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I feel for my daughter sometimes ...


Luanne
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She is 25 years old (for those of you who don't know) and is a cashier at Wal-Mart.  People seem to think that because she is "just" a cashier, they can treat her like crap.  She is on lunch and just called me.  Apparently a couple came through her lane.  They were behind another person.  My daughter was scanning that person's items and just being friendly.  The couple started screaming at her that she wasn't moving fast enough and to step it up.  She nicely told them she would try, but they just kept screaming.  Finally, she got a manager over to her lane and they started screaming at the manager as well.  Why do people think it is ok to scream at anyone ... especially a stranger in a store who is working?  I don't get it.

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This is just so very wrong. Nothing excuses that sort of behavior. I hope the manager was supportive of your daughter.

 

Yes, the manager was.  Another customer that was nearby also backed up my daughter.  I think it was good in this case that the customers yelled at the manager as well.  That way it was obvious my daughter was telling the truth.

 

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I hate shopping at Wal-Mart because I run into rude people all the time (not usually the cashiers).  Hugs to your daughter.

 

 I had to step in and defend a cashier several weeks ago.  She was new, she was trying, but the lady gave her a huge stack of newspaper coupons.  And a lot of them didn't apply.  The lady was getting really belligerent so I stepped in to try and explain that the coupons are for very specific items and the cashier has to check each one individually and pair it with the item.  There is no barcode on these like with some coupons.  The lady had a HUGE basket of groceries.  I felt so bad for the cashier.  She was nearly in tears.  Rudeness was not helping the situation at all.

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This is just so very wrong. Nothing excuses that sort of behavior. I hope the manager was supportive of your daughter.

:iagree:

 

What is wrong with people? Are they so incredibly miserable with their own lives that they have to berate a cashier at Walmart???

 

Sure, I know they would say that they are so incredibly important and a lowly cashier doesn't matter, but the fact is that if they're spending their time trying to make themselves feel important by picking on other people, their self-esteem isn't all that high. I hate people like that!

 

I remember when I was younger and still dating different guys, and my mom always used to remind me that even if the guys treated me like a queen, to watch how they treated the waiters and the valets, because if they acted like jerks to them, they weren't nice people. She was so right about that!!!

 

I'm sorry about what happened to your dd, Luanne. :(

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:iagree:

 

What is wrong with people? Are they so incredibly miserable with their own lives that they have to berate a cashier at Walmart???

 

Sure, I know they would say that they are so incredibly important and a lowly cashier doesn't matter, but the fact is that if they're spending their time trying to make themselves feel important by picking on other people, their self-esteem isn't all that high. I hate people like that!

 

I remember when I was younger and still dating different guys, and my mom always used to remind me that even if the guys treated me like a queen, to watch how they treated the waiters and the valets, because if they acted like jerks to them, they weren't nice people. She was so right about that!!!

 

I'm sorry about what happened to your dd, Luanne. :(

Great advice!  I would add to that, watch closely how they treat their parents, grandparents and siblings...and how the rest of the family treats them.

 

 

I hope your DD feels better now, Luanne.  Let her know she has lots of support from the Hive.   :grouphug:

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Yes, the manager was. Another customer that was nearby also backed up my daughter. I think it was good in this case that the customers yelled at the manager as well. That way it was obvious my daughter was telling the truth.

 

I'm glad to hear that the manager and another customer supported your dd.

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I forgot to mention... at least the manager backed her up. They told the couple to leave the store.

:hurray: :hurray: :hurray: :hurray:

 

That's good to hear! But those people must have really been off their rockers if they got themselves kicked out of the store. :eek: Your dd is lucky they didn't start throwing things!!!

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FWIW, working with the public is hard no matter what position you have.  I've had plenty of customer service type jobs.  Some people are just arses. 

 

:iagree: You get chewed out whether you own the business, manage it, or are an hourly employee. The vast majority of people are so nice. The people that are lousy are REALLY lousy. I just try to remember they would have to be pretty miserable people to behave like that and I'm glad I'm not them!

 

:grouphug: to your daughter. No one deserves to be treated disrespectfully.

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This is exactly the reason I think that just registering with the Selective Service isn't enough.

When all kids turn 18 we should require they register with the Inclusive Service.

That's my proposed agency where customer service jobs are required for at least one year before a person turns 24.

:laugh:

 

It won't get rid of all jerks, but it should reduce a decent portion of them - and pretty quickly!

