Checks galore, fools and more

I had to go back to work today. I go in at 7 a.m. and there's no on at the Service Desk. Of course, it's payday and there's a huge line of employee's waiting to cash their checks. I get directions "GO UP THERE AND GET THE LINE DOWN!"

In the time it takes me to get a till, a bag and a big check-cashing loan, there are at least 25 people in line. In the next 30 minutes, I blow through more than $8,000 in cash handing out money to for employee paychecks. That's right -- in 30 minutes, I hand out more than $8,000. For the day, I cashed more than $16,000 in paychecks. Jeez. Haven't these people ever heard of Direct Deposit (of course, that would require being in the country legally and having a bank account!)

There were plenty of other adventures today, because I had to spend the whole day at the Service Desk. The treadmill that was returned because the customer "didn't want it." The crackers that rang up seven cents too much at the register and nearly prompted a fight with this poor cashier. This man started yellling about "scanning laws" and "up North, we have $5 penalties" for "this sort of thing." Um, OK, whatever.

There was the man with the grass plugs. He screeched for 15 minutes about having someone call him when some more sod came in. I finally gave up and called the Garden Center manager. Apparently, he'd been yelling at them for an hour this morning and didn't realize that that's who he was going to get when he came up the the Service Desk. The look on his face when the Garden manager came up to the Service Desk was textbook "crestfallen."

I had a deaf gentleman today. He kept saying "I could hear you if I get these things turned on" and fiddling with his hearing aids. He seemed shocked that all he got was $18.88 back on a cheap microwave. Yeah, you bought it at Wal-Mart. That's all you're going to get!

And in the prize of prizes, this one genius bought $40 worth of DVDs and then tossed his receipt in a maintenance trash can. Of course, the security scanners went off at the door. That receipt was long gone and the fool couldn't remember which register. He just kept saying "It was a colored girl." I wanted to smack him. I had to go track down which register and dig out his credit card slip and walk him out the door. Who throws out the receipt before you even get out the door? Especially on DVDs?