Possessed said:
There's a difference between complaining and being downright rude. I'm not talking about when a customer asks for an explanation for why they couldn't save 50 cents on tater tots. I'm talking about when that person receives the explanation that oh, turns out the coupon was in english after all, and they got the wrong item (which is understandable, it happens. But what isn't acceptable:) so they start yelling at the cashier and taking out their frustration on them.
When a customers card or check bounces, it is NEVER the cashiers fault. Ever. They have NO influence over that. (I'm talking specifically about a card being declined for insufficient funds here, I'm not referring to when a card is incorrectly entered into the system or is punched into the system with the wrong numbers or is ran as the wrong type of card) Cashiers do NOT have the power to approve or deny cards, which is a concept some people don't understand. Their card is declined for insufficient funds, so they immediately start yelling at the cashier and telling them they did something wrong. "Invalid Card", "Wrong Card Number" "Card Read Error" may be the cashier, or more likely the computer-operated registers fault. "Insufficient funds" is NEVER the cashiers fault.Also something alot of customers don't understand is just how much control the computer/register has. If the store policy is you cannot buy gift cards in the same ticket as anything else, then that's it. You CAN'T do it. The register will not let you, and no matter how badly the cashier may wish to oblige you, this breach of store policy is not even possible.
Like at some (maybe all?) wal-marts you can only buy tobacco at certain registers. Some customers throw a fit and demand an exception be made for them. It is literally not possible. The register will not let the cashier do it even if they did think this customer should be immune to the rules.
Talking down to a cashier is a sure sign that you're an ignorant piece of shit as well. And while the cashier in your story absolutely handled the situation incorrectly and you had every right to be angry, this is not the 'typical' situation of cashier bullying I was referring to.
Yeah well said, I had about five years as a cashier at Wal-Mart and I saw it all. There wasn't a single case where someone yelled at me where there was anything I could do about it. In most cases the manager couldn't either because it was corporate policy so the computers just would not let it happen. I once had an old lady curse me out for five minutes because I could take a fifteen year old coupon. That's not my fault.
Oh and if your card is declined in most stores that isn't the cashier's fault these days because you are the one sliding the card in the reader and entering all the information, if it screws up it is your fault not the cashier's.
Oh and we have no power over whole is working when. If someone calls in sick the law says the manager can not punish them. The law also says how many breaks the cashiers have to take per shift and when they have to take them and the laws don't leave any room to move that stuff around, at every place I have ever worked at once the law says the cashier has to go on break the register locks them out and because people want low prices the store can't pay two people to work each register all day just to cover the breaks.
You want shorter lines here is what you do. First you have to be willing to see prices go up so the store can hire more people. Second you need to write your congressman and demand that companies be given the right to fire people for calling in sick, and for being lazy without having to pay for their unemployment. The fact is the lazy people get away with what they do because of how hard it is to fire them and the fact that in most states if the company fires them they have to keep paying them through unemployment until they find a new job, so most companies figure that they may as well keep the lazy people on and at least get some work out of them. It a real problem because once the lazy people figure this out they know there is nothing that their bosses can do to them.
Personally I am sick of these so called "people" dragging this country down and I think anyone who is convicted of being lazy should be run through their work place naked and whipped by their coworkers. That is what kept order in the British Navy for over two hundred years and kept people working hard. the fact is people only work if they are scared we need to start punishing the lazy and make them wish they were dead. Then all of our problems will be fixed.