Cover your mouth

In case you have not heard, there is a pandemic occurring. People are being hospitalized and even dying simply because it is flu season and they are not taking the proper precautions.

But what does flu season have to do with your shopping? More than you may like to think.

One day you suddenly fall ill; your feverish, you cannot keep any food down and your whole body hurts. No one in your house is sick, nor is anyone at work, so how did you get sick?

“Maybe it was someone at school,” you may think. “The girl two seats down from me did cough, yawn and put her head down.”

What about the other day when you went shopping (and consequently wandered through everyone else’s germs). When you picked up all those DVDs, read the backs then put them all back because you could not make up your mind.

Little did you know, but before you picked up those DVDs, another customer had just been there — coughing. Everyone gets sick and we all know our lives do not always allow us to stay home; but when this customer coughed, they did so carelessly NOT covering their mouth.

According to It’s A SNAP.org’s Clean Hand Statistics:

• There are many types of germs (viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi) that cause many types of illnesses – including the common cold or flu, food borne illness, Lyme disease, hantavirus, or plague. These germs can spread easily from one person to another – and have wide-reaching effects.
• One of the most common ways people catch colds is by rubbing their noses or eyes after touching someone or something that’s contaminated with the cold virus (rhinovirus).
• Rotavirus – a germ that causes gastrointestinal illness – can be transferred from a dry, smooth surface to a clean hand for as long as 20 minutes after the surface has been contaminated.
• The 15 leading causes of death in the US for 2006 include influenza and pneumonia.

Your germs are discussing, in the end even you do not want them. Why carelessly disperse them around town then? Where did your manors go? If your fever is so high that you cannot remember to cover your mouth when you cough (a skill which you were thought when you were two), then maybe you need to find your way to a hospital bed.

Infection Control Today reported in their article in Dec. 2003 that, “Most people (73 %) know that a common cold can spread by coughing. Far fewer people recognize that more serious illnesses — such as the flu (57 %) and bronchitis (27 %) — can also spread through coughing. In reality, the flu and bronchitis are spread more often through coughing than sneezing. However, most people (71%) consider their average cough to be simply a mild problem or annoyance, and seek treatment either rarely or not at all. By not taking their cough seriously, these people are likely spreading their infection to others.”

So now when you go out all shopping and you have that terrible or minor cough or even flu-ish symptoms, hopefully you will keep in mind mankind and your fellow shoppers and will cover your mouth when you cough.

No one likes being sick and people especially do not like getting sick. So save someone else your pain and if you go out while under the weather, cover your mouth when you cough.

Your cashier is a person too

Despite the law, the angry drivers behind you and statistics — you are on the phone chatting away. Maybe it is an old friend that you have not talked to in a while, or your Mom or Grandma calling to finally catch up. You pinch phone between your head and your shoulder you pull into the parking lot, park your car and walk inside to do some shopping.

Or maybe you were walking around the store or even in line when your phone rings; your hip ring tone goes off and everyone in the store knows what your favorite song is. You answer, because of course someone needs to get a hold of you at that moment. Once again you pinch your phone between your head and your shoulder and you finish your shopping.

Before you know it you are deep in conversation…. And at the cash register.

“Hey! How are you doing today?,” greets your cashier. You maybe smile and nod, then continue with your conversation.

Your conversation dominates all at this time, your lack of consideration for your cashier is not only disrespectful but could also result in your not leaving the store with everything you want, you not knowing how much money you spent or even being rung out for something you didn’t really want.

Say you are chatting away, and as your cashier is ringing out your purchases the person in line behind you slips their coffee a little closer to you as the cashier is busy bagging your items. The cashier looks up and notices another coffee and charges you for it. While it is awfully generous of you to purchase something for someone else… you usually do it when you are intending to and the receiver is not expecting it, you are not usually tricked into buying things for complete strangers.

If you were to walk into the bank on the phone, or get a phone call in the bank your general reaction would be to say something along the lines of, “Hey I am in the bank right now, I will call you back.”

Your bank teller is no different from your cashier; they are simply your bank cashier. So why at the bank can you give the teller/cashier your undivided attention, but when you go out shopping and your phone rings your cashier is lucky to receive any of your attention?