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My older children have all worked as flaggers for the county and they've all run into some doozies. Yeah, they know you want to get where you're going and yeah, it's a pain to be stopped, but it's not exactly the FLAGGER'S fault! One day, my dd felt so threatened that she called the sheriff and let the guy through. She radioed ahead that the guy wasn't stopping and let's just say, the road crew stopped him. They surrounded him with bulldozers until the sheriff got there. Bet he didn't threaten a county worker again! One dd felt so threatened that she pulled her gun, but it WAS a black bear, not a person... She never flagged that road again without a truck close by to retreat into.

BLACK BEAR! EEK! :)

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I remember when I was younger and still dating different guys, and my mom always used to remind me that even if the guys treated me like a queen, to watch how they treated the waiters and the valets, because if they acted like jerks to them, they weren't nice people. She was so right about that!!!

 

 

 

I tell my daughter the same thing!  And how they treat old people too...

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Rude people are rude to everyone. She is probably snotty to her doctor, neighbor, and family, too.   

 

But sorry that your dd was treated poorly. It drives me crazy how so many people have no patience when they are in public. Someone has assembled the products you need all under one roof, priced them reasonably, and you're going to be mad that you have to stand in line for ten minutes to check out?

 

 

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Having worked in retail, I try to have patience with people that are working retail now.  I tend to be the one that further pisses off the impatient customers, because when they try to get me to agree that the cashier is incompetent, I refuse to.  Instead I tell the cashier that I am sorry, and some people do still have patience.  When the customer sees that I don't agree with their acting like an a$$, they usually just stand and seethe in silence.

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I have spent many years working as a cashier including a few years at Walmart. I shudder to think of being a WM cashier again. I would not have the patience to deal with the rude customers now. When I worked at Kroger's earlier this year, it was difficult to keep in check with a couple of people. Fortunately, most people are friendly. I find indifferent people to be almost as bad as rude ones. It doesn't take much to at least respond to someone politely saying hello to you. When I worked at a gas station people would come in, throw cash on the counter, and walk out. No hello, no saying how much on what pump, nothing. Just rude. I feel bad for the cashiers when I'm behind someone who doesn't even acknowledge that the cashier exists and is actually another human being.

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I'm so sorry you dd is treated so badly.  My dd worked in retail, and I remember her in tears more often that should have happened.  Some people are just plain nasty and rude.  There is absolutely no excuse for their behavior.  I tend to think they are usually miserable people on the inside.  I mean, retail is hard work.  You're on your feet all day, dealing with the public, taking crap off customers.  What kind of people just want to dump more on other people are beyond my comprehension - they must really feel rotten inside.

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My older children have all worked as flaggers for the county and they've all run into some doozies. Yeah, they know you want to get where you're going and yeah, it's a pain to be stopped, but it's not exactly the FLAGGER'S fault! One day, my dd felt so threatened that she called the sheriff and let the guy through. She radioed ahead that the guy wasn't stopping and let's just say, the road crew stopped him. They surrounded him with bulldozers until the sheriff got there. Bet he didn't threaten a county worker again! One dd felt so threatened that she pulled her gun, but it WAS a black bear, not a person... She never flagged that road again without a truck close by to retreat into. 

 

:hurray: That was very smart thinking on her part. Only a complete idiot fights with a bulldozer.

 

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Some people suck.

 

: (

 

I'm sorry to hear that.  I don't get it either.

 

:iagree:   If you haven't already, you might tell her that it isn't about her or her job.  Some people suck no matter where they are or who they are dealing with.  She could just as easily have been a lawyer, or a teacher, or a nun.  Those people would have still been awful.

 

It's not an excuse, of course, but it can make you feel better to realize that it's them, not you.

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This is exactly the reason I think that just registering with the Selective Service isn't enough.

When all kids turn 18 we should require they register with the Inclusive Service.

That's my proposed agency where customer service jobs are required for at least one year before a person turns 24.

:laugh:

 

It won't get rid of all jerks, but it should reduce a decent portion of them - and pretty quickly!

 

I have often thought much the same thing!

 

I used to bruise people's avocados if they were horrible to me.

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Went through something like this at Trader Joe's last week. Some old guy pulled up in line behind me as the cashier and I chatted about chocolate and what I was going to do with my chocolate (while she continued to check me out and I bagged my groceries). I even offered him a taste of chocolate and he said no. Well, evidently this made him even more mad and he shoved my purse which was on the counter since I was bagging my stuff (I'm a little controlling about my avocados, Rosie ;)).

