In-Flight Observations

While I would never ever pay for in-flight internet service, because today is New Year's Eve they are offering it for free! So, I'm posting from my flight to Atlanta, GA (which is wonderfully far from Virginia Walmart).

Yesterday, I did go to work for the first time since Christmas Eve and as I walked through the store I was still haunted by the horrible memories of that day. It was also not as busy. It seems that a lot of people must now be broke and can't afford to shop at Walmart (at least until the food stamps kick in at the beginning of the month). Tomorrow will be the food stamp rush and I will happily be missing it. I had the misfortune to work during the first of the month in December and it was the worst week ever. My back ached and my arm muscles screamed because of all the shit people were buying. I'm so glad to be missing that.

Work yesterday wasn't too bad except for the fact that I was more anxious than usual to get off because of my trip home today. I noticed that from my five day absence, I had forgotten quite a few things. My first few customers must have thought I was the shittiest cashier ever because everything screwed up: register tape was out, credit machine wasn't working, etc... It was so easy for me to forget other things too like the produce codes. It was just easier over the last five days to pretend that Walmart was just a bad dream.

Today instead of relating some observations in the customer service world, I'm going to relate some observations that I've made about flying. Firstly, as I was sitting in my seat and waiting for the flight to take off I was watching the flight attendants help various people shove their superfluous amount of carry=ons, I couldn't help but wish I could stumble upon a flight attendants blog that is along the same lines as mine. I'm sure they'd have some great stories of customer stupidity.

One of the last few people to get on the plane (a extremely disheveled-looking family) at 5:45 am burst into tears because... the family's seats weren't together (?). Or... I'm assuming that's what it was but a grown woman was in tears when she saw she had to sit somewhere else in the plane than her husband and kids. It was ridiculous.

Everytime I fly I am just surprised at how much shit people feel the need to bring on a plane. I've got my purse and my laptop case and that's it. Why does someone really need that much stuff for a flight? It's like they're thinking, "Oh no! What if my hair goes flat and I need my curling iron but it's in my checked bag?! Better bring it on..." or "You never know when you're going to need that yoga mat! I better toss it in my carry-on."

And then there's kids. There's a on-and-off crying kid that is sitting diagonally from us. There's also about three or four other kids scattered around this flight, we're surrounded! Too bad you can't check your kids with the luggage. I even saw one kid throw his pacifier in the row behind him and nail some poor guy in the face. Nice.

How come as soon as that seat belt sign goes off, there's always somebody in the bathroom already? It's like they tightened their seatbelt too tightly down on their bladder and they've been in agony since take off. Throughout the flight there's always someone in the bathroom also It seems people try their hardest to at least visit the bathroom on the plane once. Me, on the other hand, try my hardest to avoid that airplane bathroom like the plague. I don't find sitting on a bucket=sized toilet in a tiny metal room, not my idea of a fun time.

The airplane bathroom is nothing compared to a bathroom on a train. I took a train from Arizona to LA one time that had originated in Florida and that bathroom was in worse condition than a port-a-potty at a state fair after an intense chili cook-off. They're also really tiny too so not only was it extremely dirty but you had minimal room to navigate what small spots were clean. Yuck.

Time to doze now.

Too Much Information

Yesterday I stopped into Walmart to check what time I work today because I never bothered to write down my schedule. I fully expected not to be back but whatever. Walmart now feels different for me. I used to have fun going there and looking around but now it definitely isn't as fun because I am haunted by the horrific memories of Christmas Eve. I also didn't like the potential of seeing people that I work with on the other side of the register.

I went to one of my coworker's line and I have no idea if he recognized me or not. He didn't really act like he did so I'm hoping he didn't know it was me, the girl who's been calling off for the last three days but I magically show up to shop. He also exhibited one of the cashiering faux pas: TMI.

The "How are you?" question doesn't really need to be elaborated. Even when I was so sick that my voice came out like a croak, I never complained to the customer. Why would they care if I'm sick? The cashier complained that he had been stuck on the register next to the door for the duration of Monday's snow storm. Well, it's not my problem that you are so dedicated to your cashiering job that you felt the need to show up in a SNOW STORM while most people called off (and customers had to be fucking crazy or high to even think that going shopping was a better alternative than staying home where you can't slide into a ditch).

