Close Enough For Government Work

This lovely rainy morning in PA, I was scheduled to work from 10am to 7pm. I was scheduled, happily, I might add, to be outside selling Christmas trees.

I spent all of 1 hour outside...happy, AFTER they decided to get my passive-aggressive ass a heater. The toothpicks & saran wrap hut is always a happy place when I do actually have a little bit of heat that I don't have produce my-own-self.

Anyway, about an hour into my lovely rainy day in PA, I have a real-live customer. He plunks his two Christmas cacti on my counter and I scan 'em. I'm still in my happy place. I hit the total button, and he hands me a $20 bill and a nickel to pay for it. I owe him $1.01 in change...and as the drawer comes open, I gots nuttin'.

Well, actually, what I have is great big fistfuls of AIR. Apparently, no one thought to tell the money girl to put, you know, money in that drawer.

So, okay. I've played this game before. Call and get the guy his change...and they'll bring me money so I can continue my day in my happy place.

Guy takes his stuff to his car. He comes back, in time to see one person bring me ONE dollar and ONE penny. He saw the gaping black hole-ness of my money drawer, so he knows I do not have any money...and that the one person who came outside WITH any money did NOT bring me more than ONE dollar and ONE cent.

What do you think this jackass does?

You'd be correct if you say, "He chooses something ELSE to purchase and brings it up to me....and hands me another $20 bill to pay for it."

That's right: he KNOWS I have no way to give him change. So he hands me another $20 bill to pay for $8.46 cents worth of crap. He tells me, "I only have 20's."

I tell him, "I don't have any thing more than the $20 bill and the nickel you just gave me a few minutes ago."

He tells me, "I only have a $20."

I tell him I can call and see if they can bring me his change from inside, OR he can go inside and pay in there.

He begins to dig thru his wallet, and he comes up with one $5 bill and two $1 bills. He hands that to me and says, "There, close enough."

I tell him I need another $1.46. He tells me he doesn't have it. I tell him I cannot accept $7 for the $8.46 purchase he's making

He says, "it's all I have."

I ask him, "Did you see my empty drawer last time?" He scrounges thru his pockets and hands me another $1 bill. "There, that's close enough."

I tell him, "No sir, it's not. I still need 46 cents."

He blinks at me for a few minutes, then hands me 44 cents. I declare it "Close enough for government work!" and then, after he leaves, they close my happy place and send me inside.

75% Off Your IQ

Customer brings an item to the register that is marked 75% off. We have to reduce the price at the register, so we do. We had to get the regular price, then do the math--I always CYA and do the math. The customer watches me do the math, and then argues that the $1.50 price that is typed into the register is wrong.

Guy: It's supposed to be 75% off.

Cashier: Yes, and that's what I reduced it to.

Guy: No, I watched her do the math. She did 25%, not 75%.

I step in to help her out, in part because I did the math for her, and in part because she's already having a really bad day and is stressed out.

M: Sir, $1.50 is 75% off the original price.

Guy, still arguing: But you did 25%.

M: Yes, because you are paying 25% of the original price.

Guy: I don't get it. It's supposed to be 75% off. That'd be less than $3.

M: Yes, sir. 75% off means you will pay 25% for it. And $1.50 is less than $3 dollars.

Guy: But that's not what you have up there.

M: Yes, sir, it is. $1.50 is the price you will pay, before tax.

Guy: But it's supposed to be 75% off.

I show him the "long" way to do the math. I times the original price by the percent off (75%, in case you forgot) and get $4.50. I then subtract 4.50 from 6.00 and get the $1.50 that's showing on my register.

Guy: That's what I'm saying. I should pay $1.50, not $4.50.

M: Yes, sir, and THAT IS WHAT IT SAYS, RIGHT HERE. (I point, again, to the price listed on my screen)

Guy: Is that less than $3? 75% off is less than $3.

M: YES.

Ho Ho Ho

We are in full Christmas mode:  the music, the crap, the tinsel, more crap, the wreaths, the trees, the crap. And don't forget the life size talking Santa.

Apparently, the last of the life size talking Santas was sold...and the lucky customer will be in later to pick him up, so he is currently standing behind the registers, near the first aid wall box. Also near the wall box is the Cart Test, that lovely collection of crap that we, as cashiers, must scan, while looking for the hidden treasures (read: things stuffed into other things in an effort to reinforce to us to open everything during the check out process.)

Today, I notice that Santa is moving, even though he's not plugged in. There's someone squatting down in front of Santa with their hands up his pants, and the top half of their head cover by his coat...Santa is leaning forward...

Regardless of why Santa needed moved, I am amused by taking it out of context and giggling about it all day.

Up On The Housetop...

My Sweetie talked to his mother today. Apparently, his father decided that today would be a good day to clean out the chimney, so the woodstove would fireup better.

Keeping in mind that the Old Man didn't want to get up on the ladder last month to clean out his gutters, or his daughters gutters, he got out the ladder and got up on the roof. He had his scrubbing brush with him and he scrubs the crud out of the chimney.

He then realizes that at 83 years old, and with gout in his foot & leg, he can't get his legs swung back onto the smaller of his two ladders to get down.

My mother-in-law and the anxiety prone sister-in-law have to get the big aluminum ladder from the garage and drag it around to where they can put it up to the roof so he can get down. If they hadn't been home, or my mother-in-law had been home alone, he'd have been stuck up there for hours, or until the fire department was called.

Lovely.

Phone-A-Friend

So much stupidity and insanity... all in one 8 hour day. Lucky lucky me.

First, I answered the phone.

"How may I direct your call?"

"How would I know? What do you think? Water heaters, I guess."

Sure, you betcha! Water heaters it is!

Next, we have the phone call I took in the middle of all this: Guy calls and wants me to look up his mastercard (we have a store-only card, a visa, and now an American Express, but no mastercard) and tell him his sales history. I explain he needs to call his card company, and they can give him that info...he insists that I can not only look up his mastercard history, I can give him his receipt FROM 2 YEARS AGO!

What fucking plane of reality do these people live on...and how do they manage to direct dial me?