31.05.08:
Micro Mood Swings, Miss C Is Still Lazy, Miss C Is Posh, I Rock,
Alcoholics, and Talent Shows Rock Too
Streaming Song Of The
Day: Trash by Suede
Free MP3 Of The Day: Ed
Banger Records Ed Rec Volume 3 Teaser Today's post comes from the garden, as once again, it is
hot in England! And last night was a real pain. I wanted to
have an easy night because it was the last night before my long awaited
day off. Unfortunately, fate and the ordering system conspired
against me and made it one hell of a bad night.
First up I had to deal with a micro mood swinging Slaphead. As he
is the only other smoker on nightshift, when I saw him sitting in his
car before work I went over to share a cigarette with him. I said
hi, he said nothing. Always good. So I still hung around,
mostly just to annoy him, and smoked. He put out his cigarette,
smiled and said "So, ready for a real easy night then?" with a
smile. In the space of 30 seconds he had gone from blanking me to
joking with me. Fortunately I was in a decent mood so accepted
his humour by telling him we had 500 cases coming in. Which put
him back in a bad mood. Now to some this might sound counter
intuiative, but there is a method to my madness. When he's in a
bad mood, he doesn't talk to anyone and resembles a madman who wanders,
doing his very important work, all the time mumbling to himself.
As long as he isn't calling me Fozzy Bear or other stupid nicknames, I
am a happy man.
Then there was Miss C. Not content with starting as she meant to
go on (definetly being covered later), she arrived a minute before the
shift started and then when I smiled and said "Good evening!" she
glared at me and snorted "What?" I repeated the smile and
greeting and she muttered "Evening" before vanishing for 20 minutes to
talk to Mr DJ and spreading her gossip about Shoe to Slaphead.
Who swallowed it hook, line and sinker and came over to me to tell
me. I then corrected him as I happen to know Shoe outside of work
as well as inside work and know she is actually a very nice
person. Didn't want to mention that yesterday but hey, needs
must. And slightly off topic, a spider just tried to crawl inside
my ethernet adaptor! Blogging outside is not without perils!
We kicked off the evening with a fantastic argument about Miss C's
accent. You see, Miss C is from Surrey, and speaks with a very
distinct upper class accent. Now that she has moved from Surrey
to Hampshire, she hates the accent thing being raised. So I
do. Frequently. I mentioned to her that the new guy is very
very well spoken. I told her that I hoped he was in at 7am,
because then they could have an upper class accent face off. She
yelled that she was not posh. I disagreed, and she went to
Slaphead for the casting vote. Slaphead agreed with me that it is
hard to say no to someone when they ask "Do I have a posh accent?" in a
posh accent. She stropped off. Not before I asked her to
say "Father's car is a Jaguar", which she did in a posh accent, and
then I mocked her for shooting herself in the foot. And as she
kicked the door open I said "Polo pony!" to which she looked at me
incredulously and said "What?!?!?!?" and I replied "Polo pony!"
She screamed and stormed into the warehouse.
The rest of the night was pretty uniform. Many drunks. Many
pretty girls not wearing a lot (there are perks to overnight retail...)
Many many macho men trying to prove they are more macho than the rather
hairy and very strange looking checkout guy. And then Miss C
decided to kick off. Bad idea as last night I decided I am not
taking any more BS from anyone. Friend. Enemy.
Whatever. From now on I am operating a strict cause and effect
policy. Be nice to me and I will be nice to you. Cross me,
and you will be sorry. It's a simple but fair scheme I
think. So she decided to ask whether or not I had worked the
coffee section. When I told her I had she snorted and said "So
why can I get two cases of stock out from the coffee section." I
told her to quit being so petty. She told me that I was on thin
ice already with management (true) and one bad comment from her could
get me fired (sort of true, but not entirely accurate). And then
she put her foot in it twice. First she told me not to climb on
the warehouse shelves because I would buckle them. Now, I am a
big guy, but I have no issues with my weight. I told her that she
has issues with her weight and that maybe if she didn't want to be
called fat, she should be a little more considerate when commenting on
other people's weight. She apologised profusely, and I told her
that her apology was unaccepted, as she was being hypocritcal by going
off the deep end when we mention she's fat (she really is) but feels
it's fine to say that by standing on a solid mental shelf, I could
buckle it. She left looking worried. Now, everyone knows
that two wrongs don't make a right. Three do. So, later on
when Slaphead was working the crisps from the delivery, he pulled some
multipack boxes of crisps from the warehouse. I let slip that
Miss C had worked the crisps and that reprimanding her for missing said
multipacks would be the only fair option because he had reprimanded me
for a similar mistake a few days earlier. He agreed and did
so. Vindication was mine, and Miss C walked on eggshells for the
rest of the shift around me.
And since we had so much on the delivery, I decided to prove a very
important point. I shall continue after moving inside as the
keyboard is currently actually too hot to type on...
Ok, so, the laptop has cooled down now! A cigarette fixed
this. Now, back to what I was saying. I decided to make a
point about how good I am under pressure. Slaphead and Miss C
worked the chilled, meat and produce, and I worked the ambient
stock. I worked like a demon. By the time Slaphead and Miss
C had worked the chilled, meat and produce, which was about 5 cages in
total, I had worked 5 cages on my own. I think that proved my
point without a shadow of a doubt. Slaphead even came up to me
and said that he was glad I was there because otherwise they would be
screwed. Nice. Admit that your "friend" is pretty much
useless.
Now, halfway through my impressive blitzing of the ambient, I had to
deal with a regular. He normally comes in about midnight or 1am
and wanders around, and comes back with something silly and often a
porn magazine. However, he came in looking as startled as one of
the rabbits outside. He came in, walked up to the closed off
alcohol section and just opened up the shutter and took out two bottles
of really cheap and nasty white wine (Piat Dor). I told him that
I couldn't sell alcohol, and he said "But you are 24 hours!" I
explained that this didn't apply to alcohol, and he told me that it
should. I explained that it didn't. He huffed and said
"Well when can you start beginning selling alcowine?" At this
point the red flag was well and truely raised. Alcowine?
This drunk at 5am and wanting more alcohol? I told him he would
have to come back at 6am. He snorted and told me that he would be
back in an hour. He came back about an hour and a half later and
smirked at me, whilst zig zagging all over the place. I didn't
sell him the alcohol, but the Polish girl on the checkouts at 6:30am
did. Personally, I wouldn't have sold him anything, as he was
quite obviously drunk and an alcoholic.
So, that pretty much sums up my night last night. I am off
tonight, and we're having a family barbecue during which I will have a
few drinks, and then settle down to flick between the Britain's Got
Talent and I'd Do Anything finals. I want Jodie to win I'd Do
Anything, although the other girl, Jessie is pretty damned good
too. Not so much Samatha, she doesn't really put much emotion
into her performances. As for Britain's Got Talent, I either want
Signature or Escala to win. Signature are just so unique and out
there, and I could happily sit and watch an entire show of
theirs. They combine Bollywood, Micheal Jackson and humour to
make something the likes of which you have never seen before in your
life. Will try and post vids tomorrow! Then there is
Escala, who are just hot. They look stunning (especially the
redheads), their violins look gothic, which always strikes a chord in
my heart. And the music is just breathtaking. Although, I
wish they had done Requiem For Dream, even if it would have come across
as kissing up as it's the judges theme... Permalink
30.05.08:
Miss C Is Lazy, Prodigal Number One Son, Arrogant Customers, and Shoe
Is Two Faced. Allegedly...