You money is important to you right? That is why you pay attention at the bank and not at the cash register? Because your money is involved in both situations (in case you forgot), your finances, funds, lunch money, bills money, birthday money, all of your money is in someone else’s hands at that moment – so pay attention, before your retirement fund is a mere quarter because too many people tricked you into buying coffee.

Or is it the fact that your bank teller/cashier is dressed in professional attire, while your cashier is wearing their standard work shirt and black pants? Are you judging someone based on their job? Are you making decisions and assumptions that may very well be extremely incorrect?

Just because someone works behind the register does not make them a second class citizen. Cashiers have high school diplomas, bachelor degrees and even masters. That cashier you are blatantly ignoring to talk to your Mom, whose phone call you should have returned last week after she called, may own that establishment and make double your salary. The person scanning your items and bagging your things, the person taking your money and giving you your change maybe your boss one day.

Treat your cashier with the same respect you would like. How would you feel if you stood in line and when you got to the register your cashier got a phone call – and took it? If your cashier was chatting away with their Mom about their week as they scanned your items, took your money and attempted to get your change?

Just because they are behind the counter does not mean that your cashier is an emotionless freak. Keep in mind how you would feel if the role was reversed, or if someone at your job treated you as a second class citizen and could careless that you were there doing your job.

Take that moment when your phone rings to say, “Hey I am in line about to pay, I will call you back in a second.” Or even, “Hey hang on a second I am about to pay,” and place your phone on the counter providing your cashier with your attention and respect. It is the least you could do, because without that cashier, or any cashier, you would not be able to be making that purchase.

Saving a tree

There is a movement happening – the movement to save energy, cut back on waste, save trees and GO GREEN.

The environmentalists have finally gotten their way and people are attentively trying to save the environment. Way to go!

Customers have even found away to go green while shopping – reusable bags.

After studies came out presenting to customers just how bad plastic bags are for the environment, reusable bags became all the rage. Grasping the fad by the horns many stores such as Wal-Mart, Ukrops, Giant, Target and other major companies began producing and selling their own reusable bags. And in many cases the store even presented an incentive to save when you used their reusable bag.

How do plastic bags hurt the environment?

Here are some facts about the environmental impact of plastic bags courteously of Natural-Environment.com:

• Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistaken them for food
• The manufacture of plastic bags add tones of carbon emissions into the air annually
• Between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide each year
• Approximately 60 – 100 million barrels of oil are required to make the world’s plastic bags each year
• Most plastic bags take over 400 years to biodegrade. Some figures indicate that plastic bags could take over 1000 years to break down. This means not one plastic bag has ever naturally biodegraded.

The question went from, “Paper or plastic?” to, “Paper, plastic or do you have a reusable bag?”

So being environmentally informed and the conscious shopper you are, when your cashier goes to place your items in a plastic bag to make life easier on you. You stop them and say, “Oh! I don’t need a bag, gott’a save a tree!”

While I am sure the environmentalists appreciate your concern with the well-being of trees… the source for today’s wide variety of plastics is NOT TREES, but petroleum.

So please do not take offence when your cashier cannot resist and responds with, “Gott’a save all those plastic trees.” Congratulations, you have just save a future fake Christmas tree, a plastic palm tree or any other type of fake plastic tree.

Recycle and reuse. Where plastic bags may not be the best to recycle, you can reuse them later.

Ways to reuse that plastic bag that you just refused “to save a tree”

• Take them grocery shopping and reuse them
• Use them as trash can liners
• Why buy bubble wrap? Use plastic bags for safe storing, moving and shipping
• When traveling use plastic bags to keep your dirty clothes from your clean
• Keep a trash bag in your car
• For easy cleanup, place a plastic bag inside a bucket or pot next to your sink when you peel fruits or vegetables. You can quickly dispose of the bag or place peelings in a compost pile.
• When defrosting meats, place a paper towel in a plastic bag and put meats in the bag to prevent messy leaks and cleanups

For more plastic bag reusing tips check out Living a Better Life, BellaOnline, Planet Green and Rustic Girls.

Next time you are out shopping, don’t make a fool of yourself and keep in mind that no trees were hurt in the making of that plastic bag and all the ways you can save the environment and reuse those plastic bags.

Halloween is only one day a year

It is another glorious and beautiful day; you wake up stroll to your closet put on some clothes and head out the door.  But wait. Did you even check to see what you were wearing?

