Cashier's, what actions do you condemn people for?

@BorisOspasky said in #4:
> Why give kids pocket money and then buy more for them? Terrible parenting.

Please point to the sentence that says the kid already had money. :)

@BarcelonaGirl said in #1:
> I’m not a cashier, but I saw how some girl’s mother didn’t buy her an inexpensive snack for $1, but started buying drinks for herself, wine and cigarettes

I see where you're coming from but, yeah, no, I actually worked as a cashier at a Walmart from October '15 until the summer of '16 (I was in college, it was a part-time job).

Frankly what annoyed me more than what people were buying (you ring up enough stuff you just shrug it off eventually) was:

1. Rude customers, thankfully I didn't have many of those but there were a few memorable ones.

2. I was a cashier pre-self-checkouts (barely) during the era when Walmart still had a 15 items or less line. Hated customers who'd come into the 15 item or less line with a heaping full cart and no, I couldn't always do much about it. I could remind them it was a 15 item or less line and that was about it.

3. People who'd plop a large item down on the conveyor belt. Just b/c you, a large, burly dude, can sling a jumbo pack of water bottles and/or the biggest bag of dog food in the store around like it's nothing doesn't mean it needs to go on the conveyor belt. I'm not a puny lil' weaking of a gal but it's just freakin' awkward to maneuver and takes up space. We have those handheld scanner gun things for a reason, folks.

5. People who'd get annoyed if I asked for ID for purchases that required them to show ID if they looked younger than a certain age (usually it was like "card everyone who looks younger than 30 or 40 or whatever even if they look old enough to purchase alcohol/tobacco/whatever the heck they're buying.") Did not have this often but do recall a rough-looking (as in, looked like he'd lived a rougher life, not necessarily rough like bad person) dude who still kiiinda looked like he could've been a rapidly-aging 20-something being like "I left my ID in the car and do I really look younger than 30/40/whatever?" Yes. Frankly. I have seen some scraggly looking 20-somethings before. It was honestly kinda funny in hindsight b/c dude was frankly one where he looked like he could've been in his 20s or could've been in his 40s.

@Dukedog said in #5:
> What annoys me as a customer and probably ticks the cashier off is the person that shops at the checkout. Oh,I don't have enough money,what if I put this back,how much then,ok,what if I keep that and put this back,how much then? I know it says buy two get the second for half price but can I just buy the second one? You don't mind if I pay in pennies do you?
> Seems like they're always in front of me in line when I only have one item to pay for.

Oh god you just gave me a flashback to my days as a cashier.

I try not be judgy, sometimes people don't realize exactly what something's gonna cost w/tax until they were at the register but I STILL REMEMBER THIS ONE LADY WHO WAS, emphasis on WAS buying a heaping cartload of stuff one day.

Then she realized like, when I was done or nearly done ringing up allllllll this stuff that she did not have the means to pay for it.

I think I had to void this junk one item at a time until it got to something she could pay for.

Oh and a fair bit of it was frozen food that I had to put in the tote below the register and then take to the service desk to probably get trashed (stuff that could be put back whenever was but frozen food almost definitely was getting tossed b/c it'd melt obviously) later on.

THAT WAS SO OBNOXIOUS.

Like. I can understand someone mildly misjudging what their total cost is going to be but I swear to god this lady misjudged it to the point it felt like I was voiding half the stuff she'd unloaded from her cart before it got to where she could pay for it. She seemed embarrassed and I tried not to seem judgy b/c who knew what her situation was, certainly not me but man that was ridiculous.

Keep in mind it's been like, 9-ish years since I worked retail and I still remember that.

@greenteakitten said in #10:
>
Yes, you are right, I mean that the parent says that they don’t have money for this, but she bought herself expensive alcohol and cigarettes

@BarcelonaGirl said in #14:
> Yes, you are right, I mean that the parent says that they don’t have money for this, but she bought herself expensive alcohol and cigarettes

I mean I don't necessarily approve, and I don't smoke or drink alcohol (won't judge someone else for drinking unless they're doing so to the point they're an addict. As others have said, how do we know the alcohol was for her and not maybe a for a party or a gift, people absolutely will take a fancy bottle of alcohol to a party. Smoking is a gross habit but eh, as long as they aren't doing it indoors, it's their choice.) but I could also absolutely see a parent saying "we don't have money for X item" as the easiest way to shut the kid up about how much they want the thing.

@greenteakitten said in #11:
> Please point to the sentence that says the kid already had money. :)
It's a strawman but tbh most kids nowadays get money

@BarcelonaGirl said in #14:
> Yes, you are right, I mean that the parent says that they don’t have money for this, but she bought herself expensive alcohol and cigarettes

Yeah, they don't have money to afford anything after paying for the expensive alcohol and cigarettes! Priorities ;)

In all seriousness, it's a lot easier to say that you cannot afford something, as it gets rid of any chance of buying it and basically negates any "but...what if..." protests.

Of course I'm not saying that the situation couldn't have been handled better. But to me it sounds like it was less of a hypocritical thing to say and more of a lie to try to dodge long explanations, if you know what I mean ;)

@Al-Ghoul said in #16:
> It's a strawman but tbh most kids nowadays get money

Honestly it seems like a thing unique to America and (maybe) a few other countries...hardly "most". But maybe I'm just out of touch with reality, correct me if I'm wrong :)

@BarcelonaGirl said in #14:
> Yes, you are right, I mean that the parent says that they don’t have money for this, but she bought herself expensive alcohol and cigarettes

Also, just wanted to say -- I don't know if this is only unique to the country I'm from but in some places buying expensive wine as a gift is considered a "good" gift -- especially in places where materialistic gifts are seen as "care". And that's not something I'm suggesting in any way is wrong. It's perfectly possible to put a lot of time and energy into shopping for the perfect expensive gadget or wine. But just keep in mind that in some post-WWII places the fact that you were willing to spend your savings on someone showed them just how much they mattered, while a handmade gift might have been seen as more of a substitute. Again, something that very much depended on people and place. But some of that culture does still get through today...

So it's possible that both wine and cigarettes were gifts for people. Not that I would condone that...I think it's just too easy to spiral into addiction. But I wouldn't want to judge something I don't know enough about.

@greenteakitten said in #19:
>

I'm from the US and could very well see the wine being a gift of some sort - I've heard of folks choosing to take it to parties as like, a host gift.

Cigarettes, eh, probably not as apt to be a gift but we don't know whether she's the one smoking them or maybe her partner or another family member and they just asked her to pick those up while out running errands anyway.

I can remember a time or two where some non-smoker had to pick up a pack of cigs for their family member who did smoke and specified that they weren't entirely sure exactly what brand their family member wanted/they knew it was this specific one but couldn't like, point it out on the shelf as I hunted around trying to find the exact one (when I worked there Walmart had a checkout lane that specifically had that stuff where the cashier had to hand it over to the person buying it)