 

That was it. Don't mess with me or my stuff! So I said, "back off!" And he did, and murmured something about the two of us talking no stop and I told him to go get in another lane if he didn't want to be behind me. Old toot! So rude to just pull up behind someone in line and expect them to stop the world for you. Narcissism at Trader Joes...guess it's everywhere.

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Went through something like this at Trader Joe's last week. Some old guy pulled up in line behind me as the cashier and I chatted about chocolate and what I was going to do with my chocolate (while she continued to check me out and I bagged my groceries). I even offered him a taste of chocolate and he said no. Well, evidently this made him even more mad and he shoved my purse which was on the counter since I was bagging my stuff (I'm a little controlling about my avocados, Rosie ;)).

 

That was it. Don't mess with me or my stuff! So I said, "back off!" And he did, and murmured something about the two of us talking no stop and I told him to go get in another lane if he didn't want to be behind me. Old toot! So rude to just pull up behind someone in line and expect them to stop the world for you. Narcissism at Trader Joes...guess it's everywhere.

 

I want to go shopping with YOU! Offering chocolate and standing up to bullies in the check-out area. You're my hero!

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Let me preface this with saying that I am a person who has to struggle with not just punching the nasty person in the nose and getting on with life.

 

However... have you told your dd the old saying that "Hurt people hurt people"? Usually those people who are being so incredibly difficult have received some terribly poor treatment in their lives and their way of coping with that is to spew it forward and onto others. That is not any kind of excuse, just perhaps an explanation of why they might be doing something like that. Because IME, one of the big things that causes one to freeze in a situation like this is wondering what you did wrong. It probably has very little to do with your dd. Ask her whether she thought the people would have acted any differently if they had gotten in any other line that day.

 

Perhaps you and your dd can role play and she can work out a few boilerplate responses to try to settle the grouches down a bit. "I'm sorry you are having this problem. I don't have the authority to fix it, so let me call someone over who does.", or whatever. Also let her get used to someone yelling at her and let her find out what physical distance is best (out of arm's length), etc.

 

It will not make the next time easy, but she will perhaps be calmer and more prepared. And respond in a way that keeps her safe, reflects well on her and her employer, and attempts to defuse the situation. And if all that fails and they try to initiate physical contact, just punch them in the nose!

 

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I have always worked some sort of customer service job. Even though dh and I own a restaurant I wait tables a few days a week. There are some people who need a cheap power fix and try to make people feel bad for no reason. I read lots of positive thinking books, go to good church, associate with good friends to avoid becoming a jerk myself. I've seen customer service people who are real jerks themselves. They learned from the best, lol.

 

Today a woman who was leaving, (who saved the part of her breakfast she didn't eat so she must have been happy with her food) told me that I had had three tables leave because I was too busy to take care of them. I gave her a look, because three tables had come in all around the same time that wanted lunch and we were still on breakfast. They didn't leave because I didn't serve them, they left because they wanted a different meal than what we had at that time. She then told me that they hadn't really left because they didn't want breakfast. Uhhmmm, no, but she wanted to make someone feel bad, I was in front of her, and she couldn't very well complain about her food when her husband cleaned his plate and she was taking her leftovers, lol. It has taken years to get to a place where I can let these people go, but I can. Also, it is very rewarding to see how perturbed these people look when they can see they didn't shake you up.

 

Luanne, if your dd is going to keep working in this sort of job she will be rewarded if she learns the mental discipline to keep these people out of her head. It takes work, but it is sooooo worth it.

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However... have you told your dd the old saying that "Hurt people hurt people"? Usually those people who are being so incredibly difficult have received some terribly poor treatment in their lives and their way of coping with that is to spew it forward and onto others. That is not any kind of excuse, just perhaps an explanation of why they might be doing something like that. Because IME, one of the big things that causes one to freeze in a situation like this is wondering what you did wrong. It probably has very little to do with your dd. Ask her whether she thought the people would have acted any differently if they had gotten in any other line that day.

 

Perhaps you and your dd can role play and she can work out a few boilerplate responses to try to settle the grouches down a bit. "I'm sorry you are having this problem. I don't have the authority to fix it, so let me call someone over who does.", or whatever. Also let her get used to someone yelling at her and let her find out what physical distance is best (out of arm's length), etc.

