So this past week saw us not as busy, at least right after the Canadian Thanksgiving last Monday. It was quiet-ish for Tuesday and Wednesday, and then BAM, on Friday, Sunday and today – it was quite busy! We have some good sales on at the store and I know a lot of people were taking advantage of them. This is where the part 2 begins…

With sales come big orders. I easily had 10 orders in the past few days of over $300 each. To me, a single woman living by herself, that is a LOT of food. There was this one guy who came up to my till with a grocery cart that was literally over-flowing – he was grabbing things as they were about to fall off of the cart and trying to keep it all together. So I finally said, okay you can start unpacking, he did something that irritates me to no end! He started piling stuff up on top of each other! Okay I get that he wanted to get it all on the belt, but do not put vegetables on the belt, and then put meat on top of them – and then tell me to be sure I put a plastic bag on the meat (that has probably already contaminated the vegetables) because it was packaged properly. Oh to keep my mouth shut – it is a terrible burden sometimes haha.

A helpful hint to all of you who do pile the stuff up on top of each other – at least pile things that go together. Like maybe cans. Or boxes of crackers or cereal. That is okay to pile up. Don’t put bread on the bottom and then put stuff on top and blame ME for squishing your bread. Because yeah this guy did that too. I was biting my tongue the entire order.

So on to the next challenge – the challenge to not sneeze or cough especially when someone comes up to you at the till who has clearly BATHED in her perfume. Seriously, if you need to wear that much perfume, take a shower. It will make you smell way better and then there’s no need to try to kill everyone around you with the overwhelming stench of your disgustingly strong perfume. Yes – I have allergies, and YES I sneezed more than once. And she gave me a look after sneezing. All I could say was I had allergies. What I wanted to say – well I won’t repeat it here because there’d me a lot of swearing and perhaps I’d be censored! Restrain on dousing your body with perfume or cologne – there are a lot of people who have allergies and it is very hard for us not to sneeze or cough!

But the biggest challenge happened today. And I almost lost my shit. I was not pleasant with this customer and I’d be surprised if she didn’t complain about me. Cell phones. Or perhaps better- conversations on cell phones when you are in line at a grocery store. This woman was so engrossed in her conversation she didn’t hear me say twice, very loudly, that she could start loading her groceries on the belt. The man behind her had to go up to her close and say she’s calling you up and pointed at me, at which time I waved at her. The eyes rolled at me (ask my children – this is probably the worst thing anyone could do to me – I despise that as much as I despise lying!), and she continued on with her conversation while throwing her groceries on the belt. I started to ring them through and asked her if she needed any bags, again twice, and she finally lets out this giant sigh and says to the person hold on – and looks at me and condescendingly says I am on the phone and yes I want bags! and went back to her phone call.

Needless to say, first eye rolling then yelling at me, I was not going to be pleasant. So I rang her through as quickly as I could. When I was finished, I looked at her (who was still talking) and said as loudly as I possibly could without screaming – do you have air miles? She jumped (which made me laugh behind my mask… they are good for some things!) and pulled out her card and looked away while I scanned it. Then again, as loudly as I could, I said debit credit or cash? To which she responded, you do not have to yell at me. I said, oh so sweetly, well I wasn’t sure how to get your attention away from your phone! Once again the eyes rolled, she paid and then she had to say good bye to load her groceries in her cart (Thankfully that is NOT a job we have to do!). She looked at me and said you are kind of rude. I just looked back and then turned away.

Hard to believe but after she left, my shift supervisor came up to me and congratulated me for keeping my cool! I’m glad she saw what had taken place. Made my day better and then I came home to my delicious homemade soup!

All in all, I had a good day, despite cell phone lady. Please please please – make your calls before or after you are rung through at a grocery store. We do our best to serve everyone politely but if your phone call is that important, finish it before you come shopping.

Stay tuned for next week’s tales!!!