it's just another manic thursday...

evidently, yesterday was cashback day.

so, i started at 1.30 in the afternoon yesterday and, obviously as that is slap bang in the middle of lunchtime, my first job was to go help out on the tills. so, it all begins like this...

customer - "do you do cashback?"
me - "no. sorry."
customer -"ugh. forget it then. just forget it."

and they leave all their items at my till and walk off.
what they didn't understand was that it didn't bother me one jot because, as a lot of the items were chilled or frozen, it just gave me an excuse to trundle off my till and put it all back. by the time i came back the queue had vanished. good times.

my first job of the day was to do milk...which i quite enjoy. in the summer it's nice because it cools you down...and also, i don't know, i just like it. i'm easily pleased like that. :)
well, i say i like it...but yesterday i had the quite frequent problem of every goddamn time i tried putting some milk out...a customer would park themselves right in my way and stand there forever trying to decent which one they want.
now, it's very much a case of...they can see what i'm doing...so if you MUST get in my way...why take so long about it?
so i just lean against the milk dolley and tap my fingers against them as if to say "i'm waiting!" but still they just don't get it. still they stand there.
another thing they do is, instead of taking milk off of the shelf, they will literally rip the bottle of milk i am about to put on the shelf out of my hand and say "oh can i just grab that quickly...?"
well, i can hardly say no when it's in your hands already, can i?

i've decided, if i was ever to leave my job, on my last day i would so shock people like that. when they take it out of my hands, i will rip it back off of them and say "no, stop messing up our frigging rotation and take it off the damn shelf!"
or if they stand in my way, i will just move the milk dolly and wedge it in front of them. god, that'd be so funny....it makes me want to resign just so i can spend eight hours pissing customers off.

anyway, i got half way through my milk and had to help out on tills again...and seriously, i'm not joking, EVERYONE was asking for cashback. and they were all moody fuckers about it.

customer -"yeah, and i'll have £10 cashback."
me - "oh, sorry, we don't actually do cashback."
customer - "i've got it here before!"
me - "no, really, you must be mistaken because we've never done it!"
customer - "yes you have. how would you even know?"
me - "because i've been working here since it opened?"
customer - "oh. it must have been another shop then."

well, yes, it obviously must have been.

i actually love it when customers try to tell me they've had something from our store before. they obviously think i look stupid (maybe i do? maybe that's why they try it?) and will just hand them over what they want. they don't realise anyone would still be crazy enough to stay employed in the same store for over three years...which is what makes defeating them so satisfying. no, you havent been given £300 for buying a box of tic tacs before...now piss off.

oh, the only other cashback story worth noting (most of them all blurred into the same incident. do you do cashback? no we don't. oh i don't want to buy these then. that sort of thing.) was the old tart who refused to queue for the cash machine. it actually quite juvenile.
she was rude throughout the whole transaction, actually...she was that in a hurry to get her basket done that she didn't bother to notice i had my hand there.
yeah, thanks for that you twit. now i have an angry red mark on my hand.

she didn't even apologise...so i made a point of saying how much it hurt to one of my colleagues next to me and still she stood there, stoney faced and unapologetic.
anyway, so i scanned her stuff seriously quick because i just wanted her out of my face...but no, the gods of good/bad fortune didn't want the woman to leave my side today.

her - "and i'll be wanting some cashback."
me - "oh, yeah, sorry we don't actually do it."
her- *strained laugh* "and i'll be wanting some cashback."

(i couldn't tell whether she was laughing at me, or something else entirely...so i decided to play nice just in case.)

me - "sorry, we don't do cashback."
her - "well, do you seriously expect me to go and stand in that queue? look at it! i'm not standing in that!"
me - "well, we don't actually have any sort of facility to provide you with cashback."
her - "don't you think that's a bit silly?"
me - "er, i haven't really given it much thought to be honest."

oh, what a naff response. the thing is, when you're on the tills, the customer can snap so quickly at you that you just don't have time to think up anything good to say back. so you just stammer out some crap that just makes you look even more stupid.

her - "well, you work here. you should put more thought into it!"

yes miss! when i go home, i will be sure to go and sit in a quiet corner and think about what i have done and how i have wronged you.

anyway, i spent the next half an hour or so pottering about in the backyard in the sunshine loading up our delivery onto trolleys. and then i spent the next half an hour after that working the delivery on the shop floor.
i was in an amazingly good mood...i love doing stuff out in the backyard in the sun. or on the shop floor by the windows. i could gladly work all day if the sun is out and i'm not on the till.
it didn't even feel like i was at work, all it felt like was i was filling shelves whilst having random discussions with ian. random discussions i'm afraid i can't repeat here. :+)

alas, my spell of good fortune was broken when it was time for one of our girls to go home and much to my dismay i was nominated for till duty.
oh joy of joys. there is honestly nothing more dull than being on the main till in the late afternoon.
it's just school children, their stressed out parents, and old people. none of which ever make sense. especially the elderly people. the elderly people who are deaf;

me - "anything else?
old person - "no, no i don't think i'll be needing any batteries today."

