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Merry Christmas! Hope Santa was good to all and such. :)

I’m writing this on my ThinkPad R61i by the way; it showed up on Monday.  I haven’t had time to write in the blog since then, so now that I’m stuffed with Christmas dinner, I thought I’d write about occurrences between the last post and today.

Well, of course, the laptop finally showed up, after fear of USPS losing it in the holiday mix of packages.  It showed up on Monday; the day after we got a bunch of ice and snow.  The city busses were running late on Monday, and the Q never showed up downtown at 1:10 and 1:40, so I had to take a B and walk home from Whalley.  The B I took showed up at the Green at 1:55, and because of traffic, I was dropped off in Westville around 2:40.  I then proceeded to walk home, dodging piles of snow and unshoveled sidewalks.  This walk, usually lasting about 10-15 minutes, took me 25 minutes.  I had to walk slow so I didn’t lose my balance on the ice, and by the time I got home, it was well after 3 PM.  I then had to work from 330p-730p, which made it that much more painful.  I got to open the box, and that was about it.

That night at work had gone surprisingly well.  I didn’t have too many incidents with customers, except at the very end (which always happens).  I had turned my register’s lane light off and put up my ‘closed’ sign, got about halfway through ringing up this nice lady’s order, and this other biznitch comes in, moves my ‘closed’ sign out of the way, and starts loading up the belt with her stuff.  ”Whatever,” I thought.  There wasn’t really anything I could do at that point.

So I finished ringing up the nice lady’s order, and as she was paying, I hear the woman behind her suddenly exclaim, “MY HAM FELL OFF THE BELT!  I need another package of this.  I need someone to go get me a package of this ham.”  I held my finger up in a kinda “hang on a minute” form, as I wasn’t done with the other woman yet, and she got all huffy on me.  She left my line and asked another associate to go to the deli and get the ham resliced and packaged.  Then, after I stuff away the nice lady’s credit card signature slip, I suddenly hear, “DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING.  I have to get this the way I like it so I can bag it the way I like.”

“No problem,” I said, and I sat down on my bagging rack waiting for her to finish.  (And from this point on, all time measures are literal, not figurative.)  5 minutes later, she goes “Okay, go ahead.”  I start scanning.  As expected, she stares at the LCD with the item scrollback behind me, occasionally looking down to see what I’m scanning.  Then, after a couple minutes, she moves down to the bagging area with her carriage, pocket book in the child rack up top, and says “Why aren’t there ever any bags on this side?  I don’t like having my back to my pocket book, someone can just come up and snatch it without me looking.”

“Ma’am, I can stop and fill the bag rack for you if you’d like,” I said.  I was expecting her to want me to do that, but she was like “No, it’s alright.  I just wanna get out of this freaking place.”  You and me both, lady.

So I finish scanning her stuff and subtotaled it, and had -just- opened my mouth to recite my usual, “Your total is (blah blah blah)” line, when she goes “DON’T SUBTOTAL IT YET.  The nice young lady’s coming back with my ham.”  I don’t know what took so long, but it had already been another 5 minutes (this woman’s order was huge), and the other associate wasn’t back with the ham yet.

We’re standing there, awkwardly silent, and the woman looks up at my screen again.  She goes, “Why’d you subtotal it?  I told you not to.”

“I had already subtotalled it before you told me not to.  It doesn’t make a difference, anyway, as the subtotal is always shown here in the bottom right.  Me pressing ’subtotal’ just makes it come up in a bigger font over here,” and I pointed to the bigger subtotal.  ”Hmph,” she went.

Another 3 minutes or so had passed by, and at this time, it was already 7:40.  At this point, I didn’t care how long it took, because a) I was getting paid for this extra time, and b) I would have to get the manager override card to clock out anyway.

The woman’s fumbling through her purse for something, and she pulls out a Visa gift card.  She says to me, “Do you take these?”  Only hearing half of what she said, and thinking she wanted to pay with that card, I said, “Are you purchasing that card or is it yours?”

She gave me a look like I had just called her a criminal.  She sternly says, “I would like to pay with this card. Do you accept these cards?”  ”Yes,” I said.

Finally, the other associate came back with the ham.  This was about 8 minutes after I had finished the order.  I said to her, “Thanks” and was about to scan the package, when she says, “No no no, the deli manager told me to tell her that since her old bag had opened, this package was on us.”  I could have punched something.

The woman pays with her $50 Visa gift card, and then the rest by her debit card.   A credit card slip comes out for her to sign (cuz that’s how those gift cards are charged), and she goes, “WHAT’S THIS FOR?!?”  I told her it was for the gift card.  ”Oh.”

