Maybe I'm too Honest..........

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
easy child and I went out to do the drug store shopping. My lists weren't very long, no biggie.

We go to Rite Aide first because it's closest to the house. I'm buying panty liners because with sale, cpn and register reward thingies it makes them .50. I'm buying light bulbs, at .99 cents. The rewards from these two were going to buy clearanced out trash bags for 2.99 (2). Not complicated, right?

So I go to the register, the cahsier scans my card, my items, starts to scan the cpns. Well, it only wanted to take 2 of the panty liner cpns and I had 4. Cashier is new and is having issues trying to remember where the vender cpn button is.........can't find it. (I went through this same crud with the woman not 4 days ago when she was a "trainee" with the badge to prove it) She calls someone to the register. Other cashier (I know her, she's been there a while) tells her how to enter it.......newbie cashier goes to do it and somehow hits a wrong key that makes the register think I've paid for the items and the cash drawer pops out. Now obviously the newbie cashier has been trying the patience of the experienced one because at this point I thought she was gonna smack the newbie.

Experienced cashier explains that since newbie hit a wrong key the entire transaction has to be done as a refund, which means store manager has to be called up. This by the way is a LONG process under normal circumstances, made ten times longer by newbie who kept trying to hit wrong keys or forgetting steps. (I literally stood there for 40 mins) So FINALLY it's believed the transaction has been voided out. Now at this point I made it a point to ask Do You Have to Void Out the CPNS you scanned too? Experienced cashier said no......manager was busy waiting on another customer and missed this part. (Now I used to work at Rite Aide once upon a time and I had a strong suspicion I was right, the register counts cpns as money)

So the newbie and experienced cashiers go to ring it up again. They try to put in the cpns, register won't take them. Manager glances over and says it's because they already scanned them in.......newbie tried to explain she only scanned 3 of my 5 cpns in........But register is telling them to pay ME money. (I have not yet given them a dime) Manager steps over to try and figure out what the problem is.....few mins later she hands me the bag from my first transaction and tries to give me 4.00 in cash. I pushed it back and told her I can't do that because I haven't GIVEN THEM ANY MONEY YET and that it would totally screw up their cash drawer. (which would fall right on HER head if they don't tally right) At this point manager was about to scream. I have a feeling I'm not the first customer newbie has done this with today.

Poor manager (is about Nichole's age I'd guess, but she does know her stuff) was trying to figure out wth newbie had done..........And finally I just said, Look, I have 2 other drug stores to go to, how about I stop back on my way home. I thought the manager was gonna kiss me. lol

So easy child and I do the other shopping and come back. By then manager had it figured out and the register issue cleared up. She made newbie stand there and watch while she rang me up.

At least 3 times during this I was tempted to ask if they were looking for help. LOL

If I weren't honest, I could have walked out of there with my stuff for free AND been paid 4 bucks to do it. Because manager was so flustered she was going to let me do it, and newbie actually tried to PUSH the stuff on me! (and no for Rite Aide it wouldn't have added up to the 5 bucks I'd pay for the 1st transaction......it would've been about 11 or so and 6 for the garbage bags) But instead I paid 5 bucks for my first transaction and got my 2 boxes of trashbags (40ct) for free with my rewards.

Now I'd not have done it anyway because I'm too stinkin proud, but like I said I used to work for Rite Aide and a drawer not tallying can cost someone their job, even just once.

I hope to heaven they fire this person. Being a cashier is NOT her forte by a long shot. The phrase, you can't fix stupid, comes to mind. Like I said, I had a major issue with her 4 days ago too. And worse on top of all the mistakes she's slow as pure hades. omg

I could've lost my temper, I suppose, but I didn't. And honestly I know the manager and experienced cashier were grateful. I don't think newbie was smart enough to notice. :faint:
 

DDD

Well-Known Member
Hugs. I am not the type to lose my temper in public.........maybe once a decade at home, lol. BUT, on the other hand, I simply do not have enough free time in my schedule to cope with situations like that. I'm pushed to the max and if it can't go thru short and sweet then.......it ain't going to happen. I admire your honesty AND your patience. I have too much H and not enough flexible time to be Patient. More power to you, my friend. DDD
 

keista

New Member
You're the only one that has to look you in the mirror everyday. I would have done the same thing (actually have) However, in hindsight, maybe you should have walked out sooner making the cash drawer off - get this cashier on the fast-track out of there.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
You are a good and wonderful person. Sadly, this newbie is probably related to someone and if the drawer was off with as many times as the mgr and experienced checker had to help her today, then somehow it would end up the mgr's fault. As in the mgr should have caught or fixed it. So the mgr's job would have been in jeopardy. At least in the RIte Aid here it tends to go that way - and is one reason I don't shop there even with sales. I don't like to shop at places that don't treat employees well, esp if the employees do a good job.

