Yesterday, I shared the downside of how young folks approach their employment. Today, there might be a glimmer of hope.
After
leaving the pharmacy where I may or may not have been creditorily
compromised, having been told that the pharmacy didn't have a way to
enter a PIN for a debit card... I headed to Casey's to cash in two
coupons for scratchers. You might recall that back in December, a
segment of my Molottery points were about to be lost at the first of the
year. So I used that portion to buy coupons for scratchers. They have a
bar code, and instructions at the bottom of how to redeem them.
In
January, I took a coupon to this Casey's, and the clerk redeemed it.
She took a minute, as it's not a common procedure like simply scanning a
winner and printing out a receipt for the register. But it was a
relatively painless process. Since I knew that store had redeemed a
coupon before, I went back.
A young lad new to me came
over to work the second register, and said he could help me. I handed
him two coupons for scratchers. He asked, "Which tickets would you
like?" I told him, and he scanned them and laid them on the counter.
Easily within my reach. I did not pick them up. I remembered that last
time, the clerk had to scan the coupon bar code, THEN ask me which
ticket I wanted, and then scan the ticket I was buying. I figured he was
going to need those tickets again.
LAD punched some
stuff into his lottery terminal. Then said, "Excuse me, I'll be right
back." He went to the manager's office, and came out with, I assume, the
manager. She said, "Oh, yeah. Here's what you do." She punched some
stuff in. Looked at it. Looked at me. Looked at my coupons. "Oh. You cut
off the instructions." Not in a rude way. Just matter-of-factly.
"I
have them right here."
I took the folded strip out of my pocket. Mrs.
HM is not one to carry her scratcher coupons on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of
paper. I had cut out the coupon on the dotted line. But also trimmed the
instructions at the bottom of the page. Just in case. I handed them to
her.
Manager-lady went through the process step-by-step
with LAD. He was attentive. He indeed needed to scan my tickets, one at
a time, right after scanning the coupon. To prevent fraud, I imagine,
with printed coupons. When finished, he handed me my scratchers, said,
"Thank you, and good luck!" Manager-lady also thanked me. They didn't
return my strip of instructions, and I didn't ask. If I buy more coupons
with my points, I will get another set of instructions at the bottom of
my coupon page.
THAT'S how to learn your job, and not
pretend you know it all. LAD could easily have handed over my
scratchers, sent me on my way, and figured he'd get his register right
after I was gone. Instead, he went to seek assistance, and in doing so,
learned how to do the process right the next time.
Well done, LAD.
I'm pretty sure he could NOT have just handed you your scratchers, since in my experience the coupons ALWAYS need to be scanned before the items. If he scanned the items and then you went on your merry way, they would be invalid because the coupon wasn't scanned, then any winning tickets would get you zero, zip, nada. So it's good that he checked and learned.
ReplyDeleteRiver,
ReplyDeleteOOH! I never thought about that. They were both losers anyway, but I could have been considered to have ILLICIT scratchers! Even though he bumbled a bit, he made the effort to learn the process, so kudos to him.
His willingness to learn how to do his job says as much about the person training him as it does about him. I have worked a lot of different jobs in my long life and training has been good and training has been lacking. Some people just cannot explain things sufficiently and will tend to push the newest employee to another employee (that they also did not train properly). This happened to me when I worked at the pharmacy in Walmart. The person training me got a bonus for doing so. But she was clueless about some of the specifics of the job. She worked days and I was hired for evenings. On my very first day was told my job included being in control of the inventory that was to be ordered daily. A different employee showed me how on the computer, but I had no real understanding of how the order worked. Took me awhile and a lot of asking questions to get a grip on it. Come to find out, the entire order was being done wrong. Everything is captured by the barcode every time it is read. Prescription drugs are barcoded, as well The computer would compute (giggle) the amount of stock used (sold), then compare it with the amount left on hand and decide if more was needed. This does not account for stolen merchandise in the store and that is why you will see a missing item on the shelf. Theft is not a big issue inside the pharmacy, but the order number has to be set or you will either have too much stock or not enough. Everyone working in that area has to contribute for it to function. For instance, a prescription might come in for a drug that had never been prescribed in that pharmacy. Drugs have expiration dates, so not only would it be cost prohibited for any pharmacy to have every drug ever available in stock, but it would cause a lot of waste. But to made your number reflect the amount of that new RX, some one would have to put the numbers in the computer and set the number to reflect the amount needed. I ended up doing the training
ReplyDeleteKathy,
ReplyDeleteThe lady he got out of the manager's office was very patient with him, and actually seemed excited to share this new skill with him. I'm glad I brought in those instructions, because it was clear they don't do this very often, and she was going to have to read them from the MoLottery retailer site anyway, as she walked him through it.
I'm sure you were one of the best Handmaidens The Devil ever had working for him!
I just reread my comment and OMG! Was I writing an instruction manual? In my defense, I was under the influence of a new pain reliever and I was feeling no pain. Guess I better no take this and go out among the unintelligent!
ReplyDeleteKathy,
ReplyDeleteHeh, heh! That's okay, it didn't cause me any pain!