 

It will not make the next time easy, but she will perhaps be calmer and more prepared. And respond in a way that keeps her safe, reflects well on her and her employer, and attempts to defuse the situation. And if all that fails and they try to initiate physical contact, just punch them in the nose!

 

I do totally agree with this.  I do much better in situations like this if I remind myself there are reasons people act this way and it is never because they feel great about themselves.  And it's never about YOU it's about them. 

 

Does your dd dislike cashiering/service in general or just hates these types of interactions?  If she is planning on staying with this job or similar job long term, it's really good to be able to develop some strategies so idiots like this don't ruin your day and these type of interactions can just roll off her back.  If this really isn't her cup of tea, she should be working on a detailed exit strategy to move to a job that is a better fit for her. 

 

I don't think it's about Walmart either.  I've seen some pretty rude, entitled behavoir at high end places too.  It does sound like she handled it well at the moment and so did the manager, so kudos for that!

 

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I think any time a person works with the public in any type of job they are going to come across rudeness.  Some people that just enjoy being rude and embarrassing others will use this opportunity to mistreat them.  They know the person has to take the treatment to a certain point and will use that opportunity to act like a jerk.  

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 I worked as a cashier at a grocery store the summer between college and medical school. It was definitely an eye-opening experience. The absolute worst was working the express lane. People would count each others items and then get mad at me if someone was ahead of them with 11 items (and the max was 10). And the coupons! AAAAAH! I still rarely use coupons to this day because of the trauma from dealing with people and their coupons. I tried to understand that people were often tired or worried about money or whatever but it still made it hard to be yelled at and treated horribly. I think everyone should have to work some kind of customer service job because it definitely has made me much more understanding with slow cashiers or new waiters. I don't tolerate rudeness in customer service people but I am very patient with people who are new or overwhelmed but trying their hardest. 

 

One of the things that bugs me the most in our office is that many people come in and are incredibly rude to our front desk staff. And then they come back and are sweet as anything to me, the doctor. Most of the time the thing they are upset about it not the fault of the front desk but of the doctor so it's just the wrong person to be rude to (and not only is it rude but it's ineffective as the front desk can't change what they are mad about). 

 

 

I remember when I was younger and still dating different guys, and my mom always used to remind me that even if the guys treated me like a queen, to watch how they treated the waiters and the valets, because if they acted like jerks to them, they weren't nice people. She was so right about that!!!

 

 

 

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Retail can really suck.  I vividly recall going home crying when I worked at a grocery store bakery. And my daughter got treated that way a few times too at the garden center she worked at.   It's like if you are behind a counter, you are fair game to be treated like crap.  It is so wrong.  I am sorry that happened to her.

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My mom and my sister treat people this way.  I'd like to publicly apologize for them. 

 

As to the theory that hurt people hurt other people.... I dunno.  I can't imagine anything that hurt my sister that bad that she had to turn on other people.  My mom, maybe -- but only because I don't know what was going on in her life before I was around.

 

The fact is, some people are just jerks.  Or maybe they're on drugs or something that make them crabby.

 

I have discovered though, that I can get an inordinate self-esteem boost from being nice to people.  When I have to complain about something, it always makes me feel bad.  So what sort of person gets a self-esteem boost from being mean?  It's like their brains are wired differently.

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I used to work at a Marshall's.  I figured it was maybe just discount places that bring about the crabby people -- the *screaming* that would sometimes happen up at the cash registers....

 

There were customers that would throw items at employees and plate glass windows.  It could get terrifying.

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One only needs to see reports of the frenzy on Black Friday to know for a lot of people, acquiring stuff is enough reason to abandon any sort of civilized veneer.

 

I have worked, starting at 16 yo, at jobs in fast food, retail, grocery, the airline industry and eventually hospitality.

 

I have no patience at all for the lunacy of people. They have no excuse for bad behavior.

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 If they were in that big of a hurry, why did they go to Walmart in the first place? It's not exactly a quick-shop.

 

I never go to Walmart if I'm in a hurry. I've seen cashiers being treated badly in many places, but often (at least in my area) it's worse at Walmart. It can be frustrating to shop there, but sometimes it's necessary when you live in a city with few to no alternatives. The place is often packed and they have like 30 registers with only 4, plus a few self pay ones open.

 

None of the above is a cashier's fault and no matter how frustrating it is, there's no excuse for being rude. I'm sorry your daughter had to deal with that. Unfortunately it probably won't be the last time.

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