Finally, I had given her all her crap, and quickly signed off the register so nothing else could possibly be scanned or anything.  Normally at the end of a shift, I would have helped the customer put the rest of her bags in her carriage, but this time, I scurried off to go get the manager override card.  Without saying “Thanks!” or “Have a great holiday!” or “Merry Christmas!”

Holy crap.  I didn’t think I’d go into that much detail.  Oh, well.  Onward.

For Christmas, I got a new wallet, Mr. Bean’s Holiday, and a Dirt Devil mini vacuum.  Some relatives also stopped by and dropped off some nice clothes and cash for us.  This year doesn’t really feel like Christmas at all, but the random cash+gifts is a little nice :)

I’m working tomorrow from 6:15 AM til 12:30 PM.  Thank GOD it’s not on the front end, though, I have a feeling tomorrow’s not gonna be too busy cuz of today being Christmas and all.

Saturday, we’re supposed to go over my mom’s friend’s house.  We haven’t seen them all year, and it’ll be nice to hang out with them again.

Umm, I think that’s all I have planned for vacation so far.  And for this blog post, too.  So until next time, Merry Christmas :)

Well, I checked the status of the package again tonight, and it finally shows up as being in CT! I’ll most likely get it on Monday.

I can’t wait! :D

So, a couple weeks ago, I paid John M. for his ThinkPad R61i, and he mailed it on Monday, December 15.  He used USPS Priority mail, and purchased delivery confirmation and insurance.

Usually, my experiences with Priority Mail are pretty nice; sending packages throughout the US usually deliver within 2-3 days.  I know that 2-3 day time period is an estimate and not a guarantee.  However, none of my Priority packages have been delivered out of this time frame before.

So, I was expecting delivery on Wednesday, December 17, as John sent it before cutoff on Monday.  By Wednesday, my delivery confirmation number hadn’t updated.  Thinking the mail might have gotten picked up before he mailed it on Monday, I assumed it would come on Thursday the 18th.  It didn’t.  And the tracking number still said it was accepted at the origin.

I called USPS yesterday morning to see what was going on, and the guy seemed helpful.  He told me that it was on their list of packages to expect for Wednesday the 17th, but it never showed up.  He then told me to watch out for the mailman that day and, if he didn’t deliver the package with the mail, to call back first thing Saturday morning.  It wasn’t delivered yesterday, so I called this morning.

I got this nice lady who seemed nice.  She told me, though, that the packages hadn’t been sorted yet, and to call back in an hour and a half.  So I wait 1.5hrs and call back, and I get a different lady.  She seemed really hesitant to go look for or even inquire about the package based on my insurance or delivery confirmation number.  She then took my phone number and told me she’d grab some data to see if my package was included in the load, and then call back 10 minutes later.

About 15 minutes later, she called back and said the package wasn’t in the load.  She told me the same thing I had been told all along, that delivery confirmation is not a tracking number, and Priority mail was an estimate based on former deliveries, not a guarantee.  She then said that bad weather and stormsin North Carolina (the origin) last week in addition to this snow up here in the northeast were what was causing the delay.

Now, I could -possibly- see the snow up here causing a delay, if, ya know, it was snowing when the package was supposed to get here.  Also, I checked the weather history of North Carolina for last week; it was foggy some days, but there wasn’t any rain or storms or anything.  Blech.

So, I don’t think the Postal Service has any freaking clue where that box is.  I’m gonna give it til Friday the 26th, and if it hasn’t shown up, I’m going to start the insurance claim.  This is ridiculous.

Oh yeah.  If i don’t post again before the day, have a great Christmas. :)

Tonight’s post is gonna be a bit short, ’cause I’ve got a lot of homework I’ve procrastinated over too long.

At work tonight, it was like an hour to the end of my shift, and I had just switched from a main line to express (12 items or less).  I took a couple customers, and then one lady was like “Can I come through here?  I don’t have that much…” (she had like 20 things), and since it wasn’t busy, I decided to take her.  While she was loading the belt, some other woman came up with like 5 pieces of produce, and the 20-item lady said, “It’s okay with him; I asked before I started.”  The woman behind her goes, “Oh, I wish I had asked.  My husband’s down there [point]; we had to split our items up ’cause it’s taking so long.”

After that, the same woman says, “Why does this Stop and Shop have so few registers?  Have you ever been to the Hamden store?” The 20-item lady says, “No, why?” “Every time I’ve been there, every single register has been open for customers.”

“Oh…” says the other lady.

“I guess this Stop and Shop doesn’t really care about its customers too much if they can’t afford to open the rest of the registers.”

