Sheepeh wrote:
Dudley wrote:
Mr Chris wrote:
Mr Russ wrote:
when you have to serve over a hundred, that time adds up, and leaves you sighing inwardly a heck of a lot.
What does it matter to the cashier? Do you have quotas, or something? You're there at the checkout regardless of how long each customer takes.
You laugh but at Tesco they do yell at you if your items per hour falls too far.
They do (did) at Sainsbury's too.
Also if you're waiting to go home/on a break and the customer takes aaaages it does get a teeeensy bit annoying. Remember the checkout people aren't drones, but have one of the most boring repetitive jobs going. Speaking from experience.
I was always getting told off for not "talking to customers"...one example they gave me was if an old lady came through with cat food to say "Oh, you have a cat, what type, what's his name?". They didn't seem to care that I'd feel very uncomfortable feigning interest, she'd know I was feigning interest, and something the fellow "Operators" will be all to aware of...the one that won't stop talking even though she's finished, and the next people are waiting to come through the till. Hnnnngh.
Yeah, I had a manager in Canterbury who had awful, awful people skills and no grasp of the concept "leaving people alone for five minutes". He'd often come down and try to moan at me or someone else for not badgering someone, then go and badger them himself. They'd invariably tell him quite snappily that they were just browsing, because his horribly insincere smarm was revolting. Not that all approaches are like that, of course, but he exemplified a pretty clueless attitude of insincere manipulation that a lot of managers and companies try to encourage, and most normal humans easily detect and actively despise.
I've never liked being approached in shops, so only ever did it to people when they appeared to want to be approached or looked a bit lost - it's very easy to tell if you're at all good at reading people. If you're not, all you need to do is be visible, nearby, and make it gently clear with your expression and body language that you'll help if needed. Most people, even the shy people will get your attention when they need it that way. I know if I'm looking for something, I prefer to stubbornly search the entire shop while realising I look more like a mental the more I backtrack.
I also really hate, hate,
hate feigned interest. It can be spotted a mile off, is rude and patronising, and generally makes me feel loathsome whichever end I'm on. Polite, meaningless chatter is different, though - the weather or the buses or the sheer size of the bell tower are all fine if you mean it and are just being gently friendly. But there's a difference between that and pretending to give a shit, and more still between those and actually giving a shit.
Waiting for people who take ages to get their money or whatever out is annoying when they just stood there doing nothing while you were wrapping their present/stamping their books. It's also generally annoying to have to stand there doing nothing - you're paid for the time, but I'd rather be paid to
do something during that time. If you like the job, it means you get more stuff done, and if you hate the job, it means the time goes quicker so you can get home 'sooner'. Plus they stretch the queues out.
Tourists are the best, though. I do kind of miss hearing some of their stories. Old people in libraries can be pretty ace, too, if pretty sad sometimes. One regular in her eighties had been coming to that same library for her entire life, but for the last few years she'd all but lost her sight and had nothing but talking books left, and most of them were trashy patronising "pensioner demographic" stuff that really weren't her thing at all. On the other end of that scale, there was the probably equally old blind woman who used to seek out the young male members of staff and ask them to read out the synopses of the talking books for her. She liked the 'scandalous' ones above all, and I'm sure half the fun to her was listening to me read them out in a suitably melodramatic manner. Then there are kids like the little girl who followed you round trying to be helpful by shoving books from the returns trolley into random shelves, and when you were clearly having a bad day would run up and give you a hug....
... Er, so anyway, people, eh? The shits. I hate them all.
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