Fast Lane Hell
I have been privileged to be the cashier who has been bouncing from lane to Fast Lanes for the last week. I'm fine with it as long as the Fast Lanes behave. For those not in-the-Meijer-know, Fast Lanes are the self scan lanes. I'm not sure how long these lanes have been around, but for a store that is just barely a year old, these things are crap. I spend most of my time dealing with fixing things and trying to get them to function than helping customers.
Tonight two were completely rebooted (which I feel needs to happen more often since they are Windows based systems) during our busiest time. One decided to not dispense cash without first being kicked. Another has for the last week decided to not accept Chase cards (both credit and debit). And apparently I'm the only one that knows the card-in-plastic-bag trick. I am the resident magician in the eyes of the customers.
The Fast Lane that normally behaves decided to misbehave tonight. The way the systems are set up it automatically prompts for age verification on age restricted items (tobacco, alcohol, bullets, etc). In the Fast Lanes the system will actually stop when you want to pay to get this verification taken care of. It has to be done with an employee log on at the Fast Lane and not at the master terminal. Also, if the cashier working the Fast Lanes needs to log on to the system for any reason after this verification has hit the system, a prompt will come up asking to verify the age before allowing the cashier to do anything else. Tonight the nice, kind, sweet child of the Fast Lane family decided to skip this step. I had logged into the assist mode to take care of a void and a price change at the end of the transaction and was not prompted per usual for the age verification of the wine. Thankfully the customer clearly met the age requirement for her purchase and she was the only customer the whole night who purchased an age restricted item on that lane.
Around three o'clock today, I was bagging for a customer on the Fast Lanes (something I am requested to do from management and something I like to do) when the alerts on the master terminal went off. I looked up to find all but three of the ten lanes had red lights meaning they required assistance just as the customer I was bagging for had a problem with a coupon. Another red light. I couldn't find the other cashier I was working with on the lanes so I started the walk down the lanes. One red light taken care of at a time. So many coupons not being automatically accepted, which deserves its own ranting post titled Coupon Hell, and so many other Fast Lane only problems.
Tonight was the night of the mysterious "unexpected item on the belt or in the bagging area." All I can figure is there are ghosts at Meijer who like to play on the belts and bagging areas messing up the scales. Also women need to stop putting their purses/diaper bags/sacks that hold the world on the belts. The Fast Lanes don't like it and it is the reason I hear "unexpected item on the belt. Please rescan item" in my sleep. Although this line may become a go to line when I get in a position where someone tries to take my pants off. I just have to start wearing a belt at all times.
Overall, three weeks into this job, I'm truly enjoying it. From what I've heard, I'm at the good Meijer. At least in terms of my department. Yay kicking all the other departments' butts in customer satisfaction. (Although the low scores in the other department are causing our total store score to drop. I'm trying to figure out a way to fix this as I'm tired of hearing about how hard it was to get help in other parts of the store from the customers when they come through my lane.)
Tonight two were completely rebooted (which I feel needs to happen more often since they are Windows based systems) during our busiest time. One decided to not dispense cash without first being kicked. Another has for the last week decided to not accept Chase cards (both credit and debit). And apparently I'm the only one that knows the card-in-plastic-bag trick. I am the resident magician in the eyes of the customers.
The Fast Lane that normally behaves decided to misbehave tonight. The way the systems are set up it automatically prompts for age verification on age restricted items (tobacco, alcohol, bullets, etc). In the Fast Lanes the system will actually stop when you want to pay to get this verification taken care of. It has to be done with an employee log on at the Fast Lane and not at the master terminal. Also, if the cashier working the Fast Lanes needs to log on to the system for any reason after this verification has hit the system, a prompt will come up asking to verify the age before allowing the cashier to do anything else. Tonight the nice, kind, sweet child of the Fast Lane family decided to skip this step. I had logged into the assist mode to take care of a void and a price change at the end of the transaction and was not prompted per usual for the age verification of the wine. Thankfully the customer clearly met the age requirement for her purchase and she was the only customer the whole night who purchased an age restricted item on that lane.
Around three o'clock today, I was bagging for a customer on the Fast Lanes (something I am requested to do from management and something I like to do) when the alerts on the master terminal went off. I looked up to find all but three of the ten lanes had red lights meaning they required assistance just as the customer I was bagging for had a problem with a coupon. Another red light. I couldn't find the other cashier I was working with on the lanes so I started the walk down the lanes. One red light taken care of at a time. So many coupons not being automatically accepted, which deserves its own ranting post titled Coupon Hell, and so many other Fast Lane only problems.
Tonight was the night of the mysterious "unexpected item on the belt or in the bagging area." All I can figure is there are ghosts at Meijer who like to play on the belts and bagging areas messing up the scales. Also women need to stop putting their purses/diaper bags/sacks that hold the world on the belts. The Fast Lanes don't like it and it is the reason I hear "unexpected item on the belt. Please rescan item" in my sleep. Although this line may become a go to line when I get in a position where someone tries to take my pants off. I just have to start wearing a belt at all times.
Overall, three weeks into this job, I'm truly enjoying it. From what I've heard, I'm at the good Meijer. At least in terms of my department. Yay kicking all the other departments' butts in customer satisfaction. (Although the low scores in the other department are causing our total store score to drop. I'm trying to figure out a way to fix this as I'm tired of hearing about how hard it was to get help in other parts of the store from the customers when they come through my lane.)
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