My whole working career has been spent in the customer service field. I have been a supervisor at several fast food restaurants such as Hardees, Krystals, and Churches Chicken. I worked as a manager for a locally owned convenience store that also held a Chester's Chicken. If I wasn't working these meaningless jobs I was working as a telemarketer, which if you ask me gets a bad rep. They have to put food on their tables at the end of the day too, but I digress. The main point of this article is to talk about my experiences as a glorified cashier for all these years and the way I have been treated by customers.
The first time I worked at my local Hardees, I was embarrassed for people to know I worked there; especially people I went to school with, driving their nice cars through the drive-thru with their cozy office jobs. I would cringe when someone recognized me. I wanted to melt into the hard, unforgiving concrete floor. See, I am not uneducated. Sure, I dropped out of school in the 10th grade. After my grandmother got sick she wasn't able to watch my son anymore. So I dropped out of school to take care of my son and grandmother. However, the following year, my grandmother was better, so I took that time to get my GED, which I did in 1999. I have also received several diplomas and certifications in various fields, as well as a degree but in the small town of Moultrie, Georgia, where if you don't all ready know someone you take what you can get. Plus the multiple tattoos disqualify me from any real career of substance in the Bible Belt. In this article, I want to share some of the things that just really yanked my chain when I worked in any customer service position, so maybe people will start looking at cashiers in a different light and maybe treat any cashier they deal with a little better after reading this.
Like any mother, I took whatever job I could get. While working in a fast food restaurant, I had to learn to be quick, to be friendly, set aside some pride, and be willing to learn any station. I have always been quickly promoted once I have worked in a place for a few months. I am dedicated, reliable, quick, and in most cases friendly. But these places wear down their best employees, expecting them to pick up the slack of other employees usually at regular pay. They overwork you because they know you won't say no to the extra hours, and let's be honest, no one else is going to do it. Favoritism is shown in a lot of these places as well as nepotism. The back-biting of fellow co-workers is worse than it was in high school. I thought we were all adults here, I think to myself as I roll my eyes at the newest gossip going around.
The most degrading thing about being a cashier is how some customers think they can treat you just any way they want. Some customers act like they are better than you and that gives them the right to talk to you in any type of way. For example, I have been called all types of cuss words, been yelled at, and I have even been threatened before. Well in my world sweetie, the customer is not always right! You can't talk to me like a am a second rate human or a sex object. I am providing you a service jackass. Maybe soon robots will replace cashiers and then you will bitch about dealing with a machine. But until then, I wouldn't expect all of us to bite our tongues and take your tongue lashing.
Another thing is if you walk into a clean bathroom, for Pete's sake, help keep it that way. That doesn't mean spray the toilet with your last meal and leave it for us to clean up. I am not your spouse or your mother! Women, please wrap your pads or tampons in toilet paper before putting them in the trash. No one wants to see it or touch it!! We do not get paid enough to clean your feces, blood, or urine. Especially since we already clean up the spilled messes at the fountain machine, on the floor, and in the parking lot. People just spill drinks all over the counter and floor and just walk off without a word. Well, this puts my other customers and employees at risk of slipping on the floor. Let someone know you made a mess. Hell, be nice and offer to clean up your own spill if the place is busy.
When cell phones came out it made my job harder: now I have to try and get your attention, let you hold up my line, or my favorite, skip you and go on to the next customer until you get off your phone. Usually it results in a tirade of some kind. I am trying to get you in and out as soon as possible and you slow me down by being on your phone or texting. I mean is it really that important that the call can't be resumed after leaving the store? Or better yet finish up your call then go into the store. These customers are usually the ones who come back saying their order was wrong or they were short changed... well, get off the phone and pay attention.
If I say good morning or speak to you when you walk in the door, have the common decency to say something back. I am pretty sure your mother didn't raise you to be an asshole, or maybe she did. I have realized there are enough of you out in the world that obviously you haven't had any home training. When something won't ring up right please don't say, "that means it's free today, huh?" Do you know how many times we hear this a day? You aren't being original and it's not funny! Another thing, I can't give you an extra piece of anything for free because it is considered stealing and I could lose my job. Yes, coffee is hot. That's why there is a caution sign on the pot!
There are those customers who like to keep their money in their bra or shoe for whatever reasons. Well my message to you people is that no one, and I mean NO ONE, wants to handle your sweaty boob money or sock money on a hot summer day. That is nasty! And don't bring me your crusted up pennies that have been sitting in your cup holder sticky with spilled drinks and I don't know what else. I don't want to touch it and neither does the next person in line.
You are probably thinking, if she hates being a cashier so much why doesn't she do something else? Well, I have quit for the moment to focus more on my writing career, where it doesn't really matter what I look like... and I don't have to wear those ugly uniforms. I can paint my fingernails if I want, color my hair whatever color I want, and not have to deal with people who have lost common decency towards their fellow humans.