I hate when customers share too much with me (especially when they want to talk and talk and talk when I'm trying to shove them out of the line) so I'm not going to bother my customers with my problems. As a customer, I've had cashiers that seem to be more occupied holding a conversation than scanning my items. I hate this because the whole time they're talking, I'm not paying attention to their story because I'm thinking "hurry up" the entire time.

A Pregnant Pause

Every time I go on my Facebook page, it is a barrage of posts about my various "friends" pregnancies. There are so many people my age procreating that is is ridiculous. Even the other day I received an email from the lame/mainstream wedding website theknot.com which was sent to me because it's already been six months since my wedding and they were just making me aware of their sister pregnancy websites. No thanks. I am bombarded with enough pregnancies and stupid children at work and on my Facebook page that I do not need to see any websites about either.

Facebook is both good and bad. Because of it, I am now more aware of how idiotic the people I know are. I have a front-row seat in their ridiculous lives (which is not so bad because I am super nosy). But, there is a point at which I don't care about your life. When you one day announce on Facebook to the world and your friends that you are pregnant, it is at that time I both send a generic "Congratulations" and then groan because I know for the next nine months I'm going to be hearing about your swollen ankles, morning sickness (which makes me picture you hurling in a toilet), and hemorrhoids. I'm also going to now be pestered with pictures of your naked, growing, stretch-marked belly when I go on my news feed. Then, you're going to make that growing belly your profile picture... or your ultrasound picture which makes it look like you are growing a crawfish/alien thing inside of you. I don't need to see your growing fetus on my news feed. It is possible to just make a album with the pictures related to your pregnancy and not post it on the updates. Or you could just make it so only your family or close friends (who care about the tot you're going to squeeze out) can see.

Then there's the pregnant women who come through my line at work. When I see a pregnant woman with two or three more ill-behaved children frolicking around and in the cart I immediately want to say to them, "Oh, you think the first few came out so well you want to have another, huh?"

Which leads me to Carlin on the topic of child worship. Child worship is very real and it starts with the fucking pregnancy worship I see everyday on my Facebook page (right now I can think of five people I know who either just gave birth or are pregnant out of my 60 or so friends).

Motorized Cart People

Today is snow day number three. I am not traipsing through knee-deep snow to my bus stop where I can wait for a bus that might or might not come and might or might not kill me on the icy roads on the way there just so I can stand behind a register for eight hours and listen to people bitch.

All this time at home has given me some wonderful time to watch my neighbors though. It's been hilarious to watch their various tactics for getting out of the snow/ice. These past few days if I have heard squealing tires, I run to the window and frantically search for the source. I've made a few observations:

1.) Towels/jackets do not work at gaining traction.



I saw this a few minutes ago. The white truck in the background has a towel/jacket under the back tire. I just saw it ricochet clear past the stop sign, it was hilarious.

2.) People severely overestimate their strength and actually believe that they can by sheer muscle move their car and push it out of the ice.
3.) Boiling water on the stove and applying it to the snow/ice around your rear tires is not a good idea. For some reason the water cools down and creates more ice, who would have thought?!
4.) People will risk their lives on the roads for the most mundane things.

I'm even pretty sure that people risked their lives to go to Walmart. Not me. Nor will I ever put myself in any danger to be present at that job.

They probably risked their lives so they can go and spend more money because the snow closed all the malls and it's the only store that would be dumb enough to still be open in this inclement weather even though half the staff called off. Hopefully the snow scared off one type of customer because of their inability to shop and travel in the snow: the Motorized Cart People.

As a customer and now as an employee I have noticed that the Motorized Cart People are some of the meanest and most bitterly, inexplicably rude people that I have ever seen. I don't know if it's just their normal attitude to be complete douches or if they are complete douches because their butts are planted in a motorized cart that advertises to the world their inability to be mobile (or their overweightyness). Motorized Cart People are always accompanied by an individual who is usually bashed and berated for the entire shopping trip. They have to do the job of both people (because usually the MCP are just sitting there ready to press a button to move and that's it) and just generally look down trodden. I'd feel sorry for them but they let the MCP push them around.