Streaming
Song Of The Day: Beautiful Ones (live) by Suede
Free MP3 Of The Day: Moe Pope And Headnodic are Megaphone by
Megaphone Last night was just one 8 hour
long horror show. But then, I knew it would be. I was
working with Miss C. On average, I do the work of two
people. This isn't bragging, we are given targets to hit, and
these targets are around 35 cases an hour. A case being one box
of whatever. My average is 70-90 cases an hour. 60 if I am
having an off night. Now, technically, Miss C also exceeds these
targets, but she does it a really low way. She will pick the
cages which have what I call easy wins. Easy wins are things like
the sandwiches which only have four packets per case, and if you're
smart you'll take two at a time out. So, she can do a lot of
these in a short amount of time. Which makes it look like she's
doing a lot of work, when in fact she does FA. Another thing she
will do is pick the cage with the least in it, so on CCTV she is
working cage after cage. And management buy it. I will
elaborate on this later.
The Chav's Number One Son came
in at about 1am this morning. He has been transferred to our
Bournemouth store. He was in a good mood, and we discussed the
difference between his store and our store. Turns out that we
have nothing on his nightshift. Their store was closed for 5
hours overnight, and his nightshift did nothing. Didn't tidy the
store, didn't work the backup stock, they didn't do anything.
Plus, when they get a delivery of what we call ambient stock (stuff
that isn't chilled or frozen) they put it in the warehouse, then begin
working it. Madness. Whatever management think of us, at
least we're not as completely dumb as that lot. Ironicly, the
manager of that store is also Pedro. And we actually did discuss
Pedro. Number One Son thinks that Pedro is the cause of all the
problems in both stores. Interesting theory... Personally I
think the cause of all the problems is The Chav.
Back to Miss C. Now,
knowing that 5am is our busiest time, she decided to waltz off and take
her break just as the builders came in. And then admitted she did
it deliberately because she didn't want to serve them. Thanks for
that. So during our busiest time, I was on my own. And then
the coffee machine ran out of milk. The queue was back to the
door, and the builders were complaining that we had no milk in the
coffee machine. On top of all this I had a headache.
However, the builders did prove how damned thick they are. First
builder told me that there was no milk in the machine, and I told him
that I couldn't do anything. He stropped off. The second
builder then said there was no milk in the coffee machine. This
happened five times in total. Incredible that when it comes to
Nuts or Zoo being low priced, or cheap DVDs being on sale they can
communicate, but when it's something reasonably important, they clam
up.
And then I had the most
arrogant customer I have ever served. He said there was no milk
in the coffee machine. So I said "Yes, I know, but I can't do
anything about it. Sorry." His reply? "Yeah, whatever
mate, I was just telling you to be helpful. No need to bite my
head off. Christ, I know it's early but no need to take it out on
me." I kept my mouth shut. I didn't mention that he looked
like a blonde 70s Kevin Keegan. I didn't mention that he was a
moron. I just kept my mouth shut and scanned his items.
Apparently this was also wrong. He said "See? You try to be
helpful and you just get a lot of hassle. Dunno why I
bother." I tried to explain that I'd had every builder
complaining that we were out of milk so I knew. He just went "I'm
a builder, don't be having a go at them mate, I'm trying to be
helpful. Don't worry, if I was in a bad mood you'd know about
it." I hate customers like this. The whole "I'm the
customer, be afraid." Trust me, we have a million ways to make
the start of your day a bad one. We can request a security check,
they are never fun. We can give you your change in tiny tiny
pieces. And rather than guessing the price, I can stroll to it
and see what it costs. Theatening the checkout person is never a
good idea. Unfortunately for this guy, we'd just finished some
banking and were low on notes, so his £14.43 change was given to
him in £1 coins, and 10ps, and 1ps. He complained and I
said that all transactions are final once the change has been
given. Well, it's true!
Unrated
Lastly, but not at
the end of
the night, Miss C complained about Shoe. She said that Miss
Chav who is her neighbour who also works at the store said that Shoe is
one of the most two faced people in the store. What Miss C
completely misses is that Miss Chav (she isn't quite as chavtastic as
THE Chav) is upset that not everyone is fawning all over her because
she's pregnant. I'm one such person. My view is this, ok,
she's pregnant, and yes there are some things that can be excused, like
heavy lifting. But lateness? Attitude problems towards
customers? Attitude problems towards staff who don't make a huge
fuss over her? Her issue is that people are making a fuss over
Blondie who is also pregnant and is Shoe's niece. Maybe this is
because Blondie can get in on time and eat breakfast before she arrives
at work. Miss Chav manages not only to be late, but also then
goes to the canteen and sits down and eats breakfast before doing
anything else. And if anyone dares complain, she scowls and says
"I'm pregnant innit? Do you want me to work or let my baby
starve?" She picked the wrong person when she asked me. I
shrugged and said "Work would be nice, considering how you clocked in
and all." She slammed her cereal bowl down and stropped onto the
checkouts and refused to speak to me for the rest of the hour we work
together. See? Never ask me stuff when a sensitive answer
is needed. My heart is ice and kept in such a state by the liquid
nitrogen in my veins ;-) Permalink
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29.05.08:
Rude Customers, Great Customers, The Blog, Revenge and Facebook I Never
Streaming Song Of
The Day: She's
In Fashion by Suede (I'm having a Suede week...)
First up I apologise if this post is
a little on the small side, but I am absolutely shattered after last
night. I really pushed the limits of what I can do and now I am
paying for it with aches and tiredness. But hey, it was worth it.
Last night was a night just filled with rude customers. It was as
if almost every other customer was just plain rude! I know this
is something which happens in retail all the time, but, from my point
of view, why the hell should I have to put up with the bad mood of some
punk in a hoody when I'm just trying to sell them some stuff.
Especially when they stand there tapping their foot and sighing with
their hand out. Finding change takes time, get over it.
Now, the customers who weren't rude really were quite stunning. I
have to make a special mention of the huge (height, not weight)
American guy that came in last night. He was fantastic.
Actually, I have to say that the Americans are far far well mannered
when it comes to being in a supermarket than the English. He had
a basket of shopping, which for our store is a lot, and was very
patient as I packed his bags (extremely rare) and everything was
greeted with a thank you and a smile, and he laughed when our fingers
got trapped in the bag handles as I handed them over. And he was
very understanding when I told him that although we took American
Express, him putting it in the chip reader wasn't enough as it was an
old style swipe card. All in all he was possibly the best
customer I have served. Other customers were great, but that guy
deserves a big mention.
Long haired hippy guy who I mentioned came in as well last night.
He asked me if I ever got frustrated with the store and wanted
out. I told him that I had my own ways of letting off
steam. He asked what they were and I told him all about the blog,
and the old blog. So he asked me if I had written about him, and
I told him that I had, but that I had written nice things about
him. He was completely overjoyed and told me that he was really
pleased to hear that I had written about him. He also suggested
something that other people have suggested, including my parents and my
girlfriend. It's something I am thinking of doing. And no,
I am not going to mention what it is!
Last night I worked really hard. Normally I just work hard, but
because the manager was in at 7am (a rarity) I decided I wanted to pull
out all the stops for him. So, I did. And it paid off
massively. I got a literal pat on the back from him and my
supervisor, and I got told that the store looked excellent. I
also got thanked by my supervisor in front of the manager for all my
extreme hard work. I was happy with that. Come on.