Maybe you should.  Despite the fact that Halloween comes around once a year, allowing everyone to embrace their inner child and dress any way they wish without facing ridiculous, funny looks or side comments, the other 364 days of the year to seem to hold the Halloween theme.

Maybe you put on your top that stops right below your chest, showing off your tinny or large midriff. Along with your “booty shorts” and ratty flip flops.

Possibly bright yellow rain boots, jean shorts and, well no shirt, is more of your style.

How about some lime green pants and an orange shirt? That is festive right?

Or maybe on this day you would like to go as the Marlboro Man. So you leave your house with your cowboy boots on, your denim jeans and red flannel button up. But on your way out you realize you have forgotten something… your cowboy hat, so you go back and grab it, and walk around the rest of the day looking identical to the Marlboro Man.

Maybe you did not even have time to get dressed this morning before you headed out to do your morning chores and you leave the house with your pajama pants still on, hair a mess and ratty t-shirt to beardy keep you warm.

While you may not hold up anytime inline, from the second you get out of your car past the moment you get back in, you will be the talk of the shop.

Where Oscar Wilde may have said, “there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about,” in his novel Dorian Grey I doubt that he meant that you should walk out of the house looking like you have no sense what-so-ever in order to her the whisper of conversation about you.

Before you go out to do your shopping next time, recall all those times you stopped, looked at a child and thought, “There Mother let them where that out of the house?” Or when you looked at a grown adult who was dress so outrageously all you could think was, “What are they thinking? Did they even look in the mirror before they left the house?”

Once a year Halloween comes around, for those of you that may have forgotten, it is on Oct. 31, and on this day you have your free pass to dress as outlandishly as your heart desires. Any other day of the year try and keep your wardrobe mount functions in check so that you are not the joke of the day.

Know what pump you are at Part 2

So you read the last critique and you are off again for your weekly fill up at Wawa. This time you pull up to the pump, get out of your car and make note of that number ten posted on your pump. You walk inside, this time you need a soda to give you that kick to make it through the rest of the day and while you are in there the hoagie that someone just bought catches your attention. You make your way to the touch screen with your Pepsi in hand and find yourself ordering the ever so popular cheese steak. Your ticket prints and you make your way up to the register to pay for your things.

“Hey! How are you doing today? Picking up a late lunch?” asks your cashier.

You respond, “Yes and I have gas to I am on pump…” you take a brief pause to recall that number you saw on the pump and say, “nine, I need $40.”

Your cashier asks if you will be paying with cash or credit, then asks if you need anything else. You respond no, slide your card and make your way back out to your pump.

You walk up and remove the nozzle, place it in your tank, and hit the regular button. Nothing happens. You try again, this time hitting it harder, “Maybe the button is just stuck,” you think to yourself, and still nothing. You look at the pump and it is telling you to “Slide your card or see the cashier inside.”

“I just did that,” you think. “I just put $40 on this pump… why is it not working?”

At this point your reaction varies, no two people are the same.

The intercom person

You may hit the call button at the pump and when the cashier responds, “Yes, how may I help you?” You tell them, “Um, yes. I just put $40 on the pump and it is not working.”

Your cashier looks at where you are standing and which car you are by and tells you, “Oh, no problem, you said nine and you are at pump ten. Don’t worry though your money will be there in a second.”

Problem solved. You get your gas and are good to go, only slightly embarrassed.

The angry customer who comes back inside

Maybe confronting your cashier over and intercom is not personal enough for you, so you march your way back inside and find your place in line. Furious that you paid for something that you have not received, when your cashier recognizes you and ask you if you have change you exclaim, “No! I do not have change! I put $40 on pump nine and it is not working!”

Your cashier glances out the window and says, “I am sorry, you are on pump ten not nine. Give me one second and I will have your money on there. It should be good to go by the time you get out there.”

You must now take the walk of shame back to your car to pump your gas as all the customers in the store look at you thinking, “They seriously do not know what pump their car is at? It is not that hard.” (Granit when they get to the register chances are they won’t remember either, but maybe your act had something to do with their sudden memory loss.) But at least the problem is solved, right?