or elderly people who have speech impediments;

old person - "yes, uh, i, ugh, would, yes, ugh, um, ughhh dwuydfniqnifnwxqvn"


so yes, there i was...3pm and stuck on till. not only that, but apparently i was in a game called Queue Wars.

sometimes, customers can be stupid. sometimes they can't read the big sign that says "PLEASE QUEUE HERE." and they decide to divide themselves up into two queues.
the thing with it this time was that correct queue had about 4 people in it, and the other queue had two...one of the people in the wrong queue noticed and went to the back of the correct queue...but the other woman stubbonly decided to stay put.

so i ignored her.

she finally got the hint when me and ian both ignored her, but for some reason she decided to join the middle of the other queue.
i wasn't saying a word, i learnt my lesson last time...and it soon became clear that the reason she joined the middle of the queue was because that's where a friend of hers was standing.

how did i know this? well, because i could hear them both moaning away to themselves about me.
"blah blah blah, whats the point of ignoring me when i was standing there first? blah blah blah" "yeah i know, people in this shop always do that blah blah blah" "blah blah i don't why why we bother coming here blah blah blah..."

they obviously thought i couldn't hear their mutters. i could.
so, i thought i'd play a little game with them...try a different tact and completely freak them out.

they both came up to me together (obviously they decided to save time and pay for it all together) and i was so nice and cheery to them it was sickening.

me - "hello!" said in a really happy, bouncy tone.
moaning bitch number 1 - "oh, hi..."
me - "how are you today?!" said in an even more happy, bouncy tone.
moaning bitch number 2 - "fiiiinee..." okay, she sounded really freaked out now. job done haha.
moaning bitch number 1 - "yeah, fiiiinnee" and so does she mega LOL
me - "ah thats good, you're fine, i'm fine. we're all fine."

wow, you had to be there to appriciate it. but it was a classic i promise.

anyway, off they scuttled and after that it all went a bit boring. just the usual monotony of people asking "what was the total again? £10.05? do you want the 5p?" after you've got all their change in your hand and have shut the till. or the men who think they're funny when they keep going "boop!" after you've scanned an item and it makes the little noise it makes.


bob finally came in at around 4.30pm and he kindly took me off the till...i could have kissed him there and then.
it was just as well really because just before he took me off i had two idiots/freaks in a row to serve.

the first one was a girl who looked about 13 and she asked for "ten maaayfaiiir superkings, please."
i'm not sure if i managed to describe her tone by prolonging the mayfair...but christ, she was common.
anyway, i asked her for ID. i love IDing people. it's one of the perks of the job.
especially when the customer causes a scene.

me - "have you got some ID?"
her - "no! i'm 18!"
me - "okay, but i need some ID."
her - "BUT I'M 18! ASK MY MATE!"

her "mate" was a gangly lad who looked even younger than her...he didn't even look like he was listening.

me - "well, i need some ID or i can't serve you."
her- "oh mate! what the hell is this? i'm 18 innit! I COME IN HERE ALL THE TIME!"
me - "well, i still need some ID."

if you can imagin the most bored, apathetic tone in the world...then that was the tone i was using in the whole of that conversation. she could have been 38 for all i cared. i wasn't serving her.

the thing is, when i'm on the till, i have this strange habit of having songs stuck in my head. i think it's a defence mechanism to help me cope. all day monday it was "empire" by kasabian. that was highly amusing when i'm dealing with irate customers.
but yesterday it was "somewhere beyond the sea."
so, imagin this...there is this pre-teen girl dressed up like she's going up west and argueing with me because i want serve her cigarettes...and all the time i have "somewheeeere, beyond the sea, somewheeere waiting for me..." playing around in a loop in my head.

okay, so to you maybe it's not that funny...but to me it was HILARIOUS. also, the girl threatened to come and "sort me out." i just laughed and thought "that's going in my blog no question."

anyway, the person straight after her was harmless but a total fruit loop.
she kept talking to me and telling me how all of the items in her basket were going to belgium.
so then she proceeded to name the products i was picking up like i was from belgium myself and had no clue what they were.

"oh, thats a lemon!"
"ooh, a lump of cheese."
"now thats a bottle of wine."
"prawn cocktail crisps, they are!"

i kept laughing away...geniune laughing. bad move because it just encouraged her to continue doing it not realising i wasn't laughing with her...i was laughing about how much i was going to enjoy explaining all this in my blog.

anyway, off the till i came at half past four...and after that i have literally nothing to say about the shift.
i actually had a really productive evening. it was so easy and stress free that i felt like i just wondered around doing nothing.
got reductions done with ease, then spent half an hour sprawled out on the warehouse floor blitzing the waste,i got fresh backstock done, i worked the produce and even managed to fit in my half an hour break.

honestly, i had to keep pinching myself everytime i was on the shop floor.
what? no customers taking up my time wanting to know where the cucumbers were?
no-one complaing to me that i've overcharged them?
no drunken idiots bashing into me and clattering into the beers and wine section?

what the hell was going on?

so, i went home at 9pm thoroughly pleased with myself and looking forward to my day off.
and then it all begins again sunday morning...

until then....xx