Because I probably have a budding sinus infection and over the course of the weekend have used my weight in tissues, I called off work yesterday. I feel guilty about it because if I were working at my past jobs I would have just pushed through the illness and gotten the job done. I guess I'm also feeling guilty because I bought plane tickets for my husband and me yesterday and I'm doubtful I will give the people at Walmart a heads up about it. Being "seasonal" and supposedly "part-time" (which, they've given me FULL time hours to get the most work out of me during the crazy-busy holiday season) they probably wouldn't let me take any time off. I have figured that maybe I'll develop a scenario involving a spontaneous family illness (complete with brimming waterworks to show how much getting this job has meant to me and I don't want a family illness to jeopardize that). I'm only going to be gone for ten days and I'm leaving on New Year's Eve. It's not like I'm leaving the week of Christmas and it looks totally suspicious. I just can't help but feel guilty but I hate being at Walmart so damn much.
Today, I'm going to begin an ongoing segment called: Customers That Annoy Me. Every once and I while I will detail a few of the many types of customers that I come into contact on a daily basis and the things that they do that are so unbelievably asinine. (Maybe I'm doing the world a service and by reading this, you'll know how to avoid becoming one of the Customers That Annoy Me... and other cashiers.) I'll start on broad topic: Kids.
Seeing a lot of the children that I've seen in the customer service setting, I have often contemplated getting sterilized because I don't want to be burdened with such crazy-demons from Hell. Just in the few short weeks that I have been at Walmart, I have seen a child throw a fit and crack his head on the concrete, throw a fit a la Linda Blair-style, various children screaming their heads off at the portrait studio, and a quartet of children who (for over an hour) screamed in unison throughout every section of Walmart (spanning from the Lawn & Garden center to the grocery section to the registers).
And if that irritation was not enough, nearly every child that comes up to the register with their parents that is sitting in the cart seat has to put their boogery-grubby fingers all over the debit/credit machine. Buttons, it seems, are too mysterious for your little annoying spawn to pass up. Despite the beep-beep-boop of the various buttons being pressed, parents are too much in La La Land to realize that their kid is on their way to either hacking into the debit machine or breaking it.
Then there are the kids (that are never ever above the bagging carousel height) that either hang on the carousel like the familiar piece of playground equipment, spin it around as I'm attempting to bag their mother's tampons, or stand so damn close to the thing that I run the risk of clocking him/her in the face. I would cut the parents some slack if they had never been to a Walmart but nowadays everyone knows how the bagging carousel works and yet they let their children play in the line of fire. I swear, I continually wonder where these people's minds go once their cart is unloaded. Their eyes glaze over and they stare off into the distance wistfully like they are seeing a mirage. They don't pay attention to their brats and they don't pay attention to the mounting number of bags that is now preventing me from bagging anything else.
After everything has been rung up and I spit out the total, the parents now (for some unknown reason) want to involve their barely-cognitively aware child in the transaction. Despite my growing line, they attempt to walk their child through their credit card purchase even though most adults can't even seem to do this (more on that later). They hold the child by the arm pits and very patiently say, "Ok, now hit that button. And that one. No, the red one. No, this one.." Meanwhile, MY LINE IS GROWING! I'm impatient and the rest of my customers are growing impatient because you want to include your child in making a stupid purchase. This kid hasn't even grasped potty training yet and you want him to grasp the concept of how to work the debit machine. The machine is for people who have money, not some stinky kid who has just spent the last half hour in the cart picking his wedgie.
And finally, your child is such a difficult child that when he/she grabbed a toy giraffe off the shelf in the Toy Department, you let him/her carry the thing around for the entire trip so they shut the hell up (rather than say "No") so now you have to pry the toy from the child's saliva covered fingers (which, I'm sure the next customer buying that appreciates that). This scenario plays out one of two ways: your child screams bloody murder as you quickly pay and leave or you distract the kid and let me "pretend" to ring it up and put it in a bag while I stow the toy in my cavernous area beneath my register. Either way, it's fucking annoying. Grow some balls and actually say the word "No" to your kids. Your cashier will thank you for it.
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