Glue Magazine Online
March 5, 2012 | By KayCie Gravelle
We’re like the lovechild of your favourite bartender and the lady who works the desk at the DMV, we’ll listen to your problems, and there’s no avoiding us, unless you use self-checkout, but good luck with your produce codes buddy.
In August 2005 I was hired at my first job as a grocery store cashier in my hometown of Cornwall, Ontario.
On February 25, 2012 I left that job.
For six years I stood behind a cash register scanning tampons and tang while packing bags.
For four of those years I was a supervisor. I stood behind the cash, scanned items, packed bags, provided refunds, put items back on the shelf and counted money. Glamorous I know.
I developed a “cashier voice”, which makes the Chipmunks look like baritones.
I acquired a roster of customer friendly jokes and became accustomed to hearing myself over a loud speaker.
I also gained a new family; co-workers, bosses and regular customers became more than just people I saw at work, they became essential to my life. Most importantly though, I learned a lot about life; things that I would have never experienced outside of my cash register cubicle.
Co-workers build relationships outside of work that can last forever. Pictured here is my No Frills family at our first Christmas party. Nearly seven years later a large number of us are still in contact with each other
Cashiers are a unique breed; like retail worker’s distant cousin. We don’t get to wear our own clothes, there aren’t any discounts provided and we don’t have to work to sell anything to our customers.
We’re just the vessel that helps the food you enjoy get from the shelf to the oven/barbeque, frying pan—whatever.
Cashiers don’t just smile and wish you a nice day; in grocery stores, cashiers are required to memorize a lengthy list of product and sale codes. At fast food restaurants, cashiers have to master the touch screen and order combinations. When a cashier forgets the process it can lead to nuclear bomb levels of devastation.
At a grocery store it often adds up to the customer assuming you don’t know what you’re doing.
Kelsey Major, an Algonquin graduate and supervisor at a nofrills recalls a regular customer not so affectionately nicknamed “The Librarian,” having to do with her no-nonsense demeanour and ever present bag of books, who would pick up only “exotic” produce like dragon fruit, prickly pears and lychees.
“The fruit that was only available for short periods throughout the year, that a cashier—especially one who had started just as the fruit’s season had ended—may not know the code for,” Major says.
She would bring her basket of fruit to the checkout and proceed to scoff, scold and sometimes full out yell at the cashier when they didn’t know the code. Many cashiers would finish serving her with tears in their eyes or smoke pouring from their ears.
“I had her one of my first shifts and I didn’t know some of the codes so she didn’t want them [the items] and she told me I should take a walk in produce section on my break,” Major recalls. “But now if I get her and I don’t know the code she tells me she doesn’t want it and I just say ‘fine, no problem’, if she really wants it she would tell me what the name of it is to help me out.”
Learning to deal with people who are difficult is a skill one masters when working in customer service. Cashiers also have to learn to deal with people of all walks of life.
Jennifer Proulx, a University of Ottawa student and cashier at a McDonald’s in downtown Ottawa, says her location has a definite influence on the clientele.
“Most of the customers we get are homeless, drunks, or homeless drunks,” Proulx says. “Some I’ve gotten to know and are really friendly and understanding, others not so much.”
The restaurant’s policy is that all customers are allowed one free refill on their beverage. When they’ve received their refill the cup is marked with a black marker. Proulx says the customers at her location will sometimes come in with cups that have already been refilled and she has to turn them away even though she’d rather give them free coffee—especially in the winter.
“The biggest lesson I’ve learned is your life has to be really sad if you’re willing to dig through the garbage to find a used coffee cup for one small coffee,” Proulx says. This has taught her empathy for people and while she can’t always help them she does her best to be a positive presence in their lives.
Being a cashier forces one to interact with hundreds of people in a short period of time. For an introverted person this can be a terrifying notion.
For Jill McClelland who describes herself as shy, the ultimate test was being assertive and saying no.
“I worked the night shift at Metro, I had a group of teenagers come in around 2 a.m. and wanted to buy cigarettes,” McClelland says.
When she asked them for identification one of the boys handed her a drivers license, “lo’ and behold it was not his picture,” she says.
Turns out the license belonged to someone McClelland knew and when she told the customer that he proceeded to tell her that he and the man in the picture were one and the same. “He actually said, ‘don’t ya know me bro?’” McClelland recalls.
In the end McClelland returned the card to the customer, something she considers naive on her part but she hopes that the experience taught the customer a lesson; “there’s always someone out there that knows the guy on your fake ID.”
Joining the workforce is a rite of passage in a way; it’s the first step in becoming a fully fledged contributing member of society. It teaches responsibility and offers a level of financial freedom that opens us up for new opportunities.
When that job is in customer service/retail it offers a multitude other things. It teaches us empathy, patience and social skills and puts us in situations we would not encounter until much later in life.
For McClelland, the cashier experience can be summed up in one thought, “it doesn’t matter how smart you are, how well-educated you have been or what political views you hold as important, customer service will humble you to accepting all people,” McClelland said. “If not completely accepting them, then you at least grow to tolerate and appreciate the huge variety of backgrounds and lifestyles that people have.”
