Fail-Mix

(I work in a grocery store that has a “bulk” section which sells items by the pound such as candy, trail mix, dried fruit, etc. About every three bins there’s a sticker reminding you to write down the PLU number of the item so the cashier can enter it into the computer and weigh it properly. Despite the numerous reminders, plenty of people don’t write the code, and the cashier is forced to search through our register books which have the 150 or more bulk codes.)

Customer: “Hello!” *sets down some produce and about 10 little bags of bulk product, none of which have codes*

Me: “Hello, did you find everything okay?”

(The usual polite back-and-forth goes on as I speedily enter the memorized codes for the produce, and then pick up the book and start scouring it for the bulk codes, which I don’t try to memorize because there are so many and they’re always changing.)

Me: “What was this one?” *holding up a trail mix that looks like a dozen others*

Customer: “Oh… I don’t remember.”

Me: “All right…” *holding another* “And was this deluxe trail mix salted or unsalted?”

Customer: *impatiently shrugging* “I don’t know!”

(Inwardly I’m rolling my eyes thinking “Well we WOULD know if you followed directions and wrote the codes on the tag”, but I keep a straight face and keep looking for the codes one by one.)

Customer: *leaning in with a sly look and a smile* “Are you new?”

Me: “No, I’ve been here two years. You’re supposed to write the codes for each of these items so I can enter them into the computer.”

Customer: *unconvinced tone* “Uh huh, okay.”

(After he left, I told my coworker about it and we were both amazed that customers think it’s perfectly reasonable to expect us to remember over 150 ever-changing bulk codes, be able to discern between a dozen almost identical trail mixes, and yet it’s NOT reasonable to for them to remember ONE thing: to write the darn code!)