Umm... Problem

So when i started this blog I had the intention of posting atleast 2-3 times a week however that obviously got thrown out the window. I would like to start updating again however the material is slightly lacking as i now am only working on the weekend so I can go to school.(at school until past when shifts start) Hopefully I can find something interesting to talk about.

It's cold outside.

I live in the frigid north, also called Minnesota. Southern Minnesota specifically. Today we had a wind chill advisory of up to -30 deg. Why am I telling you this? Because this means that we were freakishly slow at work today. Thursdays are our senior citizen discount day, where if you are 62 or older you receive 5% off on your whole order. i arrived at work at 4PM and it was about regular speed as far as customer quantity etc. After our regular dinner rush(which was small) it became completely dead. We had maybe 20 people in all evening. This allowed us to clean. Gasp! The teenage boys I work with actually had to pick up some paper towels and cleaner and was things. Being teenage boys they will do anything to get out of cleaning duty.

In other business we have a customer who orders an adult supplemental shake by the case. Our health and beauty department manager left after telling me what I needed to do. Of course this person had to try to get a discount off of the shelf price because she bout it by the case. I had to explain that I was told to charge her shelf price and that if she'd like she could come back and speak to the manager in the morning but she just asked me to have her call her. The chances of that phone call being placed is about next to nothing.

thanks for reading the ramblings. Good Night!

We have roof access?!

So as I said yesterday the exhaust hood cleaners were coming today. surprisingly they were on time and caused almost no trouble. Our lockup situation was solved by the time I got there. The only problem that we had was solved easily by opening a door.

This door, when you open it, before you turn the light on, looks like an eerie little closet full of noise. When you turn it on there is a room about 12 ft. by 12 ft. with all of the compressors for the coolers and freezers. As well as a surprise! A staircase to no where. It turns out that the stairs lead to our roof access hatch.

In other grocery news I got to work with the new kid today. He's 15 years old however hasn't quite hit his growth spurt yet and looks like he's about 12. By next week he'll probably be taller than me. He is however excellent at his job for only having been there for a week. he is actually better at his job than some of his coworkers who have been there for several months.

Not much of interest happened other than the regular juvenile jokes and horseplay that happens when we're not busy. Perhaps tomorrow I'll start telling you about my coworkers considering I have the day off.

Monday Monday so good to me...

So Groceryland was fairly boring today. Nothing much happened because it's Monday and I was only there for 3 1/2 hours. Why you ask? Because it's Monday. Part time people only work after 3:30 PM during the week and I happened to be the most senior part time employee. I there fore I get to be at work until 8 PM on a regular basis. Because Monday is a slow day for groceries I didn't have to be there until 4:30 PM which is when most people are getting out of work, getting ready for dinner, etc.

As I said it wasn't very interesting there today however tomorrow promises to be an interesting evening. The hood guys are coming. Because we have a deli and bakery department we have exhaust hoods to vent the fryer oil smell and prevent a fire. These guys come from about two hours away and are scheduled to be there around 5:30 PM. Judging by past performance they usually don't arrive until between 6:00 PM and 7:00 PM. Then they bring in all their equipment and get to work. Here is where the problem happens. In the past our lockup key has always been kept at county dispatch. However county dispatch changed locations and can no longer keep our key. So the key now goes to our employer's house where it is brought in by him in the morning and dropped in a bowl in his garage in the evening after we close. Why? Because we have various high school boys closing our store at night and so that a million copies of our key aren't floating around the area. This is where the problem comes up. In the past we have just told the guys where the key goes and they drop it off. However it was really hard to explain where the key went in the first place because the group of men that clean the hoods for us are mainly Latino immigrants. I'm not being prejudice I'm just saying that because English is not their first language it can be hard to communicate. So how am i supposed to explain how to get to my employer's house and where to put the key when the guys don't understand me? Hopefully someone comes up with a solution. Most likely I will wind up sitting there for an extra hour or two. I'll let you know.

Welcome to Groceryland!

Welcome to Groceryland's inaugural post. I'm starting this blog to vent, rant, share the humor of, and allow others to experience the world of a small town grocery store such as the one that I am a part-time cashier at. Now you may think being a cashier is easy. Well I hate to break it to you, it's not that easy, especially in a small town where half the people know you by name and at least one interesting thing about you. I live in a community of around 2,500 people. our grocery store serves our community and the next town over in three directions. Ours is the largest community. The three other communities we serve have about 700 people each. Our store is small enough to only have five registers and usually only three are running at a time unless, it's a Holiday or important event such as the Superbowl or the ice fishing opener. (we're big on ice there's a movie about our town, more on that later) We have 62 people on the pay role and only ten aisles. we also have a full service deli, a bakery, and meat department(partial service). We have a system for driving up for your groceries and before you go saying my store has that it's no big deal, you are probably thinking of the style that they push your cart up to a door and then you load it yourself. Um, no. we put your gorceries into a grey tub about the size of a Rubbermaid tote and push them out a chute, then you are given a number on a card and drive up for your groceries. A man, or teenage boy depending on the time of day, comes out and puts them in your car for you and thanks you, no tip necessary.

As a cashier I am expected to not only scan groceries (lifting them out of a cart we don't have belts) I am also expected to clean, answer phones, help train new people, take care of customer complaints, know exactly where to find anything and everything, as well as be polite and have a smile on my face. That being said there's a lot of humor that comes from working at a grocery store. As well as anger and the feeling that I should stab someone in the eye with their carrots when they complain that we are out of the baby cut ones. Seriously people they are the same thing get over it.

Today was an interesting day. before I even walked into the door a coworker met me in the parking lot to tell me there was a situation inside. It turns out that another cashier was having a problem with a customer and couldn't figure out how to fix it. This customer was using a food stamp card, called an EBT card, and she couldn't purchase hot chicken from our deli on the card because it's considered fast food. She was okay with this part. the problem was that the freakishly tall baboon had just began pressing buttons when the receipt didn't print after her voided off the chicken. I took me about 15 minutes to figure out what was wrong and how I could fix it. It pushed four buttons to fix it. Payment Menu, Cash, Exact Change($0.00), OK. I then examined her receipt to make sure everything had gone through. One item was missing on the receipt however her EBT card had been charged $4.55 over the total so i subtracted that item from the money she got back and then refunded her the total that was overcharged. The baboon then insults the customer by calling her cranky about 10 times. I don't blame her for being cranky and I don't blame the cashier for being upset. However, you do not under any circumstances every say things about customers to their faces. You wait until they leave and then do it behind their back. Now I get to go in on Monday and explain this all to my boss. yeah.