Who wouldn't be pleased that their supervisor praises them in front of
the boss? But that wasn't the best bit. No. The best
bit was that Queen Chav came in on her day off, and said to Pedro on
the shop floor "Store looks sh*t doesn't it? None of the aisles
have been faced, and there are two cages of stock out the back that
they just couldn't be bothered to work. They ain't done nothing
last night." And her back was to me. So I snuck and watched
as Pedro delivered a crushing blow. "Actually, I've just praised
them on the store looking excellent considering the amount of customers
they have had since 3am. And if you bothered to look at the stock
in the cages you'd realise it's all overs, and there is actually only
half a dozen cases which need to be worked. I'm sure Rickaaaay
can manage that in the 8 hours he's in today." Her life must suck
right now...
Lastly, I wanted to play I Never on Facebook. Basically you
arrange a list of things that you haven't done from haven't done to
have done. The problem is...I've done all except one.
1: Had sex in a public place - done
2: Been clubbing - done
3: Cheated on someone - shameful, but done
4: Got drunk - repeatedly
5: Got stoned - done
6: Had a one night stand - sort of done
7: Went skinny dipping - Never
8: Made out with the same sex - done (I was drunk and it was a dare)
9: Gave a lap dance - repeatedly
10: Played this game - done
Which leads me to believe I have actually lived a pretty wild life,
considering the only thing I haven't done is skinny dipping, and I
really don't understand the huge thrill behind swimming naked
anyway.
So, so long people, until tomorrow. And, wish me the best of
luck. I have to work with Miss C on my own. Joy. Permalink Tags: Rude Customers | Great Customers | My Blog | Tags end here due to Technorati being pants
AGAIN!
Regular readers will know
that we have a guy who comes in who is incredibly well spoken, but is a
real hippy and has long-ish hair. Hence we call him Posh Long
Haired Hippy Guy. Kinda just fits. Anyway, so, when he saw
me tonight he was very happy, namely because he thought I'd been
fired. Then he wouldn't stop shaking my hand and hugging me,
which to me was a little bit wierd, but hey, he was being friendly
which is a change from a lot of the abusive customers. He also
offered me a new "deal" to get revenge on Slaphead, Miss C and The
Blonde Bombshell. A non violent deal. He said that whenever
he comes in, he's going to be one of those annoying, irritating
customers.
Now, I am guessing you would think that being a large corporation we
would do things professionally, like getting our banking right before
we have a bank holiday. Unfortunately not. We didn't get
any 2ps in. Which means what we have is what we've taken over the
bank holiday. Which according to the amount of 2ps we have in our
tills is virtually none. In the end, you have to beg regulars for
2ps.
Considering the above, I found out something very very interesting
about SF. Now, before I tell you what we have, I should tell you
that in our store, and apparently it's the same everywhere, the
computer which deals with the goods recieved notes is a 1ghz computer
with a laughable 128mb of memory. Running Windows XP. Now,
this thing is always on, which means that the hard disk never gets
defragged. You can imagine how slow the thing is. So,
imagine my surprise when I was playing around on the corporate
intranet, trying to find next week's weather report and found that we
have a long range weather forecast service. Not just this, it's
based on very complex technologies such as factoring in past weather
patterns, trends, patterns and cycles and many other things. It's
quite breathtaking, but none of this tech filters down to us.
Shame...
Slaphead and I rocked last night. We did much teamwork, and
worked really well together, which meant we completely rocked. We
got 11 cages on the delivery, and in the end we had 2 cages left for
the dayshift to do. And we did so well that Shoe told us that we
had actually really only left her a cage and a half, which she was
pleased with. Which obviously in turn meant we were pretty
happy.
But one of the best things was what happened when Queen Chav came
in. Remember how she blanked me? Well...a close friend of
mine made a complaint about her via the SF "contact us" link on the
website. White lies surrounding hard truth. He even named
her by name. I would say I tried to stop him, but it was a very
poor attempt at trying. Anyway, something has changed because
Queen Chav won't come anywhere near me. She is actively avoiding
me. Which I personally think is quite fantastic. Gotta love
my friends, especially Tom who is the personification of "When he is
good he is very very good but when he is bad he is horrid".
Definetly one person never to cross! Methinks Queen Chav is
finding out why.
Lastly, I want to mention something I saw on TV which I think is just
fantastic. Those familiar with UK tv will know about a show in
the morning called GMTV. On it they have a doctor called Dr
Hillary Jones, who is a guy who is possibly the most patronising and
smug man walking the earth. So, imagine my joy when from the
"headquarters" of his new diet he is launching from their website, he
did a video interview on TV and I saw in the head offices a bottle
which looked to me very much like a whisky bottle. I have much
experience of whisky bottles, and it fits the look perfectly. But
even if it wasn't a whisky bottle, the whole place looked like a rush
job. Monitors balanced on packets of paper for example. A
doctor who has a bottle of scotch in the headquarters of his latest
diet. Quite fantastic. I should point out that the bottle
wasn't on Dr Jones's desk, although it was on the desk directly
opposite his... Permalink Tags: Are currently
offline (thanks Technorati...)
27.05.08:
Slaphead In Charge, Slaphead In A Mood, Queen Chav's Spelling,
Reversed Curse, Strangeness In Payroll, Awards, Redesigns and
Rickaaaay Knows Things
Streaming Song Of The Day: Saturday
Night by Suede
So,
the transition is complete and Slaphead is now in charge whilst The
Blonde Bombshell is back in Poland for the next couple of weeks. Joy.
Working with him in charge is a very odd experience. Now,
don't get me wrong; it's not an issue of being supervisor then not
being supervisor. I'm glad I got demoted. Too much hassle with not
enough financial compensation. But the thing is this – Slaphead is
a great supervisor. For the most part. Take tonight for example, he
started off fine, then for no reason got in a mood with Caroline and
myself. And when we confronted him over it, he went back to being
fine and denied being in a mood.
Which
is another thing. He was in a mood, but then denied it. He stormed
over to me and said “Right, I want to show you what I mean about
your facing up. I'm not having a go, I just want to show you
something”. Then showed me an area I hadn't faced up. I explained
this, and he snorted and said “Well, it's obvious you didn't face
up”. So, I asked why he was in such a bad mood, and he said “I'm
not, I'm fine, I was just commenting. Actually I think you've worked
really hard so far tonight!” Could have fooled me...
Now,
regular readers of this blog will know that Queen Chav is not the
sharpest tool in the box. However, she has really proven herself to
be quite the moron. Now...I know she has Dyslexia, but it's no
excuse when she has been working with the computers at work for
almost 5 years, and at her level of management (one below manager)
should really know how to use the spell check button. Some of them
were common mistakes like “useing”. But she also said that we
have to clock in and out for our “brakes”. But the best part of
it is that someone in management (I think Pedro) has lost their
patience with her poor spelling. There was a memo on the manager's
desk which was a quarter of a page long, and had half a dozen
mistakes in it. All highlighted with a yellow marker pen. And it
was just sitting on the desk, waiting for her when she got in. Love
whoever did that. Love their style. “Your spelling sucks, here is
how badly”.
I
used to be cursed. Whenever I went on holiday for the last 3 years,
someone got fired or left. Not this time though. In fact, my curse
has been reversed. We now have two new employees. Quite what they
are going to be going, I'm not sure. One appears to be a date
checker. Making sure our stuff isn't going out of date. Apparently
this is a full time job requiring 8 hours a day. On day shift. At
night, we are supposed to date check and it isn't to take longer than
20 minutes. Go figure. The other one...well...I'm not sure what he
is for.
