Code 500 to the grocery entrance!

The first weekend of the month is always the worst. To top things off, I got to close, which just makes me all extra kinds of cheerful, because the closer usually clocks about forty five minutes of overtime a night on the first weekend of the month since it is just plain ass crazy in there. I had this fleeting hope that the white out condition weather would keep people home, but oh no! You'd think that bridge card money expired today or something.

We managed to keep the lines down, and for a while all of the registers were open. I was astonished that we didn't have any huge customer complaints or anything. For a Walmart on the first Saturday of the month, this is very, very unusual. What we did have, though, made me all kinds of cranky.

As a CSM, I supervise the stock man, which you probably know as cart pushers. I don't know about your stock men, but ours do not get along at all. Everything is always the fault of the others that they are working with, and you just plain cannot trust them with anything. For instance, back in December, they lost the keys to the propane cages. The fix to this situation? One of our Assistant Mangers got ticked off enough to go out and snap the locks off with this huge pair of cutters. We replaced the lock to that part of the cage, and I gave the stock man one copy of the key, and kept the other in the podium.

Now, the stock men keys are hard to lose. They are attached to these HUGE pieces of wood, by HUGE, I mean like a foot long, and four to six inches wide with this huge chain running through a hole that is drilled into the wood. They contain copies of the propane keys, and the bottle room keys. Both sets are on these huge blocks of wood. How they can go missing is BEYOND me, but they have, twice now.

At whatever point, another CSM loaned out our copy to one of the stock men, and it was never turned in. Between December and today, both copies have gotten lost. They still have one of their blocks of wood with keys on it, but it is only the keys for the bottle machine. I get annoyed and start snarking at the stock man who's asking for the keys, and as usual, they all start playing the blame game. So, the wild search for they keys begins. In the end, we cut all the locks off, replaced them, and I took all the keys and put them in my big drawer o' keys. The stockmen will not be getting a copy of this key. Forget that, we will not be losing any more sales because of them.

So my day goes on with only a few minor incidents, and when we get a little bit of time, my fellow CSM and I make our way up to count the drawers. Around this time, we're laughing and generally making the best of the stress when people start yelling down by the grocery entrance. Now, its been loud in the store, so I don't think too much of it just yet, and recount my quarters. By the time I move on to my ones, the yelling has dramatically increased to the point that its overpowering the front end. I slam my drawer shut and lock it, and bark to my other CSM to start getting customers the hell away from that end, and I sprint off to the grocery entrance.

I've been in this situation before, when I was just a sales associate. This situation tries to happen at least once a month with the same two groups of people. I don't know what their deal is, but they hate each other, and how they end up in my store at the same time is beyond me. I arrive at the doors and quickly asses the situation that already has a group forming around the self scans. Sure enough, these assholes are about to throw down. I practically scream over the walkie talkie a Code 500, which is Walmart for "People are beating the shit out of each other, get here now." I also send a very pointed glare to the associates who have left their registers to come and stare. Get back to work, others are dealing with this.

By the time management arrives, I've pulled enough authority to make these girls realize that they are no longer welcome in my store, and that I don't care if they beat the snot out of each other, they just won't be doing it here. Apparently, someone looked at someones kid wrong. Who knows. I just wish this wasn't the biggest headache of the night.

The biggest headache, you ask? One of our door greeters attempted to quit because she decided there were too many door greeters. Apparently, she has a problem having company at one door when the midshifter is there. The solution? Just send the midshifter down to the other door if you'd rather be alone! I could not wrap my mind around that, I still can't. Why would you quit over being overstaffed? I've never heard of such a thing.

PS: If you show up wearing sweatpants to work, and we've talked about it before, then no, I am not kidding when I tell you to go home. Come to work dressed to work, not looking like you just rolled out of bed. That is all.

PPS: Welcome to my new reader! Yay!