“When you've got a queue of people to serve, it is much quicker to use a calculator. I've always been shit at maths anyway.”
I’m old (as will become apparent by what I’m about to say, please be patient I’m talking 30+ years ago) I was always shit at maths at school then my first “Saturday” job was working on a checkout in a large supermarket - my mum was genuinely worried I’d struggle even with making change!
I was ok and actually it hugely improved my mental arithmetic because this was back in the days before bar codes and scanners, prices were stickered onto each individual product (a “shelf stackers” job) and there were different depts who ran their own budgets/stock control.
So there was
Groceries - tins, packets, jars & soft drinks excepting chilled ones
Bakery
Butchery
Fishmonger
Greengrocery
Dairy
Chilled
Frozen
Alcohol
Tobacconist
Toiletries & personal care
Cleaning products
Paper products
We had to enter the price on the product including 00 if price was eg £1.00, if you didn’t it entered it as if it cost 1p. Then you hit the dept key.
So far so simple right? Did I mention large BUSY supermarket?!
If you made a mistake in theory you were supposed to call over the supervisor who had a special key (literally a metal key!) that allowed her to “override” and remove the item (would show on receipt as:
Baked beans error -0.07p - I know I remember the prices I wish we still had them!!)
But of course when you’re new you’re eager to do well and there’s pressure to be fast which can mean more errors but if you called the supervisor over more than twice in a 4 hour shift they’d get pissed off and if you did it more than 3 times you were on a warning!
So...rather than call supervisors over for EVERY error we quickly learned to make the mental arithmetic adjustments to the depts and key that in. Hard to explain. Example
Baked beans 0.07p accidentally keyed into bakery so the next bakery item in that customers shop we’d deduct 7p from the amount and key it into groceries and the remainder onto bakery. I hope that makes sense.
So the depts totals were correct, the customers bill was correct and your till balanced at end of shift. (Oh the fun that was closing out your till and you were a penny out and couldn’t sodding “find” it!)
By the end of 3 years there my tolls were ALWAYS right and I was the fastest checkout assistant. It’s a fairly mundane job so I used to challenge myself on speed and by the time I left I could process a £35 shop (which was enough for a family of 4’s weekly shop then) including credit card payment (using a “shuffler” manual credit card machine which used carbon copies etc) in 3.5 minutes!
On the imperial v metric I’m of the age I started school JUST after we’d moved (supposedly) to being completely metric, but of course my parents and teachers were far more familiar with imperial so you’d often hear them muttering conversion workings. I’m a bugger myself for accidentally mixing the 2 eg when buying carpets. My dad still converts prices back into £sd and promptly almost gives himself a heart attack frequently! Parents have recently had some much needed work done on the house and mum was giggling telling me dads face when he did the conversion on that! His comment? “I could have bought 3 houses with that much back then” 😂
“If size is important
I take a tape measure!” Yes but it’s bloody remembering to use the same “side” for all the measurements you’re taking!
The job aforementioned was my 1st of many in retail. I’ve had similar comments/experiences to pp
“shoulda worked harder in school eh?” Well probably true in my case as I only left with 4 GCSEs...but by that point I’d been to college and uni and had 2 degrees! I was working retail at that point as that particular job had great hours for me as a single mum inc no Sunday’s and bank holidays. Was pretty good pay too - considering I was the supervisor!
And yes to their (often teen) child “you don’t wanna end up working here do you?” Well there are a lot worse jobs!
Nobody’s good at EVERYTHING. I struggle with maths and physics (probably because there’s a lot of maths in it!), I’m also shit at diy type stuff I just can’t think in “3D” somehow.
But I’m good at English (one of my degrees. Often see spag and other errors on mn BUT don’t point them out
A because I’m not a twat!
B because I understand that posters may be:
Juggling children/shopping or whatever while typing
May have a learning disability
English may not be their first language - I’m mostly utterly in awe of how well non-English speakers are able to communicate in English. It’s very often far better than most English speakers can speak even one other language and English is a bastard of a language to learn not least because I don’t think there’s one “rule” that’s universal throughout the language - largely because it really is a bastard language being made up of words and language rules nicked from many other languages!), can speak several other languages to varying degrees and read a few, I can sew, cook, bake, put colours together well (either decorating or clothes), pack like a demon...
Both ignorant and arrogant to put others down for something they struggle with when it’s highly likely they’ll have another skill you could not compete with.
Everyone has something to contribute.
“I am middle management of a very large supermarket and it is rare that we get a day that goes by without at least the threat of violence.” I totally believe you. My mum mostly worked retail through her working life eventually becoming head of security at the last place a supermarket too. She retired a good while ago now and I’m so glad. When she was still working there she had a knife pulled on her more than once, she’s a tough “weegie” so wasn’t really phased (she grew up in a particularly notoriously tough part of glasgow) and most of the time she’d take a “silly wee boys pretending to be men” attitude. But it was a worry. The brazenness is shocking too! Thieves would just unplug and lift eg a flat screen tv from the display and carry it to their car, just very blasé ignoring all the alarms etc. The floor staff are now told not to approach thieves themselves but to contact the security staff but even the security staff are wary and have procedures to follow to ensure their safety. A telly isn’t worth someone’s life!
I agree it’s pointless to refuse to serve, best thing is to kill em with kindness. Throws them completely! And if they continue to behave badly just makes em look even more of a twat!
Very rare I refused to serve and I reserved that for the “creepy stalker” types that I didn’t feel safe with.
To paraphrase bill bryson I can’t decide if it’s impressive that such qualified people are working in retail or whether it’s a shame they’re unable to get work that suits them (hours etc) in their chosen (and worked very hard and studied for) professions.
Btw if you think retails bad try nursing!! Whole other level of shit attitudes and safety issues!