When you go to purchase something, you deserve to be treated right. When I’m working, if you follow these five steps, you’ll be sure to get the highest quality service from me.

1. Say exactly what you want.

The best way to get what you want is to tell me what you want of me. Explain your situation, and be sure that that I understand the situation. If you need something completed within a certain time, be sure that I understand that and am able to have it done by that time limit. Keep an open lane for communication. Even though you probably think I’m working a shitty job (kind of true), I’m still trying to do my best and will try my best to make you happy.

2. If the result isn’t exactly how you wanted, say so.

If your unhappy with the end result, your not going to want to shop at that store again. I want you to shop at the store again, therefore I want you to be happy. The only way I can fix your problem is if I know there is something wrong

3. Be patient

I know you feel that your problem is the most important, but I have 3 other customers that I have to deal with who are also begging me of their attention. I’m only one person, and its impossible for me to to be in two places at once. The patient ones are the ones who will get discounts and things for free.

4. Remain Calm

The angry ones are the people who might get good service, but will not get great quality. I’ll explain. I might go out of my way to make sure the product that you receive is the best possible. If you are genuinely unkind to me and treat me in a manner that is disrespectful, I’ll be sure to be nice to you upfront, but be cursing you behind your back and probably not put in the extra effort to make sure everything comes out perfect. But thats only if you are really not nice

5. Reward (and Punish) accordingly

If I spend an extra long amount of time with you making sure that you are happy with your purchase, it would be beneficial to you to reward me. Next time that you come in, I’ll be sure to make extra sure you are still happy. If I genuinely messed up with your order, I should also be punished. Call over a manager either way and make sure they know about the quality of service I’ve provided.  I enjoy being rewarded by your thank yous, but that is not going to help me when I’m looking for referrals for my next job.

That in my opinion is the best way to get the best service out of me. It probably differs depending on the store and the person, but I am not working to piss people off, I want people leaving the store happy. Be sure to be polite and understanding of the way things go on. Many things are out of my control and I am just the messenger.

I was on register today. On register, we get to have some fun joking around with customers, especially when Benji is working. Benji is probably the funniest person I know, which leads to a lot of laughing behind the register.

Today, Benji says to a customer, “Don’t you think it would be nice if I put up a tip jar in front of my register?”

To which the customer smartly replied, “I’d be fine with it, the only problem is that it would be empty.”

Sometimes I love my job.

I like to read a good blog once in a while, which is why I read my own blog. But every once in a while, I stumble onto something that is really high quality. I was reading this story: Starbucks and it truly applies to my next story.

The reward system works against the employee in the cooperate setting. Even if I provide great service to all of my customers, its still very easy to become “punished”. The best reward you get at my job is to become “highlighted”. It basically means that you didnt fuck up too much when ringing people out. Because of technology these days, they track every purchase that you ring out. When something appears wrong, such as the coupon you rang out should not have rang through, but you put it in anyways because you felt bad that it expired yesterday, you get reprimanded. Since I’ve been working, I’ve been highlighted twice, and what has happened to me? Nothing. It’s basically getting a pat on the back for not losing the company too much money.

There is one other way to get feedback. Every 30 minutes or so, a phone number will print out on the bottom of the customers receipt. They’re supposed to call the number to enter into a chance to win $2,500. What they don’t know, is that if they don’t award top scores under each category, we get reprimanded.

I agree that we should strive to provide excellent service, but how many people are going to be enthralled to buy groceries, or pharmaceuticals, or groceries?

Anyways, because this past month we didn’t recieve “top scores” all the employees are supposed to sign a sheet posted in the back room claiming we’re going to “work our hardest” to bring the numbers up. The sheet is in a prominent area in the break room, and I very prominently applied my John Handcock. The thing is that I’m the only one who has signed the sheet.

Does that mean that I’m the only one who has to work my hardest?

The best way to reward an employee in a cooperate environment is to ask for the branch manager, or ask to leave a message for the branch manager, and tell them about the great service that employee is doing (but don’t mention that he gave you that product for free).

Step 1. The main interaction you have with most modern computers is with a mouse.  A mouse is displayed on screen via the cursor (the arrow thing).  When you move the mouse, the cursor is supposed to move in the same corresponding direction.  With a touch screen, the mouse is basically your finger, and when you press an area on the screen, the cursor will move to that corresponding area.

Step 2.  Click on things randomly.

Part of the job of working in the photo department is helping customers use the computers.  The computers are used to make prints from digital camera cards and CDs.  The keyword in my job description is helping.  The year is 2007, and I have decidedly lost faith in the American public.  There are people out in America who still don’t know how to use computers.  Computers have been mainstream for well over 10 years, yet there are those whom are hopeless when it comes to pointing and clicking.  I had to spend a good hour to an hour and a half teaching a woman how to use the computer.

