I was actually planning on doing a Full Disclosure post tonight and getting all this stuff out of my head--and there's a LOT of stuff in my head right now. But the goings-on at work tonight kicked that plan in the ass.
I worked an open-to-close shift today...and actually, it was okay. I had plenty to do, was keeping occupied, was getting things done...it wasn't too bad until around two-thirty-ish when something happened. Four years worth of holidays and breaks working back there, and this is the first time anything like this has ever happened to me.
I think I was putting something out in the Italian case when this elderly man walked up to the Chinese case. Now, every once in a while I just have a gut feeling that there's going to be trouble with a customer, and I took one look at this guy and got that feeling. But He-Cook had disappeared (predictably enough), so it was up to me! Being the dutiful employee that I am, I toodled back inside and asked the man what I could get for him.
In the ensuing several minutes, my instincts proved to be right on the money--pun not intended. You'll see what I mean...
He proceeded to put both hands on the glass over the hot-case, tilt his head down...and mumble at me. I managed to catch that he wanted meals to go. Okay...now what? When I leaned halfway over the case and said, "Sir, I can't hear you," his mumble became an
irritated mumble. Fine, whatever. Just point.
What he wound up getting was a sort of mish-mash of entrees and appetizers in two different to-go boxes, nothing really like any of our standards meals, but we have strange requests on occasion and sometimes do substitutions of various things--we're good at that. But I finally got it all together and headed to the cash register.
Now this is where it gets interesting.
I look down, and in his hand this man is holding a ten-dollar bill--I recognized it because of the gradient colors of green and brown. I look at his meals and think to myself,
"Wow...with the extras, this is going to come to quite a bit more than ten dollars. But this is an old guy...he might not have more money than this. Eh, I'll just ring it up as the standard meals--do the guy a favor."So that's what I did. It came to $10.25, so he fished into his pocket and dug out a quarter. I said, "Out of ten-twenty-five..." like I usually do and punched it in and put it in the register. I closed the drawer and went to hand him his receipt...
And he says, "Where's my change?"
I said, "Excuse me?"
He said, "I gave you a twenty dollar bill."
I replied, "No you didn't, sir." I turn to the bakery guy who was standing there punching in some charges and asked if he had seen, and he shook his head. Crap, no help there.
"Yes I did."
"No, sir, you gave me a ten."
Then he told me to open the register drawer and look--what he hoped to accomplish by this, I'm really not sure. But I did, and to my eyes it proved me right.
When I was trained a cashier (part of standard Hy-Vee employee training), I was taught to put the bills in with the dead presidents facing upward. So I have to be in an EXTREMELY big hurry to not take the time to flip the money over and put it in "the right way." The only other person who was there with me at the time--the cook--is the exact opposite, and puts the bills in face-down ninety-nine percent of the time.
The top twenty-dollar-bill was face
down. The top ten was face
up. And I told him this and said again that he gave me a ten dollar bill. Didn't really think it would help, and I was right. He actually reached across the counter to try and grab the ten dollar bill.
Again, I told him that he'd given me a ten. And now he grabs his bag of take-out and starts chewing me out. He tells me that he's never going to do business here again, and he's appalled if this is the way we treat our customers to make a profit, and on and on and on as he walks away.
I'd like to add that at this point, if I wasn't so stunned, I would have been outright offended. I do the best damn job I can at work, AND I had just essentially let him walk away with some stuff for free, and he has the nerve to tell me I'm not treating the customers well?? Can we say BULLSHIT, boys and girls?
So I stand there for a second, absolutely flabbergasted. Pretty sure Bakery Man next to me felt the same way, given that I turned and stared at him, and he stared back like he couldn't believe what he had just witnessed.
And then my brain kicked into high gear--if this guy went to a manager, I could be in really big trouble. Plus, while I was ninety-nine percent sure that I was right, there was still that chance that I'd made a mistake. So I did the only thing I really thought I could do.
We have an in-store phone with two lines (red and green) and an intercom. So I ran back and called for a shift manager to take the red line. Chandra answered, and I explained to her exactly what had happened. She told me that she would come back and count our register down soon to find out--if I was right, our register should break even (more or less), and if the customer was right, we would be ten over.
She also told me that if something like that happened again, I should ask him to wait and get a manager right away to do a countdown to settle the matter immediately. She promised that I wasn't going to be in any trouble, but she would be leaving a note for Jesse (our department manager) to let him know what happened. That way if this guy called and wanted to talk to the Big Boss, they would have my side of the story.
So after a little bit, she comes back and does a quick count of the cash in the register. And guess what?
I. Was. Right.
We were plus a quarter. Not ten bucks. A quarter.
And when they counted us down at the end of the evening, we were dead even. Don't ask me where that quarter went--it was either a miscount, or someone can go get themselves a can of pop on us. But you can imagine how relieved I felt, I'm sure.
Chandra was really awesome about it, too--I think she saw that I was kind of antsy about it. She reassured me that there would be absolutely no trouble for me,
especially now that we knew I was in the right.
So yay for happy endings! :D
In other (non-work-related) news, I've caved to the power of the plunnies and gotten going on what spawned from
the final Hugs fic and begun what I think might develop into a rather mundane little mini-universe of Heiji and Kazuha sharing an apartment--two bedrooms, of course *halo*
Lots of fun stuff going to happen, I think. Interpret "fun" how you will.
Oh, and a couple of Kaitou Kid fics. One that might wind up relatively humorous, and one that probably won't be quite as humorous... *flops over*
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candyfics, a triple update as promised:
