Stop Being A Ninny And Show Your ID Already

   Recently, I had a major issue with a girl and a guy. Well, the issue was more with the girl than with the guy, but they were together, so for better or worse, they will remain forever linked in my mind. They were buying alcohol, and, of course, I carded them. I carded both of them, because they were a couple, buying alcohol together.
   Of all the things that you may see in a grocery store that would be shocking, getting carded for buying alcohol should never be on that list. Seeing a man leave a trail of piss is shocking. Seeing two grown-ass women get into some high-school drama fistfight over a guy is shocking. Watching a woman scream at the security cameras and then bend over, wave her ass in the air, and scream that security can kiss her ass is shocking. Having a guy pimp girls out of his van in the parking lot is shocking. I have seen all of these things, and could continue this list, but a cashier asking for an ID is not shocking, nor is it offensive.
   Even if you are a gray-haired grandma, you may need to whip that sucker out, because some stores have policies that every single person gets carded. The cashier has to follow policy, because not following policy can cost her/him their job. The legal consequences aren't so great either. Here in Washington, it's a $2,000 dollar fine, if the person you didn't card is part of a sting, and you get busted by the police, or that minor gets busted with a receipt that has your name as the cashier printed on it. That is harsh even if you have a job, but you just lost that job, and you owe $2,000. Washington's consequences are mild though, compared to other state's. When I worked in Florida, the results of selling to a minor and/or getting busted by a sting was getting arrested on the spot. They cuffed you right there, in the store, and on top of the fine, you got to spend a night in jail, no bail. In Florida, I carded everybody, and I didn't care if they were freaking ninety. Additionally, the store can also lose their liquor license, which is a huge loss in sales, and which also means that every single customer now has to go elsewhere to buy their beer/wine/hard liquor.

   But these people that I carded recently, of which this post is really about, were not ninety. The girl, who threw such a fit over being carded; mumbling obscenities, shaking her head, glaring, and eventually storming off in a fit of rage, was barely legal. She was born in freaking '91. Her boyfriend was a little older, but he was '89, so we are talking young, wet-behind-the-ears, almost children here. We aren't talking about a ninety year old woman, we are talking an almost child, who needs to go back to her mother and ask for a review on how to behave in public; that's what we are talking about.
   I'm thirty-two; I get carded every single time I buy alcohol. I've been carded as I've walked into a casino. Hell, I've even been carded when I bought a maturely rated video game. I don't get pissy at people who are just doing their jobs, and carding people is a part of their jobs, in every single case. Everybody needs to understand that getting carded is just something that has to happen, and everybody needs to not act like an asshat when they get carded. Getting carded is not the end of the world; nothing bad will happen to you if you have to pull out your ID. You won't get attacked by zombies. Missiles will not strike the spot on which you are standing. You won't catch Stephen King's super flu. A rampaging lunatic is not going to suddenly show up and shoot you five times in the chest. You won't get raptured (or left behind. No rapture, period.)
None of these terrible, horrifying things will happen. Your cashier will simply type your birthday into the computer; the process is that simple, and if you don't make a fuss, the process is that fast.
   I don't find someone possibly thinking that I am younger than I really am an insult in any case. Tell me that I look young all day long, if you want to. But regardless, if I had my way, every single person who complained about being carded would get charged double for whatever they are buying, unless they were born in the '90s, in which case, they would get charged triple. Guess everybody better be glad that I am not in charge. 

Those Who Steal...