And what's worse than a regular MCP? It's a Motorized Cart Mom. I've seen them many times and they're usually with their adult son (who probably lives at home still). They scream, belittle and call them names. It's really uncomfortable for me because I'm torn between sympathy for the sap that has to live with the bitch and irritation because I just want them both to leave.

Snow Day

The weather outside is crazy so I didn't think cashiering was worth threatening my life over today after our 6+ inches of snow. I stayed home as I'm sure most of the people that work there did. So, instead of complaining about a customer issue today I'm just going to simply share a scene from the movie "Clerks" which speaks to all clerks/cashiers out there.

Clerks- Stupid Questions

Customers Fail at Life

I don't even know where to begin to talk about yesterday, Christmas Eve. Walmart was a fucking mad house, to be completely blunt. Firstly, I should have known from the looks of the traffic that things were going to be terrible. I was twenty-five minutes late because the parking lot and the streets around Walmart were packed, busy and full of procrastinating assholes.

For the first few hours of my shift, instead of being thrust onto a register I was shoved into doing re-shop (which is sorting all the shit people discard at registers and check lines into their respective departments). I hate doing re-shop. My first assignment was to take a cart of items back to the toy section. They might as well have thrown me into a pool of hungry sharks because at any turn, people were tripping over themselves to ask me stupid questions. I utilized the "I'm just a cashier" excuse many times. This seems to be acceptable to people as if their reasoning is, "Oh, just a cashier. I get it, she's stupid." And I don't especially care if they reach that conclusion either. I don't give a fuck.

I did re-shop for four hours. I took items to toys (the worst), bath and home sections and even grocery. I thought the home and bath sections might be clearer of people. I was wrong. For some reason people thought fucking Christmas Eve in the very center of shopping rush hour would be a wonderful time to outfit their home with new, cheapy made-in-China Walmart mini blinds. Or an iron. Or a fucking chef's hat. Yes, someone asked me if we had chef's hats. (I know someone's going to have a shitty Christmas if that's what they're going to be opening up.)

I had many dumb and irritating questions. While I was busy mentally chanting a mantra of "Don't ask me a question, don't ask me a question" someone stopped me to ask me where the lip gloss would be. "Would it be in grocery?" Really? Lip gloss would be in grocery and not in fucking cosmetics?! I wanted to scream in her face, "You FAIL AT LIFE!"

I seriously have no idea how these people make it in their day to day lives with their complete lack of self-sufficiency. When they walk through the fucking double doors at Walmart they expect to have everything catered to them just because they breathe. As a customer, I usually try to solve my own problem before bothering someone with asking a question. If something's not in the section after a thorough search, I then ask. And when I DO ask, I don't say it in a fucking rude way like some people do. Yesterday, I heard many "Excuse me...," "Ma'am...," and "Where is the..." But what I hate is when I make a brief eye contact with someone and they just simply state something as if it's a question.

"Potatoes." And that's it. That's fucking rude. Is it really that hard to form a damn sentence? I remember many times greeting someone at my old job (a small grocery/convenience store) and they don't even say hello back but bark that one word question/statement. After that exchange, I have labeled you an ASS.

As bad as my job can be sometimes, I really feel for the custodial staff. At 8:00 when we were closing the doors, one of the customers alerted me that some girl was puking all over the toilet in the bathroom. Just another example of the kinda sick fucks that are out there in society (and in Walmart). No one wants to clean up after themselves. I felt so bad watching the little custodial lady go in there and run out and stand by her cleaning cart with a wrinkled nose while the stupid puker emptied her guts in the Walmart bathroom. (They really shouldn't call it a 'ladies' room because sometimes there's nothing lady-like about what goes on in there.)

We had everyone out of the store by 8:15 (including the glassy-eyed puker who I saw stumbling out of the bathroom) and then for the rest of the time all of the cashiers were doing re-shop. A fellow cashier and I had not had our last breaks yet so we sat down for a few minutes. Another cashier (who I mentally just call her Trailer Park Girl because I don't know her name, nor care to... she looks white trashy) walked by like she was the Queen of the Cashiers and asked aloud, "Why do we have people sitting down?" The CSM simply answered, "Because they're tired." TPG then answers, "Well, I'm tired too but you don't see me sitting down." Fucking pissed me off. Get over yourself, girl.

