Big Bills

Sometimes other clerks worry when there aren't any $20 bills in the till. Specifically, they're worried that they'll have a customer with a small sale who pays with a big bill, and then they won't have enough $20's to give out as change.

I don't worry. I just warn the customer that I don't have much change in my drawer, so they'll probably get a lot of five dollar bills as change. The prospect of $85 worth of $5's usually gets the customer to dig out some smaller bills or find a credit card.

It really works!

Sometimes It Pays To Speak Up

Work has been pretty stressful lately. We've been understaffed for months, it's been busy with both customers and incoming shipments, and to make matters worse, our bosses have been pestering us with extra projects.

H-Man and I got so frustrated that we decided to write a letter to our bosses, explaining how we felt. We invited another co-worker to read/comment/sign the letter, and he gladly accepted.

We turned the letter in today. We were quite nervous; we weren't sure what their response would be. Thankfully, they were pleased to get it. One of them even told me she was glad we cared enough to write it.

Hopefully they'll cut us some slack now!

Why Read a Sign When You Can Trip Over It?

One of our entrances has an inner and an outer door. When we close them, we put a sign in front of the inner door (saying "Please exit through the front door"), lock the outer door, and then lock the inner door. When I was new I didn't put the sign out until I was done locking both doors, but one day I had people come through the inner door after I'd locked the outer door, so I learned my lesson -- put the sign out!

Tonight, however, the sign didn't work. I was just about the lock the inner door when I saw a woman walk into the sign, glance down at it, and walk towards the door like she was going to leave. Obviously she didn't read the sign. Not sure why not, since she, you know, walked into it.

Sigh.

I explained that I had already locked up, politely pointed out the sign (that she had just run into), and told her how to find the front door. As she left, she made some comment about how she had thought it was weird that "that" (i.e. the sign) was in the way like that.

Yeah. That's because we want you to read it!

"Should I Have Asked That?"

I rang up a man in a wheelchair. He paid with a credit card and as I handed him the slip to sign, I worried that he might not be able to reach the counter to sign it. I asked him if he needed a clipboard to sign his slip. He said he didn't.

I suddenly worried that I had offended him and asked, "Should I have asked that?"

To my relief, he assured me that it was fine. In fact, he said he preferred to be asked that question than people who leave him hanging with no hard surface to use.

"I Can Count to 100!"

As I was ringing up a woman, her young son proudly announced to me, "I can count to 100!"

I said, "Wow!" After a moment I asked, "What comes after 100?"

He looked puzzled until his mom whispered, "101."

He turned back to me and told me, "101!"

I asked, "What's after 101?"

He quickly replied, "102!"

"And what's after 102?"

"103!"

I told him, "Now you can count to 103!"

Needless to say, he was very cute.

Swear Words

Yesterday we had non-stop deliveries at work. FedEx, UPS, an independent delivery company, FedEx again, a supplies company, Yellow Freight, and the water guy.

Breaks were delayed, space was tight, and much moving of boxes occurred.

After receiving the first (large) FedEx shipment, I went on my first break 45 minutes late. When I came back, I sent one of my other co-workers on his break. When he came back, I moved the FedEx boxes inside. It was finally time to send my other co-worker on her break. I went to the bathroom first, but as I was coming out of the bathroom I found my co-worker letting in the second FedEx delivery guy. Before I knew it, a bad word slipped out of my mouth. I apologized immediately, since I don't really like to swear.

The delivery guy laughed it off and said, "You're lucky. You can swear all you like in front of me, but if I swear in front of you, I get in trouble!"

Hello!

I'm back! I finally fixed all my computer issues (at least, I hope I did). I had gotten out of the blogging habit, but I think I'm ready to dive back in.

I'll post more soon, I promise! (Ummm...... Assuming my computer doesn't crash again, that is.)