The person who thinks the solution is to move to another pump

Possibly the gas fumes have gotten to you, or you are so frustrated about the situation that your solution to the problem is to drive to another pump, and hope that your money fallows. Your logic and senses must have left you at this point, because who this would make any sense to I do not know, but it happens.

So you hang up the nozzle, get in your car and drive to pump 16, park your car, get out and try again. Nothing.

At this point you take on the roll of either the intercom person or the angry confront inside person, and look like a fool while doing so.

As your cashier, puzzled, tries to figure out your logic they check to see if the money you place on pump nine is even still there. If it is, you are in luck your $40 will be moved to your pump and you will finally be able to pump your gas and get on with your day, and enjoy that hoagie that is waiting for you. However, if you money is no longer on pump nine, consider yourself to have done your good deed of the day and bought someone else’s gas. If you get lucky, and your cashier and the manager on duty sympathize with your lack of logic and common sense they may move your money to your pump.

I can guarantee you though; if you are this person… you have just provided free comedy for everyone in the store and all of its employees.

There is one more possible person you maybe and this one is the exception.

The lucky customer

Your cashier may suspect your incorrectness about your pump number and watch you walk outside and then move your money to your pump before you even notice.

Now do not think because you got lucky that you saved yourself the walk of shame, on the contrary, your cashier is now most likely pointing you out to other cashiers (and possibly customers) asking them if they can tell what pump you are walking to, because it is not the one they said.

So what is the solution you may be asking yourself? Simple, remember what pump you are at. Take those few seconds to make note of the correct pump number and remember it long enough to make your purchase and walk back out to the correct pump. No matter what person you are you find yourself embarrassed (some more than others) and providing the comedy for the hour.

You do not want to spend ten minutes at Wawa (or any other gas station) trying to figure out why the money you put on your pump is not really there, so remember the pump number and get it right when you get inside.

Know what pump you are at

Wawa serves for some as a part of their daily routine. From the addictive coffee, to the cheap cigarettes, the friendly employees and competitive gas prices; Wawa is just a place you seem to fall in love with.

You stop in for your daily fill up, of both coffee and fuel, park your car at pump 10 and walk inside. You mossy your way on back to the coffee bar, grab a cup and pour your personal daily fuel and head back up the register to pay for everything.

“Hey! How are you doing today?” greets your cashier. “Just the coffee today?”

“No,” you respond. “I need gas too…” and that is when it hits you like a train, you have absolutely no idea what pump you parked at.

“Okay, what pump are you at and how much?” asks your cashier.

You squirm, twist in place and begin to look out that big front window at all the pumps.

All of the sudden not a single car looks like yours. You cannot even remember what door you walked in to take a guess as to what side of the parking lot your car may be on. You walk away from the register and closer to the window to get a better look and your cashier asks you what you’re driving.

Maybe at this point you are just so stressed about where your car maybe that you had a brain fart, or maybe you already feel so embarrassed that there is no turning back, either way for some reason you respond, “The red car” or “The white van” or even, “A truck.”

“The red car,” “The white van,” “A truck…” that is your answer?  How many cars are out there? How many cars, trucks or vans are out there that fit your description? Should your cashier pick the white truck at pump 16 to put your money on, or on pump two where there is a nice red car?

As the line grows behind you, you finally find your car out there and realize that you are at pump 10.

“10, it is such a simple number, how could I have forgotten?” you ask yourself.

Here is a tip for next time, to make life easier for your cashier and the people in line behind you… and save yourself a bit of embarrassment, take a look at the number posted on the pump and remember it.

As a cashier, especially at Wawa, the goal is to get you in and out of the line in a minute tops (did you know that?).  If you know what pump you are at you drastically cut down on your time in line, as well as everyone else’s, and we all know that you have much better things to do then stand in line at Wawa all day.

Please keep in mind that remembering your pump number does not only apply to Wawa, you should make note of what pump you are at no matter what gas station you chose to fill up at.

Make sure you order everything you want

Starbucks allows us to obtain our daily coffee fix, to go on with our day without that caffeine headache and weather you are getting coffee or some other drink, you need to be specific.

You walk in, the cashier greets you saying, “Hey how are you today? What can I get you to drink?” And you respond, “I would like an iced grande caramel macchiato.” The cashier asks you if that will be all then tells you your total and calls your drink.