Slower Than Christmas

It's almost like I'm underwater and nearly out of air, but right as my fingertips touch the surface I become dragged further into the icy depths by some strange and unseen force. I can't believe this is happening. They are granting me, the new and supposedly seasonal hire, ten days off. What the hell? When I went to pick up my check the chick in the personnel office asked me if I wanted to stay on past the seasonal position. I said no because I'd need the time off and then she said she'd go right on the computer and approve it. I said I'd stay. I know... :( But why would I say no the potential to make money and get to visit home? That would be just stupid, I guess. (Or is it more stupid to stay?) My only comfort is that I'd be there over 20 hours less than I am there now a week. That's a comfort. I still hate riding the bus.

The bus stop right now is cold, windy and moronic motorists honk at me. I have vowed to never do that again to a pedestrian or anyone standing at a bus stop. I obviously don't know anyone here so when I hear the horn, I know it's not a friendly greeting. To me, the horn almost sounds mocking (*honk-gotta-car-you-don't-honk*). I also lost my glove there (which I still look for everyday in the ditch, bushes and storm drain even though if I did find it I would never reclaim it). For some reason whenever I lose something, I just feel off-kilter. My world isn't right anymore because something that was mine is missing. Which is why it was always difficult for me to loan out pens in school because if someone didn't give it back, I'd think about it randomly for the rest of the day ("I wonder what my pen is writing right now? Is anyone chewing on the nice, new cap?! Where is it?").

Today was a bitch. Non-stop customers from 9:30-6:30. The day was long but it also went pretty fast. A tip I have for today: I will help you if you aren't a dick.

It was already 6:30 and I was helping one last person. My light was off and I'd already told the Pushy Dude that I was closed. Upon seeing one of my managers come to my line to ask me if she could buy a candy bar (because she doubted she'd get a lunch), I of course agreed to sell her that one item before logging off. Pushy Dude sees this act and decides to try again. He's denied. Not only by me but by my manager. He tries to argue with her and he loses. The sad thing is that if he wasn't such an asshole, I would have easily rung up that one item he had. But, he chose to make a stink and be annoying so he had to wait in the long lines. Too bad. I hope he's still there.

Today I saw an overabundance of fucking slow-as-molasses people. I shouldn't be surprised at how decidedly self-centered and uncourteous people are but I can't help but be annoyed with them. People take forever to unload their carts. They take forever to load their carts. They take forever to move their asses with their cart out of the way. They take forever to put the money in their wallets. They take forever to get out their wallets to pay because they are always seemingly surprised that they are expected to produce some sort of payment.

The strange thing is: the rest of the line gets annoyed with this slow behavior yet they do the same fucking thing when they get up there! It is almost always the women. Women take forever to get out their wallets because it's buried beneath the superfluous amount of shit they carry around. And then they tear out a check and hand it to me which leads me to wonder why people even use checks anymore. You know what I do with it? I put it in the machine, it reads the number, prints some shit on it and I give it back. Now you have some stupid paper with all your info on it that you have to worry about losing before you can destroy the damn thing. Get a fucking card. It's faster (usually, unless I get some grandma who hasn't even seen an ATM before let alone a debit/credit machine) and you don't have to shred a used check.

Sometimes while I'm bagging things and it's starting to get full and the distracted fuckwad has yet to unload their cart, I daydream about what would happen if I decided to throw all their shit on the floor. I'd just spin the bagging carousel and let the items fall where they may.

Strangely, I also daydream about using my hand little scanner to scan someone in the eyes. Do you think that would hurt? I swear, every time I take that thing out I get a mental image of them holding up the item and me using it to point right at their eyeballs and them blinking stupidly as they are temporarily blinded. In the daydream they sometimes drop the item and clutch their hands to their eyes and scream, "My eyes!" I think it would be hilarious.

Speaking of the hand scanner, the other day I nearly chuckled to myself because I was having a really bad day and one of my customers asked, "Do you have a gun?" (Which she meant the hand scanner...) And I wanted to laugh maniacally and say, "No, but I wish!" Muhahaha!

