Thursday, January 27, 2011

Stalker!

Working at a grocery store, and especially customer service, you can assume that I have seen many angry and disappointed people. I have actually had a few customers fight in my line, not physically though. The following story that I am going to tell happened to me about two weeks ago. It was one of the oddest things that have happened to me and I really had no idea how to react in the moment.
On this day, I was working customer service and my line was at least five people long. About three of them were waiting for lottery; the one thing I have learned while working the customer service desk is not to mess with people and their lottery. So I was taking care of this one customer with a problem he had with an item ringing up wrong, and all of a sudden I heard this old lady voice say “Hey the back of the line is over there!” I looked up and saw a man standing in front of the lottery machine, which is at the end of the desk toward where the front of the line is. The man looked at the woman who had called him out and said that he knew that. The lady came back to say that even lottery counts and that he had to go to the back of the line.
The man looked at her confused and explained how he just wanted to look at the numbers that had come out for midday. He started to look a little mad at how this woman was treating him. The lady still was not giving up and started getting louder with him. Then the weirdest part happened. The man said “Oh well I am sorry, I just wanted to come over here because I am fascinated by this girl back here and I stalk her all the time, so I had to come over to stare at her.” I had no idea what to say so I just let it go and let the two people argue it out. The lady shut her mouth after that and the man walked away. I was still a bit disturbed about it, but I figured it was probably out of anger that he said that because I knew the man; he was my old friend’s father.
The funny part about this story was that the following weekend the man came back and apologized because he had once he walked away; he realized it was me and he was embarrassed. I thought it was weird and odd when it first started, but now I think about it and laugh because of how crazy people can be. There was no reason for him to say it, but because “lottery woman” said something it pushed him to that point to come up with a crazy, outrageous thing to say to her.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Intro

Hey everyone. I am new to the whole blogging thing, but my teacher assigned this as an extra credit assignment so I figured I would try it. I have been a cashier at Stop and Shop for almost three years now, and over my time being there I have seen many crazy and ridiculous customers and experienced many outrageous events. I once wrote a whole story for a creative writing class about some of the odd things that have happened while I was at work. I thought it would be a fun idea to share some stories each week of the crazy things that I encounter during the week at work. Do not worry, if nothing good happens during the week I have a lot of stories from the past I can tell.

I guess I can end this first entry by telling a short story, just so you can get a feel of what I deal with on a regular basis and also what to expect from future blogs. I am not going to tell any of the really good ones just yet, I will save them for a little later on.
Along with being a cashier, I also work behind the customer service desk. I have seen a lot more ignorance in people since I have started working behind there. I remember this one lady came up to the desk and told me that she had been overcharged for one of her items. It is store policy that we refund them the whole price back so that is what I did. I handed her the money and she handed me the item. I told her she can take it back. The next thing I know she says “Take it back where?” I guess I should have used different wording word I just thought her response was so funny. I explained that she can keep it and I am refunding her the money because that is what we are supposed to do. She then handed me back the money and the item. She looked very confused so I again explained that she is getting her item for free because it is policy to do so. She finally understood and took the item and the money, but what made it even funnier is that she gave me and attitude about it and walked away angry. I guess she does not like free stuff.