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June 30, 2006

Still Inept at Your Job After a Couple of Years.

By: The Dude on the Right
Sometimes I wonder how some people still have their jobs.  No, wait, I suppose that's really not it.  I suppose I wonder how, after years at being on a job, they still seem like they are new on the job, and they also still have their job yet their hygiene leaves a lot to be desired.  My case in point is a dude who works at a local grocery store, manning the register in the liquor department.

Every now and then I am want to purchase some liquor, and there have been two, regular, check-out folks who have been working the register for years.  One is this nice, older lady.  She doesn't remember your name, but she does remember your face, and is always there with a "Hello" and a "How are your today?"  She is also able to run people through the line like nobody's business.  Scan, bag, scan, bag, scan, bag, scan, sticker, scan frequent shopper card, punch the right buttons, and you're out the door.

The other is this middle-aged dude where if the line is just two people deep you might as well hoof it to the normal check-out lines because your trip will probably be quicker.

And somehow, after working for years in the checkout lane and stocking shelves in the same liquor department, he still has a job, still hasn't seemed to figure out how it works, and well, taking pride in one's appearance doesn't seem to apply.

Here's what I'm talking about:

First off the dude is way fat.  Don't get me wrong, I need to lose some weight as well, and even some of the most obese people can at least be one with their obese selves and make it work for them.  Not this dude, he is pretty much, for no better term, a fat slob.  He is also sort of surly, never greets you with a smile, and doesn't seem to know how to wash his clothes, or at least to know when it's finally been too many days wearing the same shirt.  He also doesn't seem to remember anyone who comes through the line, because as much as I've seen him over the years, he still doesn't seem to recognize me.  But I can get past the initial gross-ness issue of the dude, what really blows my mind is after all of these years the dude still doesn't seem to be able to put together how all of this technology works, even though he also helps stocks the shelves in the liquor department.  In front of me is a wine person, with a dozen bottles of wine.  For every bottle, even if they are multiples of the same bottles of wine, check-out dude looks to find the bar-code before running it over the scanner.  Yes, that's right, after all of these years he still hasn't seemed to figure out the bar-code is on the back label of the bottle of wine and you don't really need to look for it.  And both you know and I know that on those cases of beer, the bar-code is on the bottom.  Not him.  He has to look on all four sides, then do the "head tilt" to look at the bottom and realize that "Aha!  There it is, that pesky bar-code!"  Lighting quick.  And still, after all of these years, you would have thought he would have some technique to actually put the items in those plastic bags, but no, not this check-out dude, because somehow he labors at still trying to figure out how those bags actually work.

And then comes the actual payment procedure.

So your items have all been scanned, he has scanned your frequent shopper card, and it's time to pay.  I would say 95% of the folks coming through this line know how to scan their credit card through the scanner and punch the buttons, or if they are paying with cash even better, but it's not the purchasers having the problem, it's check-out dude.  From what I can tell there are a couple of buttons to push depending on your method of purchase.  To me it sort of seems like it would be redundant - If they pay with cash, hit these buttons;  If it's a debit card, these buttons;  Credit, it's these.  - and after years with the same cash register system (I know it's the same because when the grocery folks switched the cash register system a bunch of years ago, the nice, older lady, took a little more time, explaining they switched the system), you would actually get used to what buttons to push, but not this check-out dude.  Nope, from day one, until day, well, it's have to have been over 500 on the job, check-out dude still works those buttons like it was day one.

And so I just wanted to vent about this dude who still has a job I think he should be much more familiar with because, thanks to my fault, I didn't listen to my normal rule today, and that is to head for the main check-outs if two people are ahead of me when this dude is running the liquor check-out.  There I stood, for about 15 minutes, waiting to pay for my twelve pack of Heineken Light (my diet starts tomorrow), and not really wondering how this dude still had a job, but how this lazy, fat, slob, still had a job that after all of these years he still hasn't figured out how to do it at least somewhat efficiently.  Thank you for letting me vent.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Posted by Rightdude at 7:16 PM | Comments (0)