Right
now I am really glad that I don't use real names on this blog any
more, because this is really explosive stuff, stuff that would cause
a huge rift at work if it got out. My life wouldn't be worth living.
So, we have a sheet of employee numbers and clock in numbers for if
we don't have our cards on us. Useful. And apparently in more ways
than one! So I was looking through the names and job titles, and
seeing how many members of staff came from the same family. And then
I hit something quite bizarre. See, these names and numbers are
pulled from the payroll database. Namely because our staff turnover
is quite incredible (around 90%) so it needs to be up to date. Now,
try to keep up with this because it gets complex. Queen Chav's
Number One Son used to work at our store as a supervisor, but because
of a push from Queen Chav, and because she wanted Rickaaaay to work
at the store, Number One Son now works at one of Pedro's other
stores. Pedro told her that would have to happen if Rickaaaay wanted
a job at our store. Now, Rickaaaay's name was on the list of current
employees. So was Number One Son. As a supervisor. And remember,
this comes from the payroll database. Thing is, this isn't the first
time Queen Chav has tried to pull a stunt like this. About a year
ago it emerged that she had contacted Head Office stating that Number
One Son needed his details changed from checkout girl to supervisor.
And that his pay as supervisor needed to be backdated to his start
date. Rightly, Head Office found this a little odd and queried it. And
still she didn't get fired. But this is bigger. Because...if I
am right...Number One Son hasn't actually been removed from the
payroll as a supervisor, but his current job is a trading manager,
which either means he is being grossly under paid (as if) or he is
still pulling a wage from our store as well as his trading manager
wage from the other store. Which would put his wages at about
£26,000 a year. As opposed to £16,000 a year...
We
have won an award! Not our store, I mean, come on! But the company. We
have won Forecourt/convenience retailer of the year. I have just
one question. HOW? The company is currently trimming the fat in
pretty much every area it possibly can. But the thing is, that bribe
must have cost them a lot of money. I mean...we didn't earn this
award on merit. It's like when Pedro won manager's manager of the
year. I think a lot of his bonus went on bribes. And don't get me
started on Pedro's bonuses...that is a post all of it's own!
Now,
I am working on a radical redesign of the site. It's an idea I've
been working on for a really long time, and I am currently in final
testing for it (not happy with one piece of code) but then I will be
launching a public beta of it for anyone who wants to try it out.
Lastly,
if it wasn't scary enough that Number One Son is now a Trading
Manager, Rickaaaay may have ambitions to do the same. See, he was
trying to discredit us on night shift this morning by grabbing a cake
and snorting at me “This; is out of date!” I calmly informed him
he was wrong because the date was the 27th and the date on
the packet was the 27th. He laughed and said “Yeah, so,
out of date.” I then calmly informed him that items are out of
date after the printed date, not on it. Which actually stopped him
in his tracks as he tried to figure that one out. Permalink Tags: Supervisors | Mood Swings | Bad Spelling | Dyslexia | Curses | Retail Awards | Blog Redesign | Idiots
26.05.08: Where I Have Been, I Hate Pubs and New
Things!
Streaming Song Of The
Day: Waterproof Blonde - Just Close Your Eyes
The Manager's Special
Offer Of This Visit:
So, the more observant of you may have noticed that I
haven't been blogging lately. Why not? Well, I have been on
holiday. Not actually been anywhere (apart from New Milton,
Salisbury, Fordingbridge and Ringwood) but not at work. I popped
in a couple of times, once to pick up some cigarettes, and once to get
some whisky and some food and see when I was working next
(tomorrow). And because this blog is about work, and I hadn't
done any, I figured blogging was kind of redundent. Although I do
have stories.
When I went in to get some cigarettes, I had just had my hair
cut. It's now really nice and short. Anyway, I saw Evie
(nickname, not real name!) in there, a really tall, really cute Polish
girl who is dating a really tall, really muscular Polish guy. And
she asked me if I had any petrol. Bless. The amount of
times she has seen me walking home, or getting a lift in or out is
probably in the dozens. And still she doesn't get that I don't
drive. But Queen Chav was in. Looking like she was
pretending to be busy. By this, she was on the shop floor, which
means she probably wasn't doing anything of critical importance.
She avoids such things. Anyway, so I smiled and said "Good
evening" and she turned, looked at me, and returned to what she was
doing without a "Hi" or a "Good evening". Marvelous customer
service. Evie was polite, quick, and efficient. Queen Chav
was just rude. I shall be making comments to Head Office about
this! Ain't I a stinker? And then on Friday, Mr DJ invited
me down to watch him play at the pub at the end of my road. I
would have gone, but the pub at the end of my road is frequented by
many a thug. So I decided not to.
But tonight I decided to try and end my holiday on a high. I went
to the pub to see someone who used to be good, and is now, apparently,
a shadow of his former talent. Shame. And being a bank
holiday, the world and his wife were at the pub. And it reminded
me why I hate pubs. This is a sentiment I have been feeling for a
while. I used to love going to the pub, now I try and avoid
it. Here's the thing, it's expensive, and more often than not the
people at the pub are really rude. This is something I am seeing
more and more of. Examples from tonight include "I'd love to
smack that goth over there" and "Look at him sweating, doesn't he ever
use deoderant?" Both comments aimed at me. And when I went
to the pub on Wednesday, I got glares from one guy all night. Not
looks, but real "I would love to hurt you" glares. Now, I admit I
dress differently from most people. I have a long, thick black
overcoat, and I wear black t-shirts or black shirts with black jeans
and smart shoes. I'm also the first to admit that my style has
been more than a touch influenced by the goth movement. But I
don't stand in the bar going "Football? It's sh*t mate..." when
one of the tattooed, shaved head, monosylabic football fans in their
lovely garish football shirts walk past me. But tonight was so
personal, and so spiteful, it's really put me off going to pubs.
At one point, whilst waiting for my friend to arrive, I was standing
outside in the corner smoking my cigarette and contemplating just
leaving. Seems that it's ok to be different, just as long as you
conform...
Lastly, I have some new things! You can now e-mail me, read about
me, and get directions to the "set" of Supermarket Soap. The
latter is provided simply for entertainment. Although the
directions are actually real... Permalink Tags: Bad Customer Service | Holiday | Goth
The Manager's Special Offer(beta
feature - offer available for this visit only...probably...)
So, to all intents and purposes, last night was pretty
slow. We had rushes of customers, meaning that we had a lot, then
it died down, then we'd get another peak of customers. Which is
really annoying when you are trying to count then bundle newspapers to
be returned. Especially when you get drunken chavs coming in
going “Oi mate, you got a Sun there?” and you've just finished counting
the Suns and have already written it into the paperwork. We had
many drunken chavs last night.
And speaking of drunken people, I had the one customer I hate above all
others. This guy is a real moron. He comes in every Friday
and Saturday, his head barely reaches the counter, and he has Short Man
Syndrome. And every time he comes in, he heads straight for me
and tries to irritate me. Night before last I got him back, he
asked for Vodka and Malibu, and I said Ok. He looked shocked and
said “Really?” and then I laughed in his face and said “No! Just
kidding!” Not used to being told No is our little friend, so he
refused to move from the counter. Until he was removed by another
customer. His latest trick is to say “Caution, wet floor” every
time he sees me. So last night, after hearing it three times, I
smiled and said “Well, you be careful you don't slip then little
man”. He let out a frustrated shout, and stropped off into the
sunset. Thing is, this guy keeps threatening to complain about
me, so I gave him the chance a couple of nights ago, and pointed him in
the direction of my supervisor. He refused to talk to him, saying
he wanted to complain to head office instead. Because they're
gonna be interested in what a drunken midget has to say...