   I'm feeling rather relieved at this moment, having just learned that my cash drawer (till) is not unbalanced. Is my till usually unbalanced? I hope not; if it is, no one is telling me, but I don't think so. That would typically be something that your boss would come and talk to you about, especially when taking money is one of the main duties of your job.
  So why was I worried? Well, I was hit up by a short-change artist. A short-change artist, for those of you who do not know, is someone who comes along, buys something from a cashier, and then attempts to really confuse them and distract them, in order to get more money back. While I cannot remember exactly the entire conversation, I am going to recreate the conversation that we had, and while you read this, I want you to also keep in mind the speed of the conversation; while you can read this at whatever pace you want, this entire conversation took less than five minutes.
   The short-change artist had just bought a travel size foot powder, that cost less than a dollar, and had paid with a fifty. I was counting out her change when she said, "Can I have one of those dollars in quarters?"
   "Sure," I replied, and took back a dollar, putting four quarters on the stack of change (I lay the change out on the counter as I count, so that the customer can watch.)
   "What are you doing? I'll give you a dollar in a minute, one thing at a time, one thing at a time," the customer said, so confused, but going with the flow, I took back the quarters and put the dollar bill back. She picks up the money, looks at it, and in a shocked voice, says, "What did I give you? A fifty?"
   "Yes ma'am, you gave me a fifty."
   "Oh no, take this back, I need that fifty, I think I had a phone number on it."
   So I take the change back, and get out a fifty. "There isn't a phone number on this bill." I say as I hand the bill to her. "That's fine, that's fine, I want to give you another fifty and get a hundred from you."
  "I need another dollar, this is just $49," I say, because she just gave me back the change bills (two twenties, a five, and four ones), and I had given her the fifty.
   "Sure, sure," she says and gives me another dollar, and then gives me the fifty dollar bill that I had just handed her, "And I am going to give you this as well, so that I can get a hundred dollar bill."
   "Wait," I say, "that's not right..."
   "Yeah it is, I gave you that fifty, and now I am giving you this fifty, and I want a single bill back."
   "But this fifty is the one I exchanged for you."
   "No, that fifty is in your drawer, remember, I wrote a number on it. This fifty is different, it doesn't have a number; I wouldn't lie to you."
   "But you have to give me two fifties to get a hundred back," I say handing her back the fifty, and keeping the fifty dollars worth of change in my hand.
  "No, I gave you that fifty in change that you are holding. This fifty makes one hundred." And she puts the bill on the counter and pushes it towards me.
  "Nooooo," I say slowly, because I am starting to get confused, this conversation is happening really fast, and I also have other customers in line calling out things like, "Just give her the money already!" So I am confused, but I hold on to the fifty in change, and push the single bill back to her.
   "No, you used a fifty to pay for your foot powder, and then wanted it back, so we exchanged, you didn't give me a fifty."
  "No, look," the lady says, and points to my till, which was still open (foolishly), "You have a fifty in your till. That's the one I gave you for the powder."
  "Noooo," I draw out again, because I am trying to think. "You used this to pay for your powder." And I kinda wave the fifty in change that I am holding.
   She takes out another dollar, lays it on the counter and says, "Look, this can be for the powder. Now take that fifty you're holding that I gave you, and take this fifty, and give me a hundred. I have given you two fifties."
 At this point, I say what I should have said in the first place, "Hold on, I need to call a Lead." And after I say this, the woman takes the fifty she was trying to hand me, says never mind, and walks out of the door. I tell the lead clerk (shift supervisor type position) what happened, and she takes the receipt, which I still have, to give to the manager. Because our store has security, they are able to watch the whole exchange on the cameras, and having the receipt makes this easier, because the receipt is time-stamped, so they know exactly when to look. But there was so much money pushed back-and-forth between us that security can't tell if she got extra money or not, which is a very, very nerve wracking thing to hear. When you are a cashier, and you hear that, you think, "Holy. Shit." And then you worry, because you know you made mistakes. I kept my drawer open the entire time, when I should have slammed the thing shut. Also, we were passing bills back and forth, and all in just a short period of time; during certain points of this bill passing, I was distracted by other customers who thought I should have just giving her the hundred, and were being vocal about it. Also, I should have called the Lead as soon as this started. I am not a newbie, all of these things are things that I know, so I was kicking myself for not following procedures that are designed to prevent this type of problem. I was fairly sure that I had not given her extra money, but there was a smaller part of me that was completely sure that I did, or else I kept HER money, which is something that I equally don't want to do.
   This woman knew what she was doing. 'One thing at a time' is a saying we have when we are dealing with issues like this. We do one thing at a time, fulfill one request at a time, so that we don't get mixed up and confused. It's a method taught to us in training, and her saying that at the beginning of the transaction was a way of throwing me off guard; short-change artists get you to give them extra money often by overloading you with requests so that you mess us and can't remember what you were doing, which makes it easier for them to get extra money  off of you, so with this woman saying 'one thing at a time' it seemed like she was trying to help me out. Then the supposed number on the bill was a distraction, something that would get stuck in my head so that later, she could bring it up and hopefully get me to say, "Oh yeah, there was a number." Because this was not a slow, careful conversation, this was rushed and hectic, and if that number rang a bell to me, I might have gone with it and been like, oh yeah, you did give me that, even though she didn't. In fact, one of the saving graces was that while the bill I handed back to her did not have a number, it did have a star drawn on it, and so when  I saw that same star on the bill when she tried to give it back, I remembered that this was the fifty we had traded for, and that we were even. If she had given me that fifty, and I had given her the hundred like she wanted, my till would have been fifty dollars short. But, in spite of my recognition of the bill that she was trying to hand me back, I was still a little nervous about what had happened. Honestly, this is a condensed version of the conversation, as I said, I can remember the gist, and some of the key points, but I can't entirely recall word for word, and we went back and forth a little more than I felt like typing, but all of that back and forth really confused me, which was the point after all. She wanted me confused, but I had a death grip on that fifty in change; I wasn't giving that up.
   So how did we find out that I hadn't given her extra change? Well, I had to wait for the till to be counted down, and that is how we found out I did not give her money that I shouldn't have, nor did I take money that I shouldn't have, because my till balanced out. Can you say relief? Huge relief. I deserve a cookie and a pat on the head.