I'm Just a Cashier

So, I figure that I only have about five more days of being a Walmart cashier. They scheduled me for New Year's Eve and I'm taking off so, I'm done. One of my fellow seasonal hires has only 17 hours during the week after Christmas. Would it even be worth it to take not only one, but two buses to work for four hours a day?! No. That's why I'm not too sorry to be leaving. That and I wanted to punch just about every customer in the throat yesterday. It was to the point that if any customer really complained about the price and it wasn't too off from what it scanned, I just gave it to them so I didn't have to hear their whiny bitching. I'll tell you, most of those customers yesterday had something stuck up their asses. Must be the glorious holiday season!

I wonder... do the customers just go through the store, throw shit in and then come to the register and hope and pray that it falls under your magic budget number? I don't know how many fucking times I had to hear, "Don't let me go over [x # of dollars]." I hate this. It holds up the line because you're contemplating what you're getting when you discover that the cart of shit is more than $100 (I know! Who'd have thought that would be possible at Walmart?) It's not my job to keep you within budget. If you're really that worried, mentally add up some of the things in your cart so you have a ballpark figure. And if that requires too much brain power for the stupid, shambling, consuming masses why don't you bring a calculator?!?!?!

The above scenario often leads to this one: I'm wildly scanning away, hoping I'll get to the bottom of my endless line and the customer halts the transaction, "WAIT! I thought my hideous grandma-shirt turtleneck was $5!!!!!" It's then that I've decided that I have no qualms saying, "I have no idea, I'm just a cashier." That's become my new favorite cop out. I have employed it many times now. What I really want to say is, "I don't know, I just ring your shit up." Maybe I should use that on the last day?

Low Prices and Low Morale

Last night I had to wake myself up to actually tell myself to stop dreaming about helping customers. Working in your dreams is really horrible, especially if you're waking up to go back. One night last week I picked up the votive off my nightstand in my sleep and tried to use my pillow sham to bag it. My coworkers told me that's Walmart Syndrome. Not cool! Well, I probably won't have to worry about Walmart Syndrome much longer... yesterday I put in for my time off. My training coordinator's eyes nearly came out of her head when I said I needed ten days off. I also told her I'm going to leave whether they grant me the time or not. She said that I was going to made permanent so it was unfortunate that I'd most likely be terminated. Whatever. I wasn't going to stay there forever. Getting there was such a bitch and so is working there. It'll be nice to leave the Walmart ball and chain behind.

Besides, there's always more crappy customer service/cashiering jobs I can suffer in until I find somewhere that'll hire a Psych undergrad with not much experience. This whole thing has made me feel stuck in a rut. I've been graduated since May and all I have to show for it is... working at Walmart, which is something I'd be qualified to do with a GED.

Cashiering at Walmart, I've found, really is a place of low morale. It's the lowliest position in the store yet you have to deal with the most assholes. I feel talked down to by most customers and managers. It's fucking hard to be polite when your managers sound disinterested and look even annoyed when you approach them. The tones of their voices imply that they think you are an idiot and a lot of them don't even look at you when you're talking. Hell, during my interview the hiring manager held his head in his hands and looked like I was giving him a seminar on paint drying.

A few of the Customer Service Managers talk to you or look at you like the questions you are asking them are the most obvious things in the world. I don't like when one of the CSM's (let's call him Dick) is working because he always looks so damn annoyed when I need anything (looking back I can't recall him smiling... ever. You could probably say the same thing about me). I call for change or help a million times and it's like I'm on a sinking ship sending out an unanswered distress signal. The stupid little fucking light we're supposed to blink when we're having problems usually doesn't work because the CSMs are so wrapped up in their own bullshit problems to notice when the cashiers need help instead of doing what they're supposed to be doing: helping us.

And it's not just the CSMs or management that seemingly try to trample your self-esteem, it's the customers as well. As my husband said the other day (who has also worked as a cashier in the past), "Why do people think that your IQ drops just because you step behind a register?" I'm not sure but I definitely know it's true. While most customers are relatively polite and courteous, a lot of them (when anything in wrong in the transaction) seem to look at you like you're a fucking moron. Sure, my job in theory seems pretty easy. On good days, it's not that bad. But I have to stand in one place for hours, strain my back picking up things, bending over and bagging them repeatedly for eight hours and deal with a large assortment of customers (who are sometimes complete douchebags).