Last night it was Slaphead and I working together. He's a great
worker, doesn't always say a lot, but being a fellow Nicotine addict,
he gives a lot of cigarette breaks. He kept asking me if it was
Ok that he was supervisor. Thing is, he's older, and has a lot
more experience of working in teams than I do. Anyway, he's a
nice supervisor, so I have no problem with him running the shift.
I just like pushing myself to the limit whilst having as little
accountability as is humanly possible. Accountability and
responsibility aren't things I like, I prefer making everyone else look
slow with my pace. Which I did. I got a literal pat on the
back from Slaphead last night because he said I worked so relentlessly
hard. I did empty 2 cages before the delivery, and worked the
entire warehouse, and returned all the papers. And faced up the
entire store single handedly. In 6 hours. Which I think was
pretty damned good, especially considering I had a 15 minute break and
a half hour break within those 6 hours, and several cigarette
breaks.
But easily the highlight of last night was the notice in our
canteen. It was the report from the inspection we had 2 nights
ago. And it was fantastic. 1 out of 10. With 1 being the
worst score possible and 10 being the best. We used to average 9
or 10, but this is our second 1 in a row. Apparently, the store
wasn't faced up (Queen Chav's fault), the bunkers weren't full
(Rickaaaay's fault), the bakery stuff was low stocked (The Model's
fault) and the queues were too long (Mr DJ's fault). So now Mr
DJ, Mrs DJ and Queen Chav are all forced to have a meeting with Pedro
to explain. I can't wait. And the best bit? It took
place at 5pm, too far away from our shift for any of them to go “But it
was nightshift!”
I got offered a new job yesterday. Kind of. My brother
works for Carnival Cruises in the reservations department (not booking
the cruises, looking after customers) and told me he was going on a 2
week cruise at the company's expense, as per the norm for newcomers,
but he missed out on when he started. Anyway, I asked if they
needed any new starters, and he said that they did, and that if I
wanted to join, he could get me and interview and get me past the
interview really easily.
Lastly, the new rota has gone up, confirming I have the next week off
(expect posts written in many strange places) and also has something
quite odd. Rickaaaay and Crack Baby both have one shift on the
rota, today. The rest of the hours are blank. I've seen
this before. And it's not good. This normally happens
before someone is fired. Guess Pedro looked at the CCTV and
couldn't pick between which one of them drank the drink so fired
both. Nice one Pedro. I bow. Permalink Tags: are offline at the
moment (sorry)
The Manager's Special Offer(Beta feature - offer available for
this visit only...probably...)
This is going to be a really short post because,
well, absolutely nothing happened last night. It was dead, we had
few customers, and everything went really smoothly. Not condusive
to good blog posts!
We had one of our worst customers back last night. He walks
around just muttering to himself. His internal monologue has
become external. So, he wanders around the store, muttering, then
comes up to the tills and plonks his shopping on the wine rack.
He then turns and says "I need £10 electricity, and for that I
need my electricity key. Yes. So, that's in the car.
Yes. So, I'll go get it, ok. DON'T TOUCH MY
SHOPPING!" Instead I look under the counter to see if the hammer
is still there. Unfortunately it isn't. Then he comes back
and does the thing which fully deserves a hammer attack. He tells
me how much everything is. Customers like that make me want to
scream "I tell you how much things are, you don't tell me!" And
then he asks for a receipt. And says "Give me the one with all
the prices on it, not the cr*ppy one". I'll ram it down your
throat as well, yes sir? And then he inspects the damned receipt
in front of me. Now that is just humiliating. You see,
there are things in retail that just "are". One of these said
things is that if a customer asks for a receipt, it is for one of two
things - you either need it for a refund at work, or you need it
because you don't believe we charged you correctly. Anyway,
everything was fine with his whole 3 items, and I hadn't overcharged
him, so he put everything away, did a preflight check, then left.
But not before saying "Oh hello sweetheart" to the woman behind him,
who then asked me who he was. I simply replied "Gotta love the
eccentrics".
The Blonde Bombshell was in a foul mood again last night.
Yay. And guess who got the brunt of it? Yup, me, because I
was the only one working with him. He complained that I didn't
work the crisps which were in the cages in the loading bay, and when I
explained that he told me he was working those cages, he snapped "Yes,
and I work chiller, and I work some racking too!" I pointed out
that, actually, I had worked 90% of the racking, because all he had
worked was the soft drinks, whereas I had worked the crisps, sweets,
coffees, cereals, cakes, and alcohol sections, as well as doing the
newspaper returns. He snorted and said "Yeah, is nothing, you
just finish jobs when you say you have, ok?" He also has this
new, really annoying habit of addressing me as "Yo!" Oddly, he
didn't like it when he was kneeling down, and I stood over him,
standing straight and as tall as I can (about 6 foot) and looked down
and bellowed "yo!" in my deep voice. He said "Why you call me
like that? Why you not call me Blonde Bombshell or Mr Kravitz?"
There is something strange afoot at work. And I don't like
it. People are changing shifts all of a sudden. I think it
is linked to the witch hunt to get rid of me. Shame it won't
work. The Hero has been asked to work 4pm until 12am, and has
agreed, and now The Blonde Bombshell has been told he is working from
12am until 8am. If they want to play this game, I'll let
them. We did it before (except with 10 hour shifts) and it fell
flat on it's arse. Namely because we were just standing around
doing nothing when we had small deliveries. Perhaps they also
(misguidedly) think that it will stop me from blogging wherever I am
blogging. It won't. As Ponytail (no longer with us) once
said, when the rules of the game change, it's not about working harder,
it's about working smarter. Same applies to this blog. I'll
simply use the time to walk into town and get a nice sandwich from
Tesco and a coffee at Cafe Nero and blog there instead.
Lastly, I had a bit of a late finish this morning. It got to
7:10am, and I decided that since my ride was outside, I was
going. Queen Chav was on the phone to someone (could have been
anyone, think it was Number One Son) and was chatting for what seemed
like forever. Anyway, I bought my cigarettes, said goodbye to
her, and she just ignored me. So, I took that as a signal that it
was fine for me to leave. I'm not sure if I've mentioned our
"flexitime" we have at work. Basically, if you are management,
you can turn up whenever you want and leave whenever you want.
Lower than management get the same deal, except you have to turn up
when you are scheduled to, and you have to leave when management say
you can. Even if this is past the time you are scheduled to
leave. Oh, and overtime doesn't exist any more... Permalink Tags:annoying customers | bad supervisors | working hours | unpaid overtime
14.05.08: Training, The Apprentice, Scams, Deaf
Delivery Drivers, Microsoft Security and Dave Cameron
Streaming Song Of
The
Day: Sugababes - Push The Button
The Manager's Special Offer: (Beta
feature - offer valid for this visit only)
So, today's entry is going to be pretty
short. The
reason for
this is that really not a lot happened last night. I got in and
immediately clocked Queen Chav's car. I have a great memory for
number plates, so I can tell who is in by the cars parked
outside. Anyway, so I get in and see her and her yet again new
haircut (even shorter and now ginger), so I smile sweetly and say "Good
evening!" to which I get a grunted "Evenin'" which immediately makes me
suspicious of her motives. She's not supposed to be there, and
she's evidently not in a good mood. Doesn't bode well for
me. And then she tells me I have to go do some training with
her. Yippy skippy joy. We end up having a cigarette
together where she tells me about her insomnia, tells me she wants a
coffee machine which grinds the beans and then filters the coffee
through cup by cup rather than by the jug. We also discussed the
fact that you cannot smoke ANYWHERE these days. Something she is
hating because she's going to LA later in the year - an 8 hour
flight. With 2 hours before the flight not being able to smoke
either. The actual training was dull and boring and stuff that I
already knew. Lifting and handling stuff. Because I
wouldn't know that having done my job for 5 years...
