Sunday through Tuesday

This is the summary of my past three days of retail hell.

SUNDAY: Two CODE ADAMs (missing child - both later found). One missing mommy. (the child who lost her mommy spoke only Chinese, so we had no real way to page the mother) "If you've lost a child of Asian descent, please come to the Electronics register!"

This one truly evil white trash woman screamed blue murder over a carryout (why couldn't her white-trash companion carry it) for an entertainment center - then brought it back five hours later, claiming it was "defective." She came back in (in the same sweat-stained dress) and demanded help getting it out of her car. I wish I could have told her to jam it right up her ....

Sunday was just flat-out awful. I spent two hours covering lunches on the self-checkouts. There was no way I was going on a register. We ran out of change at the podium. I simply do not understand why they can't schedule more people at night. And at the end of all this fun, I had to go back to the training room and do my computer-assisted training. What fun.

MONDAY: The dreaded 10-7 shift. You don't get a slow part of the morning, or the slow part of the night. Busy all freaking day. At one point I got stranded (again) trying to run the whole front end. This one uptight manager comes by asking "where are the cashiers?" This was my answer: "Well, they're certainly not here!" At that, he left. I can't open registers and have groceries scanning themselves, you know!

I got in, and no one had shown up to work the Service Desk. So I'm trying to cover for four people, and train new ones at the same time. Of course, it seems to be problem day.

One fool, excuse me - gentleman, demanded the tax back on his coffee, because it rang up wrong and the cashier had to override it, which charges tax. I had to figure this out. All for 31 cents. The original mistake on the coffee - 10 cents.

Another woman tried to drop a $1300 MoneyGram without giving ID. Um, NO! And the usual assortment of people trying to return DVDs that had been opened, etc.

And my favorite case of the day - this woman brought in a whole buggy load of craft supplies. Paint, silk flowers, glue, the whole lot now - dumps three receipts and says, "I think it is all there." Of course, she starts trying to "help" as I try to sort it out. I finally tell her "Ma'am, please don't touch the stuff because I've got to arrange it for the return." She sulks but I really don't care. The grand total of her return? -- $11 and change. That craft stuff is really cheap.

I was so tired by 7 p.m. that I miscounted my money and kept coming up hundreds of dollars over. I had to have someone else count it.

TUESDAY: 7-4 today. And it was a horrible morning. I think I'm diabetic, because my blood sugar was crashing and I felt like fainting. I also had a horrible, smashing, pounding headache which really didn't abate even though I took a migraine pill. Anyway, it was just a crap day.

This one evil woman brought back a jug of milk with an inch of milk left and a box of crackers with one of the three packs left and wanted her money back. I get the Service Desk call. I ask "Ma'am, did the milk just go bad? Why did you drink the rest of the gallon?"

She got red, then decided to take the offensive. She screamed: "Are you going to give me a hard time? That sign says 'customer satisfaction' and I want satisfaction. Now give me my money back!"

I really didn't care, but I still think she was a total c***. I told them to give her her money back. I should have made her take it on a gift card. Stupid bitch. Who returns an inch of milk?