Let it be known that we’re not dealing with a regular computer, these are specially designed Kodak Kiosks which are supposed to be easy enough for a five year old to use.

The funny thing is that even though I’ve been working in the photo department for over two months, I just kind of BS that I know how the machine works and hope I press the right buttons…

The store I work at is open every day of the year (not 24 hours a day), so it was conveniently open on the 4th of July, and I was conveniently assigned to work the night shift. The only problem with having a convenience store open on a holiday is that it is dead quiet… there was a time where for an hour straight the store was completely empty. As a cashier that leaves me with a lot to do.

Since there was nothing to do, all the employees decided to do the next most productive thing we could think of. We purchased candies from the candy isle and proceeded to ignore the candy and just get them for the edible tattoos. Now considering (most) of us are past the maturity level of a kindergartener, it was an interesting experience seeing grown men place Teanage Mutant Ninja Turtle tattoos all over interesting (to say the least) body parts.

In case you were wondering, I was Leonardo.

Last week I recieved a drunk dial from someone who works at the store.

They recognized me.

The person who committed the crime was (thankfully) only a store manager and not a branch manager. But he could make my life hell.

He came up to me while I was at the register and proceeded to taunt me. He then took all of the boxes of gum (impulse buys for customers) and dumped them one by one onto my counter. In the middle of a crowded store, I had probably close to 200 packs of gum spewed over the counter for me to repackage in their correct box of gum. He then walked away.

I would have done something to stop him, but he is a 6′4″ black man, and I’m only 5′6″.

I have a line of customers at the register.  A tall person with glasses on is next in line.  I decide to greet the person warmly.

“Hello, Sir”

But then she took off her glasses.  I start to immediately apologize  for my mistake of calling someone who clearly is not a man a man.  It led to one of the most awkward conversations in my life.  I should have noticed the hand bag, the lipstick, or even the nicely painted finger nails of this middle class, middle age woman.

Or maybe it wasn’t a woman and my intuition was right for the first time in my life…

There is a store phone up in the front next to the registers.  We are supposed to answer it as quickly as possible as to not let them wait.  Usually we pick it up within 2 rings, even if its busy.  However, it gets hard when there are a lot of people waiting to be rung up and it gets ridiculous when the people on the phone ask what the store hour are when had they pressed the number before it on the automated answering machine.

Anyways, tonight I’m on register with three people waiting on line, which is a lot because people don’t like waiting on lines.  So I get a call and pickup, “Hi this is (Insert name here) from (Insert company here) how may I help you?

The person takes forever to respond, asking me to repeat my name twice and says, “why are you acting so formal?”  Now by this time I know this has to be someone who works here.  So I figure I’ll have a little fun and hang up on them.

I take the next customer, but the villain calls back.   I know it’s them because no one calls at 9 pm on a Sunday.   This time the person sounds much more official.  He says that he is the newly appointed regional manager and is coming in right now to speak with me and the manager on duty to discuss my behavior on the phone.

Oh crap, I hope that that was a drunk dial.

Tonight I get a call to the office over the PA.  They want me to take another test.

Every couple of months, employees are required to take tests administered by the national company to make sure everyone’s on the right track.  The tests are administered as multiple choice questions over the phone.  The cool thing is that you have to receive a 100 to pass.  It is amazing how everyone in the store passes…

I was called down to the office, the manager holds out the multiple choice sheet with all the questions on it and says 1, 1, 2, 4, 1.  And I just kind of look at her.  She dials the number to headquarters and puts in the test number.  Its asks for the answer to the first question.  I put in 1 without looking at the question.  I got a 100 on the test.

What are these tests supposed to test you ask?  Employee theft.  Those who are supposed to prevent employees from stealing from the company are promoting an environment of deception.  What harm can come from having employees actually take the test?  Kevin would probably get it wrong.

There is always the person at work who you know you should avoid. You know, the guy who you would not want to get on his bad side. I asked a couple of coworkers who they would least like to fight… they both said this guy. Let’s call him Kevin. Kevin loves to talk about how drunk he gets on his off days. Recently he asked me if he smelled like alcohol… I guess he found the vodka in the storage room.

Anyways, this story is about the time a woman he was talking to gets angry at Kevin on his off hours. He first started hitting on her, but then decided it would be more fun to make fun of her. She gets offended and warns him that her uncle is an FBI agent and can really screw with him. Kevin responds that his brothers’ a Crip and fathers’ a Hells Angel. This kind of shuts her up. The crazy thing was that she was kidding. He wasn’t.

I guess I’ll have to be nicer to him when we’re stocking shelves together.