Where I work has been turned into The Apprentice. Someone is
getting fired. We have a LOT of CCTV cameras dotted around the
store. Most importantly, there are 2 in the ceiling of the
warehouse, meaning that management can view if anyone has been eating
stock from the warehouse. Someone has. Because management
found a half drunk bottle of soft drink in the warehouse. So a
notice has been put up that when the person who drank the drink is
found on CCTV, they're getting fired. My theory is that it's
Rickaaaay. He's stupid enough to do it, and stupid enough to
think he could get away with it. And the best bit? Mummy is
leading the investigation. This could be so funny. And the
thing is, there is no escape, Pedro hates thieves. He's gonna be
like Alan Sugar on steroids if it really is Rickaaaay...
Now, those who know me closely know I am on a budget. Not due to
a lack of money, it's more a discipline thing. When I am not on a
budget, I spend money like it's the last day on Earth. I just
like to know that I can alternate between wild spending and tightly
controlled spending. My budget? £10 a day, to include
cigarettes, which cost £5. I do have a few rules. I
am allowed to go to the pub, as long as I drink red wine, because it's
cheap. I am also allowed to hold over money from one day to the
next and add it to the budget, as it was already budgeted to begin
with. So, last night I discovered a little scam I use use to
extend my budget further. We have a customer offer for 40p off of
our new sandwiches (which are delicious!) BUT importantly it doesn't
say that we can't use them also. Interestingly, it's not valid
with other "offers" but it works perfectly well with my staff discount
card. Funny thing is, it shouldn't. The till should cancel
out the lowest discount. Well, it's only valid for a month, so,
my budget just got 40p added to it...
One of the "joys" of my job is dealing with delivery drivers.
Most of them are nice guys. We have guys like Keith who if he was
any more laid back he would be vertical. Just the greeting of
"Mooooorniiiiiiing" knows nothing is going to happen quickly. And
there is Big Evil who is 6'5", with a mass of long black hair, built
like a bodybuilder, and says very little. He seriously looks like
a serial killer, but he's one of the nicest guys I have ever met.
With a thicker Cornish accent than Jethro. And then you get guys
like the driver we had last night. The ironic thing is that my
best friend's father used to be a chairman of British Bakeries, the
place this driver was from. So, he was pushing the trolley and I
said to him "In this aisle please" and he just ignored me and kept
pushing the trolley further away. So I said louder "In this
aisle!" He still ignored me. So repeated it again, yet
louder, and still he ignored me. So I just sighed and said "Fine,
go where you want! We're only the customers..." And then he
had to have a paper GRN (goods recieved note) which they hate, because
it means they didn't actually get paid, it's more of an IOU. I'll
explain why later. Namely because the reason is staggering.
So, the reason the guy needed this IOU is because our computer was
locked out. I threw a few passwords at it, but didn't have time
for a full on cracking session. Namely because the order was
idiotic (400 packets of sandwiches). Anyway, the reason it was
locked out was because the screensaver had been on for 24 hours, and
our moron technicians insist than we use Windows. Yay.
Despite the fact that Linux would be faster since all our apps are web
based apart from Office. So, when Shoe finally came in, I asked
her what the password for the computer was. She told me it was
"password". The reason? It's easy to remember! It
annoys me when people use weak passwords. It's like the Wifi at
our place. State of the art b/g/n Wifi router, own server,
incredibly fast (to run the tills, financial stuff, and web apps at
speed at the same time it has to be). Now, in technological
terms, it's beautiful. So they passworded it, so that only the
store's computers can use it. I've used it on my laptop.
How? The password is our store number and a "check" digit which
is now obsolete. Moronic! What annoys me about this is that
anyone could use that connection, download something hugely dodgy, or
do some hugely dodgy searches, and the trail would lead back to us...
Lastly, I just wanted to mention something David Cameron said, which I
think was fantastic. He said that just like in The Apprentice,
Gordon Brown shouldn't wait to be told "You're fired!" He said
"Why doesn't the Prime Minister take part in a reality show where the
public decide who the winner is going to be? It's called a
general election!" Mr Cameron, I bow to your observational
humour. And as I have said for a long time, Cameron understands
today's culture, Brown and Blair (to a degree) don't and didn't.
Love it when politicians talk smack. Oh, and on the subject of
The Apprentice, I cannot wait to watch it tonight, just to see Raef,
who is possibly my favourite contestant EVER. Why? "Let's
be honest, size 16 to 32 brides are size 16 to 32 for a reason.
They love cake!"
13.05.08: The "Cool" Customer, The Mutterer, Our
Store Might Be The Titanic, Summer Has An Upside, The Blonde Bombshell
Blows Up and Queen Chav Desires Humiliation
Streaming Song Of The Day: Kylie
- Wow
Free Download Of The Day:
The Futureheads - Broke Up The Time
Deal Of The Day:(Beta Feature)
Unrated
So, we have this one customer who I cannot stand.
And I have very valid reasons for hating (yes, it is hate) him.
This guy dresses like a model. Looks like a model. Struts
like the aisles are catwalks. And there the model analogy
ends. Male models often hang out with beautiful women. This
guy doesn't. He is always with this girl who has to be size
22-24. I am not being cruel, this is a real estimation. She
has very badly dyed blonde hair, and she has possibly the worst taste I
have ever seen in fashion. Consistently. But enough of the
character assasination, this guy struts around like he could afford to
buy the entire shop if he wants. And he spends AGES just browsing
and looking. Nothing wrong with that, except, HE COMES IN EVERY
DAY! I mean, even with special offers, how long does it
take? Not 45 minutes like this guy. The other thing that
annoys me about him is that he acts like he is the richest man in the
world, and is often scrabbling around in his pockets for change.
Perfect example was last night. He yelled across the forecourt to
his girlfriend that he only had £2 something and to only put that
much fuel in. So she did, and he payed for it. In mostly
change...
There is another customer who I loathe. Now, I talk a LOT, but
this guy takes it to the extreme. His inner monologue has become
an outer monologue. He constantly talks. The entire
time. The thing that really makes me angry about him is that I
will scan an item and he'll go "there it goes" or something
similar. The other thing he annoys me is because he will say "Can
I have 20 cigarettes?", which makes me have to ask him which
ones. And he'll go through them all verbally, then I will bring
them and he'll say "And now can I have 20..." I think one day I
am going to write a customer handbook. Common misconceptions
which you think will annoy us but won't. Like paying with the
right money. It's a mood thing! If we are short of change,
we LOVE you paying with correct money. If we are overflowing with
coins, we LOVE it when you use your card and want cashback... We
be a fickle bunch...
I have determined that our store may be the Titanic reincarnated.
