Okay so recently I got a job at Marsh as a cashier and yesterday I had my first shift. It was an experience. First of all it’s a lot harder than it looks and I feel really stupid for assuming it’s easy cause it’s not. My shift started off watching one of the more experienced cashiers at work – that’s fine. But she told me to help one of the baggers while I did so I wasn’t just standing there – also fine, except that the bagger working my first line was some foreign woman name Zoya who kept yelling “No!” at me, slapping my hand, unpacking my bags and then repacking them, almost always the same way I had packed them originally so I have no idea what her problem was. So then it got time for me to try to use the register. It was kind of odd at first, trying to find all the barcodes and stuff but that was also fine. I made a few mistakes but that was to be expected. The hardest part was the produce where you have to know like a thousand numbers because each item has a four digit code you have type in and costumers get annoyed if you don’t know it by heart and well Marsh sells a lot of different things.
But then there are the costumers. First of all if they don’t have their fresh idea card ready then you have to press a few buttons before you can ring them up and it takes a while and if they hand it to you in the middle of scanning you have to stop what you are doing to use the card and it caused a lot of mistakes. Once you ring them up they pay. Please people stop using checks – they are really a hassle for everyone. I mean I have to check signatures and stuff and the machines like to eat the checks, never fun. Oh yeah and the machine often chokes on the receipt.
My first trouble costumer was actually really nice but she was trying to buy this gift card for Home Depot and it’s a really new product and really messed up to ring up so my trainer helped me do it. I don’t know what happened but my register went all emo and killed itself, making both me and the woman wait thirty minutes. I felt bad for her but she was nice about it. A lot of the costumers were really understanding about it being my first day even this other woman who somehow I managed to ring up the same slab of meat like eight times and people had to come from the office to sort out what I did. But then there was the old man.
The old man was a story in and himself. He comes into my line smiling and we do the whole “welcome to marsh” “do you have a fresh idea card?” crap (by the way why are they even called fresh idea cards? Marsh is about the most uninspiring place I have worked) and I start to ring him up. I actually make no mistakes, which isn’t all that unusual as I hadn’t gotten into the swing of it by them. But the guy freaks out when I put a sticker on his gallon of milk. It’s bright pink and says thank you. We do it on anything that doesn’t go into a bag show its obvious that it’s not stolen or anything. Well he starts yelling at me to take it off because and I quote “I don’t want them in my refrigerator”. And this old guy starts cussing me out when I don’t do anything. First of it was my first day and the milk was already down by the bagger and I have really short arms. So I don’t know what to do or why he is freaking out so I’m standing there completely petrified as my trainer comes over and tells him that it’s my first day. Well he doesn’t care and he yells at her for while as she tries to explain that it is a security measure. Well he gets fed up yelling at her and turns back to me and I haven’t done anything yet. I’ve just been standing there. This time my bagger, a guy named Ron jumps to my defense to try to defuse the situation but the guy just keeps yelling and the cashier in the next line, behind this psychotic old guy turns around and gets involved. The man refuses to calm down until my trainer takes the stickers off. He pays and then leaves. So I’m just left standing there wondering what the fuck just happened. Like did he not know that the “thank you” on the sticker meant “thank for shopping at marsh” and not “thank you, your young cashier is now in possession of your soul or something”. Cause that was how he was acting like because of that sticker Marsh was able to possess the soul of the milk, the souls of any other food in the refrigerator and the souls of anyone who ate or drank anything in the fridge.
So that was my first day…I broke a cash register and ticked off an old guy with a bright pink sticker. I can’t wait for day number two…