      ((**NOTE** Later that same day, I found that the same lady had tried this with two other cashiers, but they followed procedures, and she didn't get anywhere with them. I was the only one, unfortunately for my nerves, yet fortunately for the store, that she had managed to get that far with. She was easily described and recognized, because she was walking around with a half-smoked, crumpled cigarette hanging out of her mouth.))

Oh The Rain, Rain, Rain Came Down, Down, Down

   It won't stop raining. Of course, I suppose I signed up for this when I moved to Washington, because we all know this place is overcast and rainy. That's fine. I've learned to deal with the rain. I've learned to deal with being wet all the time, and having wet, soggy feet. I've also learned to wear a coat with a hood, because chances are, at some point in the day, there is going to be rain, and after a few years of carrying an umbrella everywhere I went, I gave it up. It starts raining around here, we just all pull our hoods up and hope we can get under cover before we look like we've jumped in a lake.

   At any rate, I didn't move here being totally unfamiliar with the rain. I've lived a large chunk of my life in Mississippi, my dad's side of the family is from that state, and I moved to Florida before I had my daughter. Both of those states get plenty of rain. Not as constantly as Washington, but worse, in some ways because those states' rain tends to come with hurricanes, and at the least, thunder and lightening. It's just those states have dry seasons, and here every season is wet and rainy.

   I can't remember, growing up in MS, just rain. I remember rain that came accompanied by lightening and thunder, and we were always cautioned; don't hold metal (no umbrellas), don't stand under trees, get inside, and so-on and so-forth. In Washington, at least in the area I live, we get substantial amounts of rain, but rarely do we get an actual thunderstorm. 

   Which of course, leads me to thinking of my daughter, who has mostly lived in Washington. She was born in Florida, but we moved up north when she was three. So she is not used to thunderstorms at all, and I never really thought about telling her the safety measures about being outside in a thunderstorm, in part, because we never were outside in a thunderstorm. But a while back, we were having a really good thunderstorm, however,  we couldn't be smart, sensible people because she had to go to school, which means she had to catch the bus. I don't have a car, so my taking her to school was out, because walking would have put her more in the weather than catching the bus, and she never wants to stay home. So we went to the bus stop in the bad weather. 

   I am not allowed to stand with my daughter anymore. She's at that age where dear old mom standing at the bus stop is embarrassing, but I don't leave either; I stand at the corner, a few feet away from the actual bus stop. When we go to catch the bus, it's still dark outside. Her school starts early, and I don't like her standing by the side of the road, waiting for a bus, in the dark, without being close by so I can hear her shout if she needs me. While we don't live in the most terrible of neighborhoods, I have certainly lived worse places, neither do we live in the best of neighborhoods. So I stand there, whether she likes it or not. 

   And at this time, I was standing there, hoping the bus will come fast so that we can all get out of the lightening; I look over at all the kids, to see how they are handling all this stormy weather, and they are, all of them, huddled underneath the damn trees. Including my daughter, who looks at me like I am crazy when I start yelling at them, "Get out from underneath the trees!" 

