

11. I hadn't planned to go to 11 but I just remembered this and it didn't fit anywhere else. Scenario: you have a shopping cart. You have one light to medium weight bag in it. You're not disabled. You're not carrying anything else. Do you really need to wheel the bag to your car half-way to timbucktwo and leave it there? Could you not just take the bag and leave the cart in the store? Seriously.

Ok, For anyone I have offended I am sorry. I will not say I have never left my cart near my car during horrific weather or when I had an infant in the car and the corral was out of sight of said babe. I have been guilty for reasons of my own. But now that I've been on the other side I am much more aware and try to do what the store is silently but politely asking of me by putting the corrals and signs there for me to use.

 And please, no one write to me and tell me that if people didn't leave their carts teens all over the land would be out of work. That's just not true. Collecting them from the corrals and the handicapped spaces takes plenty of time, especially when the store is busy. 1-11 is just telling us you don't care. Also, there are plenty of us older women out there as well, so if you're way younger than me and just being lazy, I'm gonna notice.

OK, that was a big rant. Next time maybe I will give you a cashier perspective just for fun. I like my job and like I said most people are nice. It's nice to know the regular customers and I've had a lot of good laughs with them as well. Also, I've had a lot of laughs without them, which is part of the ongoing charm and mystery of people everywhere. I am grateful to have my job and to have great co-workers.

Happy grocery shopping!