If I didn’t care about customers, I wouldn’t be there, on a Sunday night, tired as hell, ringing her out, bagging her shit, dealing with her bitchy self.  Sklsdasfjdgalklkf, I hate people.

I’m done. :)

It’s been over a week since I’ve written a post.  School and stuff has just gotten waaaaaaay too busy.

All my classes are going good so far.  The work is starting to pick up, but it’s nothing unbearable (yet).  I love my senior schedule; I have so much free time during my day to catch up on homework, relax somewhere, etc.  Plus, I get to leave at 12:30 every day, so that’s nice. :)

I completely skipped over getting the Dell.  It finally came on the 9th, and I love it so far.  I had a little trouble with the seller, which never got sorted out, but that’s another story.  The thing works for what I need it to do, even if it isn’t what I was expecting.

The Dell came with a SATA CD-ROM drive, which I promptly wanted to upgrade.  I kinda ordered fast from Newegg and got a DVD-ROM and CD-ROM drive without paying too much attention to the description.  This morning, I ordered a DVD-RW DL drive, and it’s coming tomorrow or Friday.  Whee :)

Also: we finally got cable internet on Friday!  It’s -such- a relief from the 150KB/s connection we were on before.  I’ve topped 3.4MB/s with SpeedBoost; it’s amaaaaaazingggggggggggg. Digital voice is pretty cool, too; the calls are a lot clearer than before.

I’m starting to work in the General Merchandise department for Stop and Shop.  I dunno who put me there, but at least it’s nice to have a little change.  Not looking forward to working from 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM on Saturday, though. :|

Speaking of Stop and Shop, it’s time for tonight’s rant.  Normally, I’ll tell a story of something that happened during my shift that day, but tonight’s special.  I wasn’t even -working- and something happened.

A couple weeks ago on my break, I went to the self-checkout to pay for the snack I bought.  On the screen of the self checkout is a button that mutes the lady’s narration as you scan stuff.  If you press it, she doesn’t talk during the scanning of items, but it automatically comes back on when you hit “Finish and Pay”.  I normally press the button, because I don’t really need to hear that annoying voice more than I do in a shift.  This one time, the woman in charge of the self checkouts comes up to me and asks why I muted it.  At the time, I thought she meant the scanner’s beep volume, as a previous customer had set it way low (and you couldn’t hear it too well).  I told her I hadn’t set the volume low, and turned it back up.  She then walked away.

So tonight, I went down to get some hummus and a laser pointer (random, I know).  I went to the self checkout, and hit the mute button on the screen (NOT the scanner beep button).  The woman stops talking, and I scan my two items.  Suddenly, I hear the same woman as before say, “I told you last time not to press that button, you’re not supposed to mute it.”  She then comes over, and I show her that the scanner beep was still at its loudest setting; the voice just wasn’t dictating prices.  She then says, “You’re not supposed to press that, don’t do it again, [etc.]“  I’m pretty sure she didn’t get that all that mute button does is stop the voice from talking, and it’s not a permanent setting.

Anyway, I plan to keep pressing it.  It’s there for the customers to use, and doesn’t harm the system in any way, shape or form.  If she has a problem, she can talk to the manager about it.

Whee.  That was fun. :)

I can’t believe September’s already half over.  Hopefully, sooner than later, it’ll be more like Fall outside.  Temperatures are already cooling off, but we’ve still been getting some warm and humid spikes here and there.  I just can’t wait for the cold weather. :D

…so instead of texting people, I’ll write a blog post. :)

To start off; I’ve got a couple work stories from Tuesday.  One involved a guy and his girlfriend, and the people waiting in line behind them.  A package of meat didn’t ring up as the “Save [$xx.xx] with your card!” price that was listed on the sticker, so I went to ask the front end manager what I should have done.  When I came back, the guy in the couple said, “I think they scanned their card while you were gone; could you check?”  Lo and behold, I scanned their card again, and it took off the next customers’ card number and put back the correct one.  The people behind them made comments under their breath, along the lines of “wtf is he talking about, I ain’t scan my card,” but didn’t bring anything up when I got to their order.

Later that night, a man came up to my register with a basket full of stuff.  He continued unloading it as I started to scan his items, and asked me what he should do with the basket.  Instead of making him walk back to the other end of the register, and since it wasn’t busy, I told him I’d take it.  As I was putting it in a storage cubby under my register, I heard my scanner beeping.  When I stood back up, I saw the guy pushing his stuff through my scanner onto the other belt.  Any cashier will know that this pretty much annoys the shit out of them, so I kinda reached into the pile of items and started taking them again, and the guy goes, “Sorry about that, I’ve just always had a secret desire to be a cashier. I thought to myself, “If you wanna be a cashier so badly, you can have my job.”

