usmcsis's Diaryland Diary

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gobble gobble gobble

you know, why is it that at the one time of year when we're told we should have peace, love and goodwill for our fellow man, are people more rude, obnoxious, and downright mean than any other time of year?

first, there was the crazy man who started screaming at me when i told him that he couldn't have a free hotdog just because he was a veteran.

"i fought for my country and i can't have one lousy goddamn hotdog!"
um, no. sorry.
"i bet you've never fought for your country and you get free hotdogs!"
nope and nope again. and if i did get free hotdogs, i so don't do hotdogs. do you know what is in those things? (okay, so all i actually said was no sir i don't, but i wanted to say the rest.)
"i want to speak to a goddamn manager right now!"
yes sir but could you please watch your language, there are children at the table behind you.
"i will speak any goddamn way i please! i'm a veteran!"
uh, yeah, we got that part. asshole.

so in the end he was told by several people that being a veteran did not entitle him to free food at his local target and he should really leave right now before the police were called about the "disturbance".

next was the lady who came up to me and dumped a pile of magazines and candy bars and sodas, which by the way, are all items that are for sale at the check lanes, on my counter.

can i help you?
"i want a bag of chips."
um, is that all?
"well, and all this." pointing to said pile of crap.
i'm sorry ma'am but i can't ring those items on my register.
"why the hell not?"
these registers use different software than the registers up front, and, i have no scanner to scan the items if i could ring them.
"you mean i have to walk all the way back over there?"
yup. (i restrained my eye roll, really i did.)
"well, i was just over there. i wish i had known that before i walked all the way over here!"
me too. (and by the way, all the way over here, is like twenty feet, get over yourself.)
"well, i just won't get any of it then! screw you! and i know for a fact that you can ring my items over here!"
*flings bag of chips onto counter and stomps out the door leaving the big pile of random crap on my counter.*

next was the lady who wanted to know how long it had been since we last popped popcorn. i chcked the timer sitting next to the machine and said, twenty minutes. i'll be popping fresh in another ten, we pop every thirty minutes.

well, can i have some for free so i can tell whether or not it's stale?

i'm not even going to type what i wanted to say. i gave her a sample bag and went on to wait on other people. ten minutes later my timer went off and i popped fresh popcorn. when it had finished popping, i stirred it up so that the new and old mixed together. i looked up as i was still mixing it and here comes the fresh popcorn lady. she takes one look in the machine and then looks back at me.

"well, thanks for mixing it all up bitch."

and walks away. and happy fucking holidays to you too.

there were many, many, many more but i'll stop here. i'll save some of the others for another day.

in other news, people are already shopping like it's the day after thanksgiving. what is up with that? i am honestly scared to go to work friday after seeing how busy we were today. busy is not even an adequate enough word.

hectic, active, full, eventful, energetic, tiring.

well, a few of those fit but it still doesn't quite work. we had ten registers open this afternoon. ten. we never have ten registers open. during the busiest christmas shopping day ever last year we did not have ten registers open. and we were calling for more cashiers to come up and open more registers. yes, more.

it was like a sea of people. like when you go to a concert or sporting event and the doors open and everyone surges forward at once to get inside. that is what it looked like in my store today. insane. people were lined up across the front end, into the girls' department. cashiers had nine or ten people in line at a time and they were moving as fast as they could. nine or ten people in line at a time at ten friggin registers!

our policy is that once you have four guests in line we have to open another register. but we were seriously out of people. we had almost every salesfloor team member on registers, not to mention all of the cashiers, the boy who was working food tonight, my boss and the store manager. in the end i think they opened close to sixteen registers. unheard of in our store.

so yeah, now i'm scared to see what friday brings. i mean, it's great. it's great for our economy that people are out there spending and i'm all for that. and it's great that they are spending it at target because that creates more hours for me to work and more money to earn each hour, and i'm really all for that. but when our parking lot is completely full from the building to the road, the entire length of the building, it's a scary thing.

so, yeah, will is on his way home. he found out pretty last minute this afternoon that he was going to get to come home for thanksgiving. which will be very nice since he'll be on another continent for christmas. he'll probably be home around eleven or so. i'm going to head to the hospital for a while and hang out with my grandma. when i say hang out, i mean, sit in her room and hold her hand and watch her breathe. she is still unconcious, still on life support, still not breathing on her own, and so on and so on, you get the drift.

i hope everyone has a happy thanksgiving, unless of course, it isn't thanksgiving where you are, in that case, have a happy thursday.

oh, and still no update from sherlock, three days later. i'm a tad disappointed. but i'll get over it.

toodles

8:01 pm - 24 Nov 2004

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