In my last post, I described a few more things I didn't like about working at Walmart. Here are a couple more to list, but they deserve their own post.
I got to the point that I actualy enjoyed working as a cashier. I was kept busy all day and didn't have as many problems moving the customers and ensuring I could do as much as possible without the involvement of the CSMs. I noticed other cashiers had issues with resolutions on their own and their lines were constantly getting backed up. This resulted in me generally exceeding my performance goals on a daily basis.
I enjoyed regular cashiering so much that it really bugged me to be sent to work the outlying registers, like the Layaway or the Return Desks.
Layaway wasn't really an issue when it came to ringing up the items the customers wanted to pay for later. I would enter in the customer's personal information, enter in the merchandise and create labels so we could identify them. They would then be taken to the storage area and catalogued so we could locate them later. It was also fine when customers just wanted to make a payment without retrieving their merchandise.
Between January and October, this wasn't too much of a hassle, as long as the storage location was properly entered in, along with the number of boxes the items were stored in. If all the information was accurate, it was easy to locate the customer's merchandise and bring it out when they were ready to pay the total amount and receive it. We would have a few hiccups from time to time, but I never had an incident in which we could not locate the merchandise.
However, for November and December, a LOT of customers were putting items into Layaway for Christmas. It exceeded our storage capacity in the back and we had to put the items in storage trailers outside. This was when we would encounter all kinds of problems with the documentation and storage of merchandise.
I was told that I was supposed to take the customer's final payment and then go look for their stuff. I had a few incidents in which I couldn't immediately find everything outside in the trailers. Sometimes, there would be a box that was put in a separate location or the item was moved since it was first put away to make room for larger items without changing the documentation. After this happened a few times, I waited until I came back to the desk with the item before I took the customer's payment.
One time, I went out to the trailer because there were supposed to be two boxes. I found one, but not the other. Another cashier came out and scolded me because I hadn't taken the payment. I told her I wanted to make sure I had the items because of the history of documentation not being accurate. I looked in the one box and found all the items on the ticket were in that one box, not two boxes. I showed this as exactly why I wouldn't take the final payment first.
I was working Layaway close to Christmastime when I wound up working more than six hours without a lunch break. The Assistant Manager wouldn't let me take my lunch. It didn't matter that there were about 20 customers waiting in Layaway, I started screaming at him that I needed to take my lunch. He still wouldn't let me go. (He was one of those First in Line twerps who had no awareness of California labor laws.)
But I didn't have to work Layaway that often. It was mostly unbearable before Christmas. I was surprised at how much I had to work the Return Desk.
People had to come see us if they wanted to return or exchange an item. If the customer had a receipt, it wasn't a problem most of the time. However, if you work the Return Desk on a regular basis, it starts to feel like everything you rang up at the front end was coming back to the Return Desk. It honestly felt like we weren't really making any money.
Not to mention that the Return Desks at the two Walmart locations I worked were consistently busy. There was ALWAYS a line! We had one cashier who transferred to San Diego from a store in Texas. She was flabbergasted that the staff just could not catch a break, even with four cashiers working the desk at once. She said that at her old store, there would be a few busy times, but they frequently had downtime to take care of all the go-backs and claims.
Once, I was asked to give a cashier at the Return Desk a break. I thought I was just going to be there 15 minutes. When she came back, I got ready to go. However, another cashier said I needed to stay so that ALL the Return cashiers could take their breaks. I got mad because the CSM did not indicate I was going to have to stay that long. So, I had to keep working the Returns for more than an hour until the other three had taken their breaks. (That's right. They didn't adhere to the 15 minute break they were supposed to take.) I got ready to go and the first cashier I had been sent to relieve said,"Oh, no! You can't go yet! It's time for my lunch!" I took my till and walked away. (Ugh! It was time for MY break!)
When a cashier works the Return Desk, they system won't account for your performance stats for that day, even if you just work Returns for 15 minutes. This could create a problem when it came to the annual performance review. I had one month in which I had no stats whatsoever because I had been sent to work in Returns at some point during every single shift.
And I'm not even going to get into the stories in which people tried to rip us off by returning items in exchange for cash or gift cards. I may revisit that topic sometime in the future.
I preferred the structured mayhem of the front end checkstands.
No comments:
Post a Comment