Once Upon A Register

I’ve been working in customer service since I was fourteen. Like most people who work in this field, my faith in humanity quickly disappeared after a very short period of time. I’ve become very cynical towards the subject matter, yet still currently hold a job in the field. I used to work in a fast food joint, but now I work in a grocery store, which while it is leaps and bounds better than a restaurant, is still pretty depressing. Since the subject is very prominent in my life, don’t be surprised if I go on tirades about the subject. So here’s my story:

I was working Self-Checkout on a Monday around 7:30 in the morning. The eight Self Checkout registers were empty and I was trying to look busy. Unfortunately, I can only re-arrange gum and candy bars so many times before I’m out of things to do again. Lucky for me, right then two women and man walked into the Self-Checkout area. The three of them stopped near the entrance, standing side by side and talking casually. The woman on the left looked nervous and was holding two items, one in each hand. Urged by her friends, she started walking toward me, while the other two continued their conversation.

She walked up and stopped when she was a little too close to me, and I couldn’t take a step away because my back was to a register. She lifted her hands to show me the items she was holding and pushed them toward me. I was a little confused, but I assumed that she didn’t know to use the Self-Checkout registers and needed help.

“Good morning!” I smiled, “Are you ready to check out?” She stared back, and tried to give me her items. “Would you like to come over to the self-checkout register and...”The woman took a small step back, broke eye contact with me and started waving her arms and shrugging her shoulders.

“I...don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!” She started crying. Before I could say anything else, the man, whose attention had been caught by his friend’s distress, stormed over to the two of us.

“What is wrong?!” he yelled, “She doesn’t know how to use these things. Why don’t you check her out?” His jaw set while he glared at me, waiting for an explanation. I swallowed ten or twenty snarky remarks and managed to sputter out a response.

“I can show her how to use the machines...”

“She doesn’t understand you!” he grabbed the two items out of his friend’s hand, stalked over to a register and starting checking out the items himself. The woman followed quickly behind. So by this point I had a few questions. First of all, why didn’t these people check their friend out if they knew how to work the machines? Why did they send her over to me when she doesn’t speak English? Why did they go to the Self-Checkout if they wanted somebody else to do it for them?

Before I could properly process my confusion, the third member of their party, a woman who was pushing a cart with a few bagged groceries on the bottom and a purse with a receipt sticking out in the child seat, walked over to me as well.

“Why didn’t you check her out?” She demanded. I had to take a moment to conjure up an answer. After working in customer service for so long you’ll come to realize that in situations where the customer already has a personal vendetta against you, there is no correct response to questions such as this. No matter what you say, or how you say it, the customer will assume that you are trying to be snarky and won’t listen to you.

The real reason I didn’t check the woman out is because I believe that if a person is going to come to the Self-Checkout, they should use the Self-Checkout. It doesn’t matter what the situation is. If you want somebody to do it for you- go to the normal registers. You don’t get special treatment for not knowing how to use the equipment. In fact, if you don’t, cashiers will gladly walk you through every step of the process. We’re not denying you service, we’re just teaching you so you can do it yourself.

Of course, I couldn’t say any of this to her. I gave up before I tried and gave a half-hearted excuse about how I don’t normally check people out myself, and I don’t want other people thinking that that’s an available option in the self checkout. Of course, she pointed out that the store was basically empty, and then proceeded to tell me how horrible I was at customer-service. I kept my mouth shut and her friends finished checking out and they left.

It happens more often then you might think. A customer will walk up and ask something along the lines of, “Will you please check me out?” They then proceed to be upset when they receive an offer to be taught how to use the machines rather than having the cashier doing everything as usual. People somehow get the idea that in the self checkout, they can make the employee do the job for them. I believe this misconception can be caused by two reasons:

First of all, people are stupid. No matter how straightforward a concept is, or how simple a task, there will always be somebody who doesn’t get it. Ignorance isn’t always meant to be mocked, we’ve all had lapses of idiocy before. In fact, since there are so many things to be learned in the world and we aren’t as intelligent as we’d like to believe, our ineptitude should be a motivation to always try and help each other learn and understand in the kindest way possible. It’s when you try to help someone and they instead become angry and hostile when you aren’t giving them the answer they want that it becomes difficult to be kind.

The second reason is, at the self checkout desk (or at least in my store) there is a fully functioning register for the cashier’s use. I use it for price checking, making change, check payments, and ringing up particularly expensive items that the Self-Checkout Registers won’t allow the regular customers to ring up themselves because of security reasons. When people learn about said register, they believe that I can and will check them out if they ask. They would be half right. I am capable of checking them out, but I don’t because that would defeat the purpose of Self-Checkout altogether.

Despite how people come to the justification of going to self checkout to ask somebody else to do work, what am I to do as an employee? Is it bad to deny a customer their wishes? I think that in the case of Self-Checkout, it’s okay. When a person doesn’t know how to use the machines, it’s easier just to offer to teach them. That way they can do it themselves next time. You know, teach a man to fish and he’s fed for a lifetime sort of deal. So when I offer to teach people how to work the machines instead of simply doing it for them, I feel like I’m saving myself from looking like I’m giving special treatment, while at the same time being attentive and helpful to the customer.