You know sometimes in my off-and-on 20 years in retail, I have at times questioned the hiring of certain individuals. I don’t think I have ever questioned it more than a current co-worker who has had three months total retail experience after driving truck for how many years he did that. Two TOTALLY different worlds and it certainly shows.
Within the first week of his employment, he was $30.00 short on his till. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, the store feels that it is not necessary to have each cashier have his/her own till. Nothing to do with the employee. Our main office worker has worked at the store longer than I have been in retail and she doesn’t find that a bit odd? I would like to have my own drawer as well so I do not get blamed for other’s tills coming up $30.00 short.
Tonight, I was really close to losing it. Said employee asked if he could start to sweep and mop the floor. So, I went to the office and got a fresh drawer. He had the audacity to ask me why I would do that. All right, I was confused. Apparently, he wanted to sweep and mop the floor plus watch the register?
Moments later, a customer (my sister-in-law no less) comes to the register. I call the cashier to the register to wait on her. Then, he has the nerve to question why I ask him to wait on her. Apparently, he is now of the mind that if you are working the same shift it is ok to run his register? I didn’t understand that at all and he TOLD me I did not. He’s right, I did not. I don’t understand why you would want the person who is “responsible for your till being $30.00 short” to run it at all.
Later little did I expect, I was running the register with the 3 month old retail employee standing behind my shoulder making sure that I wasn’t making any mistakes. That almost did it. But I kept my cool and waited on the line of customers. I was not about to come down to his level when we were the only 2 in the store. Small store but at times more help is needed. A person needing to go outside for a quick break being one of them. Thank goodness, it was time for him to leave. I might have taken the opportunity to have him leave a few minutes early.
My quick “Lord, Give Me Strength” really helped! Prayer is a powerful thing, isn’t it?
Oh, thank goodness, when I read the title of this post, I thought it was going to be about something else 😉
I can see why you have a problem with who your store hires – “…the 3 month old retail employee standing behind my shoulder…” – thought there was a minimum hiring age?
Bad jokes aside, I’m glad prayer helped you. I often utilize the same tool to get through my tough days. I hope the blogging helped also. If anything, it’s always fun for people to read who don’t have to live it. And this is one of those posts that dissuades me from my occasional temptation to go out and find a real job, so thank you for that.
And yes, employees should always have their own drawers. Wendy’s was adamant about that, and because we had a problem with more than a few employees helping themselves to the drawer, I was thankful for this policy. Even if my own drawer came up short, I could go back and learn from any mistakes I might have made.
Couldn’t agree more with your view, Taylhis. Those 6 years at WM taught me that if nothing else. I tried to find some humor in the situation, glad you caught it 😀 And yes, prayer does help in every aspect of life.
Blogging does help relieve the tension as did watching the last hour of the new staged revival of South Pacific on PBS. I still say it would be soooo worth doing in our neck of the woods… on a large stage 😉 . I forgot how really powerful it is. You thought OK dealt with issues.
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I can certainly sympathize with your retail frustrations! At Wally World we don’t get our own drawers either, and there are a lot of people that run registers there.