I am cashiering at a grocery store on New Year’s Eve. The store is closing early at 9:00 pm, and we’ve been fairly busy up until recently. At around 8:00, a woman comes up with her cart overflowing with groceries awkwardly piled around a baby in their carrier. She has a noticeable accent and is either not speaking clearly or speaking too quietly most of the time.
As I start ringing up her items, she speaks up.
Customer: “I can’t go over $190.”
I glance down the belt and at the decent amount left in the cart, knowing this will be over that amount. I repeat it back to her, double-checking that she wants me to tell her when she hits that total. She confirms that, continuing to unload onto my belt, digging through the groceries to hand me things in sets, presumably prioritizing what she’ll keep if (when) she can’t afford it all.
We get through about half the cart before we hit her limit.
Me: “Okay, that makes [total just barely at her dollar amount]. Is that all right?”
She stares in confusion at the screen showing her items, glancing at the rest of her things. Then, she points at the rows of various subtotals which, on our system, include which items are eligible for EBT (government assistance) and other such programs.
Customer: “But that says $150. We can keep going.”
She has given me a fair number of non-food items and has a few more on the belt, which are definitely not covered under the food card’s rules, which is why there is a description in the totals.
Me: “That’s for EBT. Do you only have $190 on EBT or do you have another way to pay?”
I’m a little unsure of what she wants at this point, but I assume she knows about EBT’s rules on non-food items; I just want to check.
Customer: “We can keep going.”
She insists, and I’m still confused, but okay. I keep an eye on the EBT subtotal. We get through most of what is visible to me in the cart before I stop again.
Me: “Okay, miss, that puts you at [just below the total she gave me] on EBT, and your total is [about $30 more]. Is that all right?”
She stares at the screen for several seconds before nodding and turning to finish unloading her cart, bending to pull out several pieces from the butcher section, including steak and chicken, as well as a few other more expensive items. I take this to mean she wants me to continue scanning. Just those last few items add a fair amount to both her EBT and her full total.
By now, my bagger has gone to get a second cart to put the customer’s stuff in because she never moves hers down, and also, there is no way it’s fitting back in the first with the carrier in the way. By the time everything is bagged, it fills most of the new cart. I total everything up.
Me: “All right, it looks like your total is [amount in the mid $300s], and EBT comes to [amount in the high $200s].”
She frowns at the screen, muttering half to herself, it sounds like.
Customer: “It was only supposed to be $190. You were supposed to tell me when it was $190.”
I apologize, confused, with growing concern and getting a bad feeling about this, and she grumbles, pulling out her EBT card and waving it around.
Me: “Okay, let’s do the EBT first.”
She nods, getting it into the card reader with only minor issues. I forget to specify a total on the computer before running it, which means the system tries to run it for the whole amount, and it is rejected. Luckily, for EBT cards, it will tell me the exact balance they have left, so I read that off for her.
Me: “Oops, sorry, it didn’t take. Okay, so it looks like you have [a little bit more than she told me earlier], so let’s try that again, please?”
She frowns at me, and I redo the process, inputting the exact amount before letting her slide again. It goes through fine, but she still has a balance due of well over $100, about half of it being the non-food items.
She’s looking frustrated and grumbling to herself as she starts sorting through her stuff, pulling things out of her cart and shoving them at me.
Me: “You want me to void these?”
She confirms that, continuing to look through her cart. She hands me two or three bags’ worth of stuff. I’m having some trouble voiding the things off because I have to manually search through her almost 300 items to find what she is handing me. The issue is compounded by the fact that I’ve hit the point in our system where it requires a supervisor code to continue voiding. Luckily, I have one, but I still have to enter that code in order to void anything after that, and it’s confusing the h*** out of me. It also forces me to void the previous tender, so the full balance is now due again.
After getting rid of like $50 worth of groceries, she gets a phone call and answers, still picking through the cart and glaring at the screen. She continues grumbling about how high the total still is — to me or the person on the phone, I’m not entirely sure.
Me: “How much are you paying after EBT?”
I’m asking to try to help figure out how much stuff she needs to take off. She stares at me, confused and frustrated.
Customer: “I don’t know! It’s supposed to be $190! What’s the total at right now?”
Me: “No, how much can you pay after the $190?”
This repeats back and forth a few more times before I give up trying to help.
Me: “Miss, do you have any money besides the EBT?”
She scowls and shakes her head.
Customer: “No! I told you it was supposed to be $190! What else do I need to take off?”
I sigh, growing more frustrated with her.
Me: “Well, all of the not-food stuff needs to go, then.”
She frowns and hands me a few more things, only two of which are not-food stuff. I continue trying to void them, with shaky success as my computer is not the best and is sometimes lagging or messing up the commands.
At this point, I’ve been helping her for a bit over half an hour already, and we close in a little less than half an hour. Either she is being willfully ignorant or it’s a communication error of some kind, but either way, my patience is growing thin, and I start just wanting her gone.
I look at the total we have managed to bring it down to and the three or four bags’ worth of things we’ve already taken off. We’d still have to remove about $50 worth of stuff. I decide to take pity (on her and me both) and offer to cover that last little bit. (Make it my good deed for the day; after all, it’s New Year’s and I just got paid.)
She sighs at me when I have to ask her to run her EBT card again, and she’s still on the phone, more focused on them than me now. When that clears, I spin the PIN pad around and take out my phone to pay the difference.
Me: “There you go, miss. Have a good New Year’s.”
I handed her the very long receipt, and without a thank-you or a good-bye or anything, she grabbed the remains of her stuff and moved herself to the entryway of the store.
I saw her there until the ten-minute closing announcement was made, occasionally poking through her cart, using her phone, or wandering back to the checkout area without her cart or her child. At one point, I even saw her poking through the lighters we keep near Customer Service.