“Calling… an iced grande caramel macchiato.”

You make your way down to the bar to wait for your drink and in a matter of minutes the barista calls out, “I have an iced grande caramel macchiato on bar.” You pick up the drink, examine it and place it back on the bar. For some reason you did not get what you wanted. You looks at the Barista and say, “Excuse me, I wanted my drink decaf and with caramel drizzle inside the cup. Oh and I wanted whip on it to.”

But wait. Did you even ask for any of those things when you ordered?

Time and time again customers walk into Starbucks, ask for their drinks and leave half of what they wanted out.

Think about it like this, on your birthday you make a list of every last thing you want (or at least probably used to)… well every day at Starbucks is your birthday, ask for everything you want. Weather it is extra pumps, extra whip, light whip, decaf, skim milk, whatever – ask for it at the register. By doing so you save yourself time, because let’s face it unless your day is too short to have to stand and wait for your Barista to make your drink again, you have better places to be and other things to do. As do all the customers standing in line behind you that to now have to wait even longer for their drink.

So you want to throw a fit at the bar because your drink is how you asked for it, not how you imagined it?

Don’t do it. Weather your Barista says it or not, you are the one who made the mistake, not them, so don’t take out all your anger on them. If you do you simply make for, in many cases, lower quality service for the next customer.

No one comes in and tells you that you are doing your job wrong, no one yells at you on a daily basis because of something missing. Give these Starbucks employees a break, all they are doing is trying to make your day and your life simpler, give them the same common courteously back, and make sure you order everything you want. If you want legendary customer service, which Starbucks does provide, please make sure that you yourself are not the soul person causing the hold up in the line.

Speak when spoken to

When you were young your parents probably told you to “speak when you are spoken to.”
You might have been the child that rambled on about everything and nothing, or possibly the child who noting whatsoever, even when someone spoke to you.
Even if you were five years old when your parents told you this, the theory still holds: Speak when you are spoken to.
When you place your items on the counter, maybe even pushing them towards the cashier, and your cashier says, “Hi! How are you today?” do not hesitate to answer.
If, by chance you miss this greeting and your cashier insists on being friendly and again, smiles and says, “Hi! How are you today?” you should respond.
There is no excuse for not responding to a simple friendly greeting. This is especially true if your cashier insists on greeting you twice, thus giving you the benefit of the doubt that you didn’t hear them over the noise of the store.
If you are not a people person or up for conversation, this is your chance to make it known before your cashier dives into a conversation about how they love your outfit. A simple, “Fine, thank you,” lacking interest in the cashiers day (or frankly anything else), is much more acceptable then ignoring the question all together.
Bad day causing your standoffish behavior? You are more then welcome to respond with something along the lines of, “Terrible,” or “Terrible, how is yours?”
While your cashier may care less about what is wrong, they will most likely respond with some upbeat comment like, “Oh, I am sorry to hear that. I hope the rest of your day gets better.”
Each cashier varies. You may not always find yourself in the line of the chatty cashier, but on chance you do and do not feel like talking, please speak when spoken to.
One word answers are acceptable. Head nods and gestures, however, the cashier may not see and are not very successful. In many cases, your cashier may be too busy scanning your items, placing everything into a bag or getting your change to notice you shake your head “no” to a question.
In the end, just simply acknowledge the fact that your cashier is making an effort to make a connection with you, the customer—the most important person in the store–and remember what your parents told you when you were young: “You need to speak when you are spoken to.”

Customer Critique

You place your wrinkled ten dollar bill on the counter to pay for your coffee and breakfast sandwich. Your cashier picks up the money, gives you your change and wishes you off to a good day. Could this be a fake front? Could your cashier possibly be thinking things that in the Customer Service industry, they would never be able to say?

After six plus years in the customer service industry, spending hours a week as a cashier and a shift manager of a convince store it is astonishing the things customers do that would simply repulse their mothers– and think nothing of while doing so.

Weather or not the customer is always right is up for question here. As the customer the spotlight is now on you; this is ultimately your final review. It is time for this cashier to stop biting her tong and fill out her customer critique. The bar has been set high, just as you have set it for me (and all your other cashiers), and well, your “judgment day” has come.

This is your chance to find out what, as a customer, you are doing wrong.