Monday, August 15, 2011

Free food


As I am writing this I think my cheeks are turning a little pink with embarrassment.  This has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever done since working as a cashier...

Not that any of this really excuses what happened but there were a few things that sort of set me up for disaster.

First, it was Sunday.  Sunday always seems to be the busiest shopping day at our store and that day was no exception.  It had been steady all day and I was just trying to get all of the customers out as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Second, when this happened I only had about 15 minutes left in my shift so at that point in the day I was sort of on autopilot.

Third and finally I was working next to a new cashier and just as I was the at the end of the an order she asked me a question and I went over to help her.

So it was sort of a perfect storm of events and here's what happened...

So the lady in my line put her groceries on the belt and I rang up her order and gave her total.  Just as I was giving her the total and she had her credit card in her hand the cashier next to me asked me a question about how to do something.  The customer swiped her card through the machine to pay and I finished up with her order and went over to help the cashier next to me.  There was (finally) a lull for a few minutes and I was bagging groceries for about 5 minutes until I got a customer at my register.  I was about to begin ringing up his groceries when I realized something unusual--my cash register screen said, 'Not Authorized'.  For a minute I stood there wondering to myself, "What hasn't been authorized?  I haven't even done anything yet.'  Then it dawned on me.  The last order, the lady from about 5 minutes ago, hadn't gone through.  When the lady put her card through it had been declined and I hadn't even noticed--(D'oh!)  And (of course) the lady was lonnngg gone by now.  There was nothing else to do but cancel out the order.

What made things worse was that this had just happened to another cashier the week before.  The other cashier's had an order that was about $120.  The customer had ran her card through but it was declined.  The cashier was texting someone and didn't notice that the card had been declined until after the customer had already left.  The cashier was taken off the schedule for the rest of the week.  So after that, needless to say, the managers were already kind of pissed about someone walking out with free groceries.

When some of the other cashiers head that she let the customer walk off with $120 worth of groceries most of them were sort of like, 'How could you let something like that happen?'  But honestly, I was never smug about it (smug about some other things maybe--but not that) because that sort of mistake could easily happen to anyone.  I learned the hard way that when you're at work if something like that happens to one of your coworkers try to be sympathetic and don't get cocky because it could just as easily happen to you next time.

Luckily for me I didn't get into too much trouble--my situation was a little different then the other cashier because my order wasn't that much--it was about $39.00 and in my case there wasn't an element of 'fault" (meaning it didn't happen because I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing--like texting).  It was just pure stupidity.  I felt bad and what was so frustrating for me was that it was such a dumb thing to do and how easily it would have been to prevent if I had just taken an extra second to check my register screen.


Thursday, August 11, 2011

Money for Nothing



There are lots of signs that the end of summer was rapidly approaching...the college kids were getting ready to go back, there is back-to-school stuff all over the store, the halloween candy is out (In August--I'm serious about this). 

I love fall and the crisp air and the leaves changing colors but I have to admit I was feeling slightly grumpy because while everyone else seemed to be talking about fun trips, concerts and summer vacations my summer had been uneventful (maybe a more accurate word would be boring). 

Then one day I got a pleasant surprise--I had unused, paid vacation time!  Please don't get me wrong--I certainly couldn't afford to go anywhere but I was excited that I had 12 hours of getting paid, without having to actually go into work!  I had until the end of the year to use it.  I thought this was really good timing because there were a few weeks of warm, summer weather left and I maybe I could take a day trip or do something fun.  So, I picked a few days to use up my vacation time and headed to the shore for sun and sand.  Yay! 

So in the end I ended up with a check for around $120 and I didn't have to go into work at all!  Money for nothing--sign me up for that!