   They are all looking at me like I am some bat-shit, creeper woman, and none of them are moving, the thunder is steadily rolling, so I holler again, "Ya'll have got to get out from underneath those trees." They still don't move, not a one of them, so I call my daughter over to me and explain to her that trees attract lightening and they all need to move. She stomps off, saying, "Well, no one ever told me that." Which is true enough, but she can't get them to move either, so I am looking at my daughter standing away from the trees, all by herself, while she looks at all these other kids, huddled in the shelter of the trees, and I am just praying for the bus to come before someone gets hit by lightening, and I am wishing that some of these kids' parents would actually bother to come to the bus stop once in a while, because damned if I wanna deal with this shit before it's even daylight. 

  This is what comes of not teaching your kids not to stand underneath trees in a thunderstorm. Of course, the bus did come, and the kids were all safe, but they all looked at me askance for a while after that; I was the crazy woman who wanted them to stand in rain. 

Issues With Self Check -- Why Machines Can't Replace People

   "Can you do this for me? Can you ring this up?" This is the most common question that I get asked when I am working the self check station at my work. Despite the fact that the sign clearly states Self Check, there will undoubtedly be someone who wants to cut the lines, but not do the work. Another thing that will undoubtedly happen? Someone with a full cart load of groceries will attempt to come through the self check area, despite the fact that the sign above the lanes clearly states "About 15 items." $300 dollars worth of groceries being rang up on machines that are only programmed to deal with small orders is never a good thing, but one thing that working with the public has taught me is this: people can't read. Can't, won't, same difference, and all this not reading and $300 orders boils down to one fact: the self check attendant is going to have to spend an ungodly amount of time trying to get the machine that is going bat-shit to calm down. Some of our attendants are better at this than others; myself, I am no machine whisperer: be prepared to wait.
   Which brings me to today's issue. Will self check ever replace human cashiers? I am sure that there are companies that are more than willing to attempt this replacement, after all, machines aren't going to cry for a living wage. Machines don't care about being fairly compensated for the work that they do, nor do they care about benefits such as sick pay, retirement, and health insurance. I suppose that might look good to some companies. Maybe even all companies.
   Yet as a person who has had to sit attendant on these machines, I promise you - this is a bad deal. Machines are only as smart as the people using them. So while there are some people who can get themselves in and out with no issues, there are (at the very least) an equal amount of people who manage to screw everything the hell up, so that the attendant has to come over and try his/her best to figure out what the hell that person was doing in order to fix the problem. And I have come across some insanely stupid mistakes. Mistakes so stupid that we've just had to cancel the entire thing, and I've had to take them to a checker. Machines do not understand people, so when you do something that makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever, the machines isn't going to go, "Oh! You're trying to do this! Let me fix that for you." You know what you need for that type of comprehension? A person.
   Another things that machines can't really handle? Theft. Oh, those machines have a few safeguards built in. They can detect if someone is putting more weight in the bagging area than equals the weight of items scanned, but the machine can't see if you have left things in the cart or basket. The machine can't see that you are using the wrong Product Look-Up codes (PLUs). That is one of the many reasons that there is a bored little attendant sitting at her own screen, watching everything you do, which all pops up on the master screen in front of her. You would also be surprised, while we are talking illicit goings-ons, about how many kids think that they can go buy alcohol through the self check lanes. Never fails, "You still card me in self check?" Yes, yes we do.
   And while you don't have to pay a self check machine sick pay, I assure you that machines do break down; they break down a lot. They break down when people attempt to use them like coin stars, jamming coins in faster than the machines can handle, they break down when someone's little girl decides that dancing on the bagging area (which is a computerized scale system) is a good idea, they break down when there is a glitch in the programming, they break down for no fathomable reason at all, and while you don't have to pay these broken hunks of metal, chips, and wires sick pay, you do have to pay someone to come fix them. That's not really a money saver, there.
   I am not saying that self check is a completely terrible idea. Our store is crowded; we always have lines. In our store, self check is used as a glorified express lane (about 15 items please) and I can see that this has helped. When I am working the checkstands, there are a lot less people complaining about the lines because the ones that used to do that were usually the ones with three items, having to wait behind someone with two full carts. We get all manner of complicated orders as well, WIC, tax exempt, extremely large orders for day cares and assisted living homes, and I can see a person with three items not wanting to stand behind this. Self check, in our store, has alleviated some of this, but what I am saying is this: machines are not yet capable of replacing an actual person. Personally, I have my doubts that they will ever be, but if they do, that will be a sad, sad day. I don't understand people wishing to render other people obsolete. But regardless, all I know is this, next time you are smirking at a person who is asking for a fair wage, thinking that they will be replaced by machines, just remember, if that day ever comes, you are going to be spending a long, long time standing in line behind all the WIC orders, all the three cart orders, all the tax exempt, all the people who don't mix well with technology. I've worked these machines, and I know that these machines cannot handle many of the orders that I still take in a checkstand. 

