B123 - Activation and Issue; Responsibility without authority.

’06 Nov 15 Activation and Issue; Responsibility without authority. Doing a cashiers job is stressful in that you have all the responsibility for both providing a service for the customer, seeing that a product is packed properly and also responsible for collecting the money, public relations, and company image. You have all these duties and responsibilities, but no power or authority. If you make a mistake, you have to call the manager and in doing that the manager knows how many times they had to correct your mistake, even if it wasn’t yours but the customer changing their mind. You can’t fix it; you have no authority to un-do a simple key error without it coming to the awareness of the manager who has authority. Also, when you’re on cash, all the customers in the line also know that you made a mistake and the cause of them having to wait in line. If you were doing another job like stocking shelves, you could make a mistake and then correct it yourself without having to go to the manager and letting them know that you messed up.

But this is good as it’s reminding me of all the other jobs I had when I worked for a company and had similar responsibilities, but again, no authority to fix the problem. I had to obey the rules and take the abuse if I wanted to keep my job. I had to obey the rules and abuse if I wanted to have a roof over my head and food in my plate. I had to obey the rules and take the abuse if I didn’t want my family to suffer.

This also reminds me of when I was a child and my mother and how she treated us with threatening to send us to reform school or to sell us to the Indians or just abandoning us if we didn’t do as she said. She’d also comment on how each of us children were the off-spring of a different neighbour insinuating that Dad was not our real father and that we didn’t belong and that she was doing us a favor by providing a roof over our heads and food in our bellies and that we were being UNGRATEFUL in not doing what we were told. Children’s should be seen and not heard was another one of her favorite saying, meaning keep your mouth shut and do what you are told.

’06 Nov 17 Activation: Having to meet other people needs.
This morning I was feeling how I’m on call and am presently working six days a week. I felt how it’s was like when I had my own business and that just because people need my services, they need me and I have to be there for them. If I can make and keep them happy, they will be happy with me and if they are happy, I will be happy, or so I believed.

It’s not just my old business, but again my mother and father. If I had chores to do I had to have them done no matter what because if I didn’t, I’d get hell and be punished. Chores equal work - Work equals chores. Even if they weren’t my chores but one of my brothers or sisters, I had to cover for them because they were sick or whatever. My co-workers are like my brothers and sisters.

I speak my mind with customers if I feel they are playing games as I call it or pushing their unloving energy on me. I had a woman take her two year old out of the shopping cart and put him on the presently empty counter and Cash register next to me. When I finished serving the woman in front of her, she began to unload her cart leaving her child unattended on the counter and he was beginning to move all over the place. I motioned with my hand for her to take the child off the counter. She grabbed the child and put him on the floor and I could feel that she was ticked off with me. She then asked if we had more Santa Clause pins as she had picked up the last two in the box next to my register and asked me to check the other registers to see if there were more or if there was more in the back that I could get. I said that I didn’t know and that if she wanted to finish her shopping by stepping out of line, she could check them herself and she could ask one of the isle girls for help as I don’t have the time and it’s not my job.

That ticked her off even more and now her child started acting up. She glared at me and said “No, I don’t need it!” I looked her in the eye and asked, ”then why did you ask me? She didn’t say a word as she placed the rest of her order on the counter while also struggling to control her child that was now getting in other peoples way and also playing with the automatic doors. She paid for her stuff and left in a huff. I looked up to see who was next and I could see that the people in line were smiling and they could see that I wasn’t going to be controlled by the woman and I knew they knew I knew what I did and why.

I also made it a point that if I was returning to cash, that I would pick out the “next” person in line and make direct eye contact and that I would serve them first, even if others tried to butt in… No one would argue with me and most customers that were actually waiting in line smiled when I did that and formed a queue to my register. There were other similar circumstances, but I’m not going to go into them and no one to my knowledge has said anything to management about my interactions and there were times when management was aware of my dealings with specific customers and agreed with my handling of the situation.

JR