I wonder if you can find out her schedule and go when she is NOT there?
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
This is the kind of thing that is funny when you are on the outside of it and rather more frustrating when it is happening to you... You did very well to keep your calm! And as for being honest... just doing yourself a favour, because then you have no niggling doubts or bad feeling on your mind.
I'd like to think that there is hope that this cashier will improve with practice :)
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Susie, if I see her at the register, I'll ask for someone else to ring me up from now on. I think if I went through that again I'd crawl over the counter and do some bodily harm. lol

And the whole cash drawer thing is why I won't work for Rite Aide again unless I just plain have no other alternative. Too many end of shifts sitting there recounting the drawer because it's .10 cents off over and over, or .05 cents, or a darn penny. Rite Aide is anal retentive about it, and yes they'll fire you over that ridiculous amount. (which can happen just via making change routinely) They get just as upset at overage, regardless of amount. And since manager had to sign the return slip on the transaction, it would have fallen on her head. She could have lost her job instead of newbie not got a clue employee. Not fair, but that is the way Rite Aide works.

Ha! Once my manager did a drawer drop (where they remove the extra money from the drawer because it's too much......to keep them from being robbed so readily), it was the holidays, we were crazy busy because this store is also the state liquor store.......there was an issue and she told me to hold it in my pocket until she could get back to me. Only she got distracted and I got major busy and we BOTH forgot. Because it was a drawer drop it didn't conflict with counting out my drawer at end of shift. I go home thinking all is right with the world. Next shift manager calls wanting to know where some 300-400.00 is.........I'm like wth? Store manager was doing HER tallies and it kept coming up wrong. The cash from my drawer drop wasn't in the safe. Uh, well no it wasn't. It was still in my pocket. omg So I run it back over to the store. IF store manager had not backed me up, I'd have lost my job. Too much of that crud.......and I quit. I've worked too many other places as a cashier and never ever had an issue with my drawer, nor did management ever make it such an issue that you were a nervous wreck each end of shift until it counted out perfectly. They just don't pay well enough to go through all that. Know what I mean??

So I kept my cool and tried to help them straighten out what newbie had done. Because this manager would've lost HER job, and she's a good manager. She'd have caught it right away if she hadn't had to stop and help other customers because of newbies mess up. (it was the unvoided cpns that threw the whole thing off)
 

susiestar

Roll With It
That is what I meant, lisa. that the mgr would have lost her job not the cashier newbie.

I hate the endless search for a penny because it s a stupid waste of time. esp because they are required by LAW to pay any non-salary people for that time. They lose hundreds of thousands of $ per year by doing this. I have seen mgrs who spend hours each night finding sums under $1 and those who pay it out of their pocket if they are short. i even worked iwth one GM at a restaurant who paid a woman full time salary to go over every server's every ticket to see that they were all written and totalled correctly.it was a colossal waste of $$ and the woman was just not a nice person, she lorded it over everyone even the other mgrs like me, that she was there to correct us at all times. They did an audit after i worked at that store for 2 mos and found that her salary resulted in perfectly priced and written tickets, but the amt seh 'found' in over and under pricing amounted to under ten bucks. when you add the amts overcharged and the amts undercharged, we undercharged $10 = over 3 months of having 40 servers writing tickets! this woman made close to $36,000 a year - and after this audit? She was encouraged to retire, but given the option of returning to work a regular position in the store if she chose. the sheer waste and the toll on employee attitudes was incredible to me.

i wonder why some companies are so dumb about totals being off a few cents? it just never made sense to me.

Sorry for the poor capitalization - it is either a finger problem or a shift key problem.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
i wonder why some companies are so dumb about totals being off a few cents? it just never made sense to me.
Susie... Have you ever been an accountant? It isn't the penny. It's that... if you're out, it MIGHT be "just" the penny... OR more than one larger amount out, and the penny is just the tip of the iceberg. I never was an auditor, but I've had to write system-based proofs for this kind of stuff, and... yikes!

Agree with you about the stupid "checker", though. That is NOT how you solve it.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Insane, I DO understand accounting and why some systems must balance to the penny. BUT I also have worked and managed retail and it simply is a poor use of money to pay an employee to chase a penny or even a quarter. I used to babysit for a top accounting prof at a top accounting program in the nation and this was her assessment and is the assessment of every decent business prof in the nation. there are times to chase a penny, but in balancing a retail register it is a total waste of money. esp as you often will pay someone $5 to $10 or more to find that penny.
 

Star*

call 911........call 911
Hound -

I truly believe what goes around comes around - or what comes around goes around.......Never quite get that saying but I do know - My Karma will definetly run over my DOGMA and THAT one in a house full of FURKIDS scares the bejeebers out of us. I was honest too - and it cost me my job - and I haven't gotten a dime for 12 weeks - and now I'm going to court to sue for unemployment. I have no idea if I'll win -I'm hoping to - but we'll just have to see. Kinda looks like when you're the dishonest guy in this town? You get off and rewarded - Makes it VERY easy to keep on being the cheat. Well that's okay if those are your morals but I have a higher power to answer to someday and I'd rather pay my dues now, and go through the express lane in eternity - I imagine theres going to be more of an amusement park there than here. I'd rather GET to that one faster than have to stand in line and answer for all my misdeeds in the TELL US WHY YOU WERE A SNAKE ON EARTH AND CHEATED that woman out of her unemployment line etc...and coupons at the RITE AID line... Know what I mean??

YOU DONE GOOD GAL!!
 
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