March 14, 2016 - Iris
So, all things considered…?
I wouldn’t particularly say I HATE my job or anything like that, but… Well, I do think it’d be nice to vent about these things where people may actually care to read them.
(Also, Fair warning, this is like, really really long and goes over a few different things, so yeah.)
So, First day on the job with training, I got.. pretty much the minimal amount of stuff to work with. They gave me like, a book, and told me to read it for about 5 minutes and then get onto the front lanes. Frustrating, at best, but I’m technologically literate, so I pick up on how to run the tills rather fast.
The rest of the day is quiet, typically, but then day 2 comes around. I manage to get the first redcard of the day on that second time, and a lot of people were complimenting me about it, all things considered. I go to my break, and my LOD is in the office, and he pulls me aside.
“Hey, great job on getting the redcard. I knew with how you were pitching it, that it’d be a matter of time. But, hey, let’s also keep in mind. That you don’t have to just drop it if they don’t say yes right away? You know? If they sorta hesitate before saying no, then just try to lay it on thick to them, yeah? Alright, you’re good.”
At this point, I’m really questioning a lot of things. I seriously have to grill a customer over despite them refusing the card? I typically have good guest service I’d like to think, and I decided to just let this one slide.
Later on that day, near evening time, I was a cashier and I was being set up next to this old guy. Looked to be in his 60’s or so. And he just looked PISSED. He basically looked like what ghost peppers taste like. He seriously looked like Squidward on every kind of drug you could imagine.
Anyway, I’m running through the transaction, and out of nowhere, he just goes over and talk to me, saying. “Stop asking about the redcard. If the guests don’t want it, you’re only going to piss them off.” Which of course, seemed to directly contradict what I heard earlier. I figured I’d do my job as it was asked of me and not really worry too much. If a guest got mad, I’d just offer an apology, maybe talk behind their backs a bit, and move on. Apparently, this guy didn’t like it.
About a half hour passes. Eventually, a mother comes up, with a baby in the cart, and at our store, we have little stickers to hand out to kids. So, naturally, I reach for a sticker, take it off the paper, reach over… and this dude just SNAPS.
“NOO!!! DON’T GIVE THE BABY A STICKER!!! GAAAH!!!” He seriously just screams out for everyone to hear. Naturally, I just turn to him, and he starts playing the kiss ass to the guests in his line. “You don’t give the baby a sticker! You give it to the parents so they don’t eat it or something. Isn’t that right mommy?” The way he gestured to the guest clearly was indicative he was trying to make himself look good.
I’m not mad about learning I did something wrong, but I’m mad about the fact that this guy just wanted to fucking go apeshit ballistic on me instead of just correcting my action. At this point, I was pretty frustrated, but I know that I hold onto emotions very easily. So I tried to balance myself our, talking to myself. If he’s going to just kick and scream, try to kiss the asses of the guests, then I’ll simply just try to ‘out-nice’ him.
It worked for a little bit. Everything went smoothly, got a lot of compliments for my work, which was all nice. Handed some stickers to the parents, but didn’t make it a big deal like a certain someone else did, although, I did kinda make sure he knew I was doing it. Then, this elderly couple comes out. Maybe, 80, 90 years old, asking me about the gift registries. Which is essentially like a shopping list for weddings or baby showers or something that anyone can add too. They asked where to get the registry, and the conversation went something like this.
“Oh, well, typically you pull it up on the internet, but if you don’t have it, I can simply redirect you to guest services for them to print it out fo-”
“WHAT DO THEY WANT??”
Oh boy. The grinch again.
“They were asking about the guest registries, so I was just about to redirect them to gues-”
“YEAH, YOU’RE GONNA WANT TO GO OVER TO GUEST SERVICES TO GET THE REGISTRY PRINTED.”
“Y-Yeah… It’s over-”
“YOU SEE THAT BIG SIGN, OVER THERE, ACROSS THE STORE? THAT’S WHERE THEY CAN TAKE CARE OF YOU. HAVE A GOOD DAY!”
Then they leave and he just stares at me.
“THEY’RE OLD. THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THE INTERNET IS.”