For those not in the know, apparently the real story behind the sinking
is that the keys to the crows nest were left in Southampton, so they
had no idea there was an iceberg until it hit it. Or was about
to. Now, this is much like our store. For example, Chip and PIN
will 99% of the time work just fine. Except every few
transactions it will takes an age to process. And then, even more
randomly, sometimes it will just decline the transaction. We call
them "fake declines" and they are more embarrassing for us than the
customer. Basically, we have to tell them that their card hasn't
been declined, but the system says it has and can they put their PIN in
again. This once caused a situation so bad that the police were
called... Also, for the geekier readers, the system that handles
the financial side of recieving stock from outside suppliers (i.e.:
bread and milk and cigarettes) if it crashes will spit out raw SQL code
if it crashes. Perfectly safe...
Now, I know that I said yesterday that I hate Summer because I am too
hot and have hayfever but I have to say that tonight changed my
mind. We have a girl who comes into our store maybe 2-3 times a
month, so she's not quite a regular, but she is still really cute,
despite being older (probably late 30s) and podgy. Anyway,
last night she came into the store and was dressed in a long,
sleeveless and very tight, very see through dress. Summer does
have an upside I guess. Although I did have to serve her
obnoxious jerk of a boyfriend. And this isn't jealousy - I am
VERY happy with my incredible Alecita, but if I was like this guy, I
would want Ale to dump me. First up he complained loudly that she
was taking longer than him, then stated loudly he was paying for his
stuff (and did) then flirted with her friend, and finally stormed up to
her and said "You're taking too bloody long, I'm waiting in the
car!" One of those guys you feel like leaning over the counter
and saying "Before we do anything, I have to do this. Sorry, part
of the job" and them smashing them in the face. Extreme, but
effective methinks... Or perhaps I am old fashioned in thinking
that perhaps showing your partner love and affection and respect is
important. More so in public.
The Blonde Bombshell did perhaps the most spectacular thing I have EVER
seen last night. This beats Slaphead's 20p (was supposed to be
£20 but he didn't add enough 0s) cashback by a country
mile. So, a regular comes in and hands his fuel card over.
The Blonde One forgets to swipe the card, asks for the milage, and then
enters it. Into the cash tendered screen. And before he
realises his mistake, he hits the "Pay" button. So rather than
entering 9527 miles, he enters £95.27 as the amount handed over
for £45 of fuel. And the thing about fuel cards is they can
only pay for fuel. And our system knows that. And once fuel
is paid for, it just vanishes from the system, so there was nothing at
all he could do about it. Apart from soil his pants.
Lastly, I humiliated Queen Chav. She claims I am the only person
in SF that reviews their clockings. I told her that I doubted
this, and she gave her standard - "Uh, no! Don't.
Think. So!" So I told her that I found it odd that out of
64,000 or so employees that I was the ONLY one who reviewed their
clockings. I added that it made me a 64,000:1 anomoly. She
snorted and told me she didn't have time for such nonsense.
Methinks I used a word she didn't know. Permalink Tags:
Faux rich | Muttering | Chip And PIN | Summer girls |
12.05.08:
Ok, it's official, I hate the summer. I love black
clothes, and white clothes make me feel...uncomfortable. So, in
the summer I always suffer from the heat. And this is with a thin
t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Right now I am sitting in Cafe Nero,
drinking a gorgeous hot chocolate and sitting under the air conditioner
in the shade. Lovely. With a running nose and sore throat
from having hayfever. Not so lovely.
So first up, I will explain my absence. First, my laptop died,
and being on a budget, I decided to try and make do with the eee
PC. That lasted a few days. Sorry, great machine as it is,
it's no good for day to day use. On the road it's great, but at
home, I need my 15.4" screen of my new Toshiba laptop. At the
moment it's a mess. It has two versions of Ubuntu installed
(Kubuntu using the horrible KDE 4 and GNOME Ubuntu) it also has Vista
on it. Much as I hate Vista, there are things I need it
for. Like Skype. And poker. And ripping CDs.
Yup, that completes the list. Everything else Linux does
better. And trying to get the machine to run Linux has been
trouble too. I finally got it nailed, and will now be formatting
the hard disk to make it all beautiful, then starting over.
I had to go to work today for a meeting. Not a bad meeting, a
nice meeting. And found out that Totem Pole (for he is massive)
is on the same Performance Review I am on which caused the end of the
last blog. Knew he was unpopular, didn't know it was that
bad. Also, Pedro doesn't seem to be in that much of a bad mood
with me. Although I did get glares from him when I put up the
best ideas of the meeting. Like little things for people's
birthdays (cake).
And I have to mention what Queen Chav has done. It's quite
extraordinary. Her hair is so messed up. She's management
and she looks like a badger. Her hair is mostly blonde, when it
used to be dark, except, some of that dark has escaped into streaks of
black within the blonde. And she's cut it severely short.
Remember the kids at school who looked like their mums had put a bowl
on their heads and cut around? Just like that. And
apparently when she first dyed it, it came out ORANGE! As a
conisour of redheads, I know that orange as in really artificial orange
is wrong. Natural orange will stop me in my tracks, as will
certain shades of reds, but fake orange...it reminds me of
clowns. She should have kept it. But no matter. The
way it is will amuse me for now. Should mention that Shoe (i
know...lazy psydonym) who does Queen Chav's job 100% better in 50% of
the time and is STILL unreognised for it looked really quite stunning
in a green oriental style dress. Want to call it a Kimono but
that's not the right word. Looked great on her through.
Not a lot else to talk about. Had a quick redesign around here,
which I think makes the whole place look a little less cluttered and
more streamlined. Have added a shop, and moved the comments
section to the bottom of the sidebar because it was actually starting
to take over the world! Well...the sidebar anyway. And a
big random shout to two people whose blogs I love and I am new to - and
biased over. The Purple
Blug which my girlfriend runs and is doing phenomenally well with,
and Abigail, who is a
way established Vodcaster who my girlfriend is good friends with.
And his/her Vodcasts make me laugh. A lot. Love the
concept!
04.05.08: Super Efficient AI, I Hate Bank
Holidays, Polish Taxi Drivers, Macho Chefs, Return Of The Idiot, and
Irritating Trolley Pushers
So, readers of my blog who like reading about my customers, you are in
for a treat today! Most of today's entry involves customers, all
of which interesting, and should provide a nice little insight into
just the kind of things I have to deal with on a day to day basis.
Last night I wasn't sure if the clocking in card I had found at home
was my current one or an old one. So I tested it and found that
it was my new one. 20 minutes before my shift. I figured
that the system would just let me swipe out again, but no, our clocking
in system is hooked up to an AI (artificial intelligence) system.
So I clocked in, then swiped to clock out, and saw the message "Shift
change out of pattern - swipe rejected". Yes, because clocking in
20 minutes earlier than normal is "in" pattern. So I tried again,
and got the same message again. I commented on this to the
supervisor of the afternoon shift and she said to just let it go.
I explained that I would then be 20 minutes early for work. So I
tried a few minutes later, and it accepted my swipe. I swear
Queen Chav has somehow influenced the AI and made it as super efficient
on clocking in and clocking out.
I hate the bank holidays. I really do. I have to work and
get nothing in return for it, and people just go mad. As a police
officer mentioned last night "People get one extra day off and go
beserk". A taxi driver commented that it was "People get an extra
day off of work and live like the world is ending." This is what
annoys me about it. I know that tonight we will have more drunks,
more trouble, and although we have more staff, it's really annoying to
have to deal with drunks. I will just make sure that Miss C is on
the tills tonight...