Me: "How are you?"
Customer: "Ugh! I'm sooooooooooooo tired! I've been in the store nearly two hours!"
Me: What I want to say:"Fuck you! I've been here nearly seven hours and I don't want to hear how damn tired you are. I don't care!!!!"

I know it sounds mean but that's how I feel.

I have only once been witness to the Walmart cheer and to me, it was condescending. A cheer, really? I don't understand how that stupid cheer is going build solidarity among employees. If anything just clapping alone made me feel like a fucking moron. I remember looking around the room and thinking, "People are seriously okay with doing this?" Some were smiling and having fun and I just didn't get it. Various times over the last few weeks I've had the distinct gut feeling of "I don't belong here" and during that cheer I felt it the most.

Sometimes I feel ashamed of myself because I do look at the other cashiers and feel a sense of superiority. I am always polite and courteous to them but deep down, I think "This job is okay for them, not me." Is that wrong? To one cashier I was making a joke and basically asking why some people have certain bagging preferences and that it doesn't really matter. She replied emotionlessly that, "They're the customer, they have their own way of doing things and I respect that." Respect that?!? Bagging choices is not something to respect, it usually is the mark of a fucking anal-retentive and controlling asshole who can't NOT be involved in something. In the grand scheme of life, it's not going to fucking matter how your groceries are packed! I have no problem if you have a certain way you want something bagged (like if you're dropping off certain items somewhere) but if you take everything and rebag it, it's going to piss me off. That just shows me that you are a control freak and can't even have someone bag your groceries without you being involved somehow. I felt like saying to the girl, "And that's why you're going to be a cashier forever."

We Stand Divided

I finally got to the doctor this morning and I now have meds to clear up this sinus infection before next week! The doctor made small talk and asked me if I was in school or working, "I have my degree and I work at Walmart." He did a double take. Yes dude, I know... Well, we'll see if I really will be working at Walmart much longer after I drop the news today that I'm leaving for ten days to go home.

Ever used the little dividers on the cash register counter? Yeah, those things annoy the hell out of me. For one, I always end up on a register that is missing one. As a result, during just about every transaction I have on that register I have to hear the question, "Do ya have a divider?!" No. So they look agitated at the thought that, "Oh no! Their stuff could touch MY stuff!"

You'd think that they were in the Oklahoma land race and they were staking claim on some property. That THIS area of the belt is reserved for their stuff only and that if you breach that barrier, there's going to be some problems. They feel the need to tell me that, even though there is a clearly marked space between customer's items, that THIS is theirs and the line is the end of their order. No duh.

There's also the times where I have scanned the last item for the first customer's orders and both the front customer and the following one feel the need to nearly come out of their skin and exclaim that that was the last item. For some reason, this really agitates people. They don't enjoy the thought that their gallon of milk is fraternizing with the next customer's orange juice. If they are touching AT ALL people feel the need to shove them away from each other as if they are going to start infecting each other or something.

Then there are some people who hardly leave a space and get mad at me when I just wildly assume that items shoved on a belt together belong to the same order. What the hell was I thinking, right? And if ONE item gets scanned that's not theirs they freak the fuck out even though getting rid of the item is a hit of a button away. One tap and the item is retracted, it's not a reason to raise your blood pressure or bulge your eyes at me. If you were fucking paying attention to the progression of your transaction instead of staring off into space, you would have noticed the other customer's items inching into your belt territory.

All I ask for is for people to be a little more aware of what is going on. Being at the register is not an excuse to mentally check out. Do that when you're driving home... well, for some people they are always mentally checked-out.

And then after you've berated me for daring to ring up someone else's chapstick and I've handed you the receipt with a "Thank you, have a nice day" you reply with "You're welcome." I absolutely hate that. I'm thanking you for shopping here, not some stupid personal favor you have done for me. You just don't say, "You're welcome" because it makes you sound like an asshole. If anything it's a mutual "thank you" because I'm thanking you for shopping (even though I couldn't give a shit where you shop) and you're thanking me for putting up with you through the checkout line. You say "you're welcome" when you have actually really DONE SOMETHING for me. I guess saying "you're welcome" is better than nothing but it makes me wish I had stacked cans on top of your bread.