Young Adult Books; Yet Another I Love Books Post

   In this past month I have read the complete Matched trilogy by Ally Condie, The Legend trilogy by Marie The Uglies series by Scott Westerfield, and the problem is, I just can't get enough. I caught myself searching on the Kindle book store, to see what other similar books they could recommend to me. Then, of course, I had to speak rather firmly with myself, because my daughter just had a birthday, and birthday expenses have depleted all of my spending money. I am going to be broke for a while and I can't buy all these books that Kindle is recommending. I am either going to have to wait or go to the library.
   But my pursuit of my next 'fix' got me thinking about books quite a bit. You see, as a tween and teen, for me, I spent all of my time browsing in the scifi/fantasy sections of bookstores and libraries, sections marketed towards adults. The reason for this twofold: I love scifi/fantasy for one, and for the other, there really wasn't a young adult section back in my day (I feel like a dinosaur for saying that, but at the same time, got a kick out of it as well. Don't judge.) I mean, supposedly there was one, but we are talking about one smallish bookshelf at the most. Back when I was a teen, you have children's, which was admittedly smallish, and everything else was adult. So an avid reader such as myself, I had to read the adult section.
   Not that this was really that bad, I mean, my first loves came from that scifi/fantasy adult section. Ann McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, Stephen King (okay, he was in the horror section, and his books are scary, but go read The Talisman and The Gunslinger and tell me that's not fantasy), Piers Anthony -- I loved, and still love, all of these authors. But a lot of kids my age, they just didn't read, and I think that a lot of this not reading is due to the fact that there really weren't a lot of books marketed specifically for that youth group. The few authors that were out there - they didn't seem to get a ton of attention. Fast forward to today, and it seems like every young adult book is celebrated and is getting movie attention (Hunger Games, Divergent, ect).
   I was a teen when Harry Potter came out. His story caused an explosion in the book world. Suddenly, young people had a seriously recognized book with an author who became celebrated. Choices expanded. Then along comes the Twilight series (I was a mom already when this came out), which I have read and own, and liked - loved even - but as a horror fanatic, I find that I must, must, mock her version of vampires. (They are sparkle fairies!) But love Twilight or hate it, you can't deny that this book also exploded the book scene, and suddenly, there are young adult authors everywhere. New series everywhere, new authors all over the place, old ones getting recognition finally, their books in reprint, and the young adult section is finally more than one bookcase. Barnes and Nobles has an entire section, multiple bookcases, and a ridiculous shelving method that ensures that you find nothing. Old favored adult authors of mine, such as Juliet Marillier, now have expanded into the young adult section as well, not that you can find her with Barnes and Nobles shelving method. (Why can't they be alphabetical, by author, like every other section? That's what I really want to know.)
    And I can't stop reading this section, because they have all this dystopian fiction that I can't get enough of. Who knew that this was even a genre? Well, thanks to Suzanne Collins, it sure is now. And heck, go look up Carrie Ryan: The Forest of Hands and Teeth: youth zombie fiction. Awesomeness. And one of my newest favorite reads: The Lunar Chronicles. Fairy tale remakes with a rebellious, science fiction theme; Cinderella is now Cinder, the cyborg.I love it.
    And I am happy; my daughter has a ton of books to chose from. Sure, she's reading from the adult sections some, but the point is, she doesn't have to. There are a multitude of books for her to chose from, marketed towards her age. And the bonus? She doesn't even have to ask for me to buy most of them, because she knows I am gonna buy them anyway. (And the daughter scores!) Books sure have changed since I was my daughter's age, and personally, I love it. Happy reading.