Thursday, January 10, 2019

Walmart: The First Day of Training

In November of 2001, I showed up at Walmart in San Diego and started my training as a cashier. I'd run a cash register before when I worked for Landmark Theatres, but this was going to be a completely new experience. I had no idea what all it entailed.

After I clocked in using my badge, I reported to the store's Front End. Here is where I would find a Customer Service Manager, someone who supervised the cashiers. This person was responsible for assigning cashiers to registers and sending people to breaks and lunches. I would find out later there was a team of CSMs and there could be up to three of them working at any time.

She sent me to train with this one woman. She started by having me run merchandise across the scanner and using the gun to scan the larger items in the baskets. She demonstrated how to bag the items. She showed me how to collect payments in cash, ring up coupons, approve checks, credit card and debit transactions. I also got to learn how to remove the anti-theft tags from the clothes and other merchandise. This was of particular interest to me. The bad thing was that the device used to remove those tags was also embedded with the element that would make the alarm at the door go off, so there was no way I was going to be able to walk out with that.

For whatever reason, my trainer kept getting sent to other cashier locations in the store. She had to train me on how to do returns at the Customer Service desk and putting items on Layaway. My head was swimming at this point. It was a lot to take in. I was starting to understand why I would encounter really slow cashiers those times I shopped at Walmart.

Later in the day, I met Ms. E, the Front End Manager. I wasn't completely aware of where she stood in the hierarchy because that wasn't really explained. The whole day had been a collage of going this way and that and meeting and trying to remember everyone's names and positions. When she met me, she asked me if I would be interested in working in the Layaway department. I was so overcome with everything I was learning that I just couldn't respond. All I could think in my head was, "I'm just starting to learn all this and you want me to do something different?" I found out later that there were only two male cashiers on the staff, including me. She was looking for someone to help with the heavy lifting. She probably noticed the stunned expression on my face and told me not to worry about it.

After lunch, my trainer was told to go work the register at Electronics. She trained me how to work the register there. The main difference was that there was only a hand-held scanner there. While I was ringing up customers, Lilz from my old job happened to come up to buy something. It helped to see a friendly face on my first day of training. She had to write a check. I told her that even though I knew her, I still needed to see her ID. I would see Lilz in the store one more time and then never again after that.

At the end of the day, my trainer showed me how to dump all my cash into a zipper bag and turn it into the cash office. I was a little perplexed by this. I was surprised that we were not required to count the money in the drawer and try to balance. I guess they didn't give you time to do that. (And I found out it was a little impossible to do if you worked past midnight when the store closed. Anything you rang up after 12am went on the next day's count and you couldn't get an accurate amount.)

I came in the next two days and trained with the same woman. At the end of the third day, she said I was ready to be on my own and had Ms. E come up with a schedule for me. I would be working morning shifts the first couple of weeks, including on Black Friday. Everything we had been doing was leading up to that. This will be the topic of my next post on Monday.

But I would like to take this chance to address a shortcoming in my training. One of the things that was not explained directly to me was that I should avoid putting chemical products and foods in the same bag. I mean, yes, this is common sense. But when you're trying to take in all this information and properly execute it, you really aren't thinking about these aspects of bagging. (Not to mention that my trainer did most of the bagging while I was scanning and ringing up customers.) I had to have a customer yell at me before that common sense thing kicked in. Later, I took the Computer-Based Learning courses about how to cashier. One of them did explain that we were not to put the chemicals and food in the same bag. Well, I should have taken these courses before I started to train. Anytime I trained someone after that, I made sure that the first thing I told them was to not put chemicals and food in the same bag.

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