“That’s why I was pointing them off to guest services.”
“NO, I POINTED THEM OUT TO GUEST SERVICES.”
It’s clear he was trying to get under my skin at this point. It had to be deliberate. That or he was terrible at helping people.
So I’m trying my best not to grind my teeth every time I have to put on a smile for a guest that walks through, right? Eventually, during some of the quiet moments in my lane, I overhear what’s going on in his. There was a parent shopper there, so naturally, there was a kid. This sticker thing was a big deal up to this point, right? Well, he just silently, leaves his registers, goes over to mine, pushes me aside, reaches into my drawer, and takes out a roll of stickers.
It took a lot for me to not just blow up right then and there. All that was running through my head was: “Son of a bitch stole my stickers. He didn’t even ask, he just took them.”
Through some miracle, I made it through the day without murdering anybody.
However, the co-workers aren’t the only things I have problems with. Let’s talk about crappy guests. Ooh boy. There’s of course, the ones that are so picky about how you bag their items, which is a pain when the computer is sitting there, timing you and judging you for your sins. Clothing is a pain, because I have to remove all the hangars, THEN find the tag, THEN put it into a bag… it’s almost impossible to get a good time on clothing transactions because they don’t give you extra time to go through with it. It’s gotten to the point where I just de-hang all the clothes BEFORE i even start scanning just so it won’t judge me for my ‘sins’
Then you have people who come with things like, rugs or trashcans, and throw a fit whenever the price didn’t seem right. But at least the GSTL seems to trust me with the Guest Price Challenge option, which literally lets us lower a price because “A guest said so.” Which is handy, if not a little bit annoying that they let them think they can get away with this stuff.
But if we wanna talk the real bad part, like, the and grease of the layer of disgusting stuff that happens when you don’t take out the trash for too long?
Extreme, Cuponers.
Oh my god, seriously.
I don’t mind the idea of coupons, or even those who want to exploit them. But some of these extreme cuponer people are the most whiny, annoying, and immature people I’ve ever seen.
They throw such a fit when they can’t save 35cents off of their purchase or something. And they act like I can do something about it when I really can’t.
And they always buy the same transactions. Usually more than 400 dollars worth of it, and they will fight and borderline KILL if they have to pay a single cent in the end. It’s the most annoying thing.
I’m checking out this lady, who happens to be one of these extreme cuponers, and it takes nearly 20 minutes, and then my lunch break comes up, which my LOD says I had to take right now. So, Someone comes to handle the register, I clock out for lunch, eat, come back, go back to my register… After 30 minutes, they were STILL dealing with this person. Backing up the lines, causing complaints. Eventually, the GSTL tells me to just start rejecting the future cupons. She was NOT happy. She actually started to just take items out of the cart, having me void them off the register, thinking she could trick the system. She seriously put back 200 dollars worth of merchandise. We needed 2 FULL shopping carts to put it to restock. We finally finish the transaction, and let me say this much: Faking a smile is one thing. But Faking a smile when you’re really, REALLY not happy? Is a whole other ordeal.
I just hope my paycheck actually comes in one of these days…


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Yeah this sounds like textbook customers and employees of target. Some of the people that I worked with made me want to leave on the spot. But, that being said, make sure not to get too crazy with the price change option that you have as a cashier. I was fired for doing price changes when people told me about minor differences in price and Target accused me of coordinating discounts. I told them that I was never trained properly on how to do this correctly and though I think that maybe I should have checked on that at some point, I was fired on the spot anyways. Oh Target, I don't miss you at all
Wow, I would call the integrity Hotline on that overbearing, rude, senior coworker! You can complain anonymous. His rudeness is uncalled for! He's not your boss, and should not act like it. The job is hard enough, without his interruptions and unnecessary interference! If the boss says to push redcards, do what they say, regardless if he gets mad! He has no say in the matter.
Wow.. I just read all of this, and this guy who bullies you just sounds like a complete fucking dweeb. I don't know how you haven't cursed him out yet. Don't worry, something else will come along eventually and then you won't have to worry about Tarshit anymore.