One of my customers last night was a Polish taxi driver. This
scares me. Now, I have nothing against the Polish and I actually
like Danny and Simon a lot at work because they have very good senses
of humour. BUT...we have Polish drivers at work. They are
consistently late in, because they can't find the place even though
they have Sat Nav. And you normally ask them something, and they
can't tell you because they don't understand English properly. I
know there are exceptions, people who have good English and are foreign
(Simon, Danny, my darling girlfriend) but it IS the exception.
Every night I will have a dozen people who will say "Light Marlboro
20". I've even had one guy who asked for a packet of 20
cigarettes, then asked for the same pack again. When I said they
were there, he said "No, one more packet please". So, the concept
of a Polish taxi driver worries me. Would you end up where you
wanted? And would you face the inevitable onslaught of Polish as
they chatted to their friends over the radio? I guess the upside
is that they don't understand speed limits!
One thing that really annoys me is men who are d*cks to their
girlfriends at the checkout. I don't get it. Why would you
do that? Last night we had a chef who comes in a lot, normally on
his own, but last night he had his girlfriend with him. He was so
macho, and you could almost smell the testosterone coming from
him. And he was a complete arse to his girlfriend. First
up, she asked him if he could buy her chocolate, and his reply was no,
because she needed to lose weight. Then he gave her the first bag
of shopping, which wasn't light, and told her to carry it. Then
he told her to get her purse out because she was paying. Then he
handed her the second bag and told her to carry it. And when she
complained about having to take both bags and asked why, he laughed and
said "because you're the woman, you should take care of me!" What
an complete w*nker. I hate guys like these, because often their
girlfriends are very attractive, and you think "What are you
doing? Why are you with him?"
Regular readers will know that a few weeks ago, when our chillers went
down, we had this guy come in and be abusive because he couldn't get a
refund on something he bought after he ate it. He came back last
night. He entered his PIN and then said "And next time, don't
look at my PIN". So I mentioned I had purposely looked
away. He said he saw me look. So I told him we had CCTV
which could disprove this. He then asked me to go check, so I
refused. He then called me a liar and shouted at me not to
lie. I grinned and said "Thank you, please don't come
again!" He stormed over and said "What did you say to me?"
I smiled sweetly and said "I said, thank you, please come again".
He snorted and said "I don't think that is what you said, but I'm not
sure. Hmmmm. Bye." I asked one of the supervisors how
we bar people...and if he comes in tonight, he's getting barred if he
continues being abusive.
Lastly, we had a really annoying customer. First, she took a
trolley. WHY? We are a PETROL STATION! The trolleys
are there for decoration. I mean...the wheels all go in the same
direction! Anyway, so she came to the till, bought her stuff and
bought a ligher too. Then returned the lighter because it was
childproof. So we offered her a cheap lighter. Also no good
because it was too hard on her weak thumbs. So we gave her
matches and a partial refund (minus the cost of the matches) but she
wasn't done! She then got her £1 stuck in the
trolley! Which meant I had to go in, and get another £1
from the till then fight the trolley for the £1. She was
really annoying and wasted so much of our time, but as I said to her,
I'd rather serve customers like her all night than all the drunks we're
going to get this weekend.
03.05.08: Dawn Blogging, Return Of The
80s,
Queen Chav Is...Nice? and Chchchchchanges
So, welcome to the era of my dawn blogging! I am currently sat in my
garden, it's 6am, and it's BEAUTIFUL. I have last.fm playing my
electronica playlist, which just enhances everything for me (I have an
affinity for anything electronic). Apologies for not blogging lately,
it's mainly down to my attempting to overreach. I often get home, play
poker, which provides content for another of my blogs, and then sleep,
full of intentions to blog when I wake up, and wake up too tired to
blog.
Thursday was just weird. It was just me and Caroline but I had a phone
call at 8pm from Mrs DJ asking why I had switched shifts with someone
next week (Uni stuff) and that I had a meeting in the morning with
Queen Chav over it. Great way to put someone in the frame of mind to go
to work, huh? And Mrs DJ is supposed to be a) a friend and b) in the
colleague circle which is supposed to improve stuff for SF staff
morale...
Anyway, I got in and Mrs DJ assured me that Queen Chav was thoroughly
angry at me for moving shifts, which gave me the chance to prepare some
mental trickery which I will describe later. Suffice to say that I used
to know little enough about the neurotypical mind and now I know TONS.
And I constantly use it to my advantage to get what I want when I want
it...
My first customer of the night was a guy who was the most arrogant and
worst dressed I have ever seen. He had a blonde mullet, a Hawaiian
shirt, yellow shorts and a blue jacket. Niiiice. So, I served him and
his card was declined. He ranted that his card NEVER failed (easily 8
times) and that he had a lot of money in his account (sure, they all
say that...) So we went to another till and repeated it, this time
without the card being declined to which he literally shouted "Yes!
Score! I told you, this card NEVER fails" I smiled and thought to
myself "You sir, are a tosser". He then took his shopping and strutted
out of the store.
But the strangest thing happened with my meeting with Queen Chav. I
went in and said I knew she wanted a meeting with me about the rota,
and explained that I did it because I knew she had a hard week coming
up, that the chairman was coming for a visit, and that she was the sole
member of management in for the first half of the week so rather than
giving her more work to do (rejiging the rota) in this tough week, I
decided to arrange it myself and lighten her workload. That's what I
SAID. I meant not a word of it. She puts me through hell on a weekly
basis, why wouldn't I relish the chance to make her life hell? Truth
is, I can't stand being in the same room as the woman, let alone
talking to her, so I asked people I like. The only reason I said what I
said is because it's so hard to be nasty to someone after they have
done something nice to you. In their face. And then pointed it out. As
I said, I understand motives well. So, she apologised for the meeting,
explained she was protecting me from Pedro's wrath, and apologised
again. Yes! Score! Then she called Miss C into the office and asked her
to sit down. At which point I knew we were in trouble. Queen Chav went
on and on and on about the visit from the chairman, how he said little,
but they thought it went ok. And then...she told us that dayshift
couldn't have kept the store looking so good without the groundwork
that nightshift had put in! As if that wasn't enough, she told us to
turn around and take one of the boxes of chocolates behind us as a
reward for working so hard. I have two theories. One - I know Queen
Chav read the old blog, and maybe she is lost now she has no info to
use on me. Two - I may have put in the open question in our store
survey that I was fed up of the institutionalised bullying in store and
that it had forced me to look for qualifications elsewhere leading to a
job elsewhere, just to get away from it. Now, these are supposed to be
confidential surveys, so if she has read it, she can't tell me, but
they now tally employees with replies and demand answers if they don't
match. So I think she read it, soiled her (big) knickers and realised
that she is dead meat. Bullying is an instant dismissal offence in our
company, and she has been accused of it by MANY staff...
Lastly, I want to mention changes that will be taking place on this
blog. Unlike the last one, the design won't be changing, as I am happy
with it's look, but I am going to be doing stuff behind the scenes and
along the sidebar. There are reasons for this, but I am not going to
elaborate on them, namely because they are quite boring. What I will
say is that there will be old features returning albeit it revamped,
and new features appearing. Watch this space...the store is about to
receive stock and a minor refit...
Rude Customers
Great Customers
My Blog
Supervisors
Mood Swings
Bad Spelling
Dyslexia
Curses
Retail Awards
Blog Redesign
Idiots
Bad Customer Service
Holiday
Goth
annoying customers
bad supervisors
working hours
unpaid overtime
Training
Theft At Work
Budgeting
Delivery Drivers
Windows Security
David Cameron
The Apprentice
Faux rich
Muttering
Chip And PIN
Summer girls