Whew, I wasn’t expecting those two stories to take up that much room.  Oh, well.  Onward!

On Wednesday, I bought a Dell Optiplex 330 on eBay (auction link here).  I normally wouldn’t buy something like that for that much on eBay, but with it being practically new, -and- including a 19″ LCD at $350, I thought it was a pretty good deal.  The seller shipped it on Thursday morning, and it should arrive here Monday or Tuesday.  I can’t wait!

I also got word that our Comcast appointment is Friday between 12:00 PM and 4:00 PM.  Not only will I have an ueber fast computer by then, we’ll also finally have internets faster than our current 150 KB/s DSL.  I’m gonna try to get out of school early or something so I can be here when they’re installing it.

Nothing really exciting happened at work today, so no more stories for this post.

As the title states, though, I did lose my phone.  I dunno where it is, but I can see on the AT&T Account History page that I’m getting a TON of texts from people.  Blah, of all times for me to lose it.  Seriously.  Hopefully, it’s in my brother’s Jeep, as that’s the last place I remember using it before coming home.  I’ll check it out when he gets home later.

Well, that’s it for now.  I hate to end posts on such an abrupt notice, but I always have trouble concluding things.  Eh.

…goes by too fast. I start school in one week. Blah.

Recently, my cat discovered the comfyness of my chair.  And now it’s hers.  I can’t get her off of it; when I pick her up and put her on the floor, she jumps right back on it.

Oh, well.

Stop and Shop went okay today.  We got in more competitor comparison tags (you know, those ones where it’s like, “omfg look at our price compared to [store]’s price WE’RE CHEAPER!”).  Also, we’re finally getting the redesigned sale tag stickers to put up in the place of the old ones for the switch on 8/22.

This morning, I was sitting on the floor in the pet food aisle sticking them up (as the ones I was working on were all on the bottom two shelves).  This guy comes walks by, and goes, “Comfy seat you got there, huh?”, seemingly sarcastically.  I chuckled a bit, but inside was like, “wtf, sorry for trying to be efficiently working.  I’ll just bend over and ruin my back/legs each time I have to put one up on the bottom shelf.”

I was constantly being called up to the front end to check people out as it got busier.  I wouldn’t have minded, except some select people throughout the time I was ringing were kinda annoying.  There was this one lady who said she forgot to bring her reusable bags in from the car.  So she loaded the belt, and said “I’ll be right back”, and went out to her car to get the bags.  She originally told me to go slow, so I’d still be ringing by the time she got back, but I didn’t want to slow down and mess up the items-per-minute level I’ve been scanning at.  She comes back in like a minute later with 5 bags to use.

I love the people who don’t give you their Stop and Shop card right away, then when in the middle of scanning, they go “STOP WAIT WAIT I HAVE MY CARD!”  Usually, I say “alrighty” and keep going, but there are some who will keep saying “Wait, hang on, hang on, hang on”  or “Stop. Stop. STOP.”  Then they proceed to dig through their purse/bag/pocket/wallet to find the card, which takes forever.

Gah.  This blog’s turning into something like The Irate Worker.  It’s just really hard not to rant out about the shenanigans that go on at that store. :P

I bought an iPod touch on Wednesday morning, and it’s supposed to show up here today.  I’m in the living room with the front door open.  I was worried they’d try to deliver the iPod while I was at work earlier.  No one else is home today, so no one would have been able to sign for it, and I’m too paranoid to leave a shipment prelease authorization.  So while I’ve been waiting here for FedEx to show up, I figured I’d write a blag post. :) Read the rest of this entry »

(As you may have read on my “About Me” page, I’m a cashier at Stop and Shop.  Just a couple things I wanna rant out:)

If the store is crowded, and I have my express light on, don’t come through my lane with a carriage full to the brim with items.  Especially when there are other non-express lanes empty and open.

Also, don’t put your stuff on the belt, and halfway through look up and realize that I’m an express lane.  Look at my light before you come through.  If I’ve got “Express: 12 Items or less” turned on, then I’m an express lane.  Which means you should have 12 items or less.  And, while on the subject, don’t ask me if I’m open if I’m just standing there.  If my light is on, that means I’m open.

(I have a brilliant idea; supermarkets should replace lane on/off lights with lights that actually say “Open” and “Closed”.  Like, actual words.) 

Finally, don’t get angry if I don’t take your carriage full of items.  I’m express for a reason; to get people out quickly who have small amounts of items.  Taking a full grocery load just slows everyone down.

That’s my rant for today.  Thanks for reading. :)