I hate food stamps.

Today we are going to change gears just a little bit and talk about food stamps, more currently known as EBT or electronic benefit transfer. Low-income individuals are deposited cash money or food money into an account every month. Publix accepts these EBT cards, which allow users to buy any type of food in the store, excluding hot items like the fried chicken for example. My initial complaint is that these dumb cards never swipe, or our credit/debit card machines do not read them. The cards are very poorly made and the tiniest scratch will deactivate it. They will look brand new but the customer will not even attempt to slide it and will hand it to me saying, “It don’t swipe.” This makes my job harder, I then have to manually enter the card in, trace the card number on a carbon copy paper and enter a specific receipt into the machine. Now, that isn’t that big of a deal, I can handle it. What drives me nuts is the way people use this money given to them. They will come in and buy Publix subs chips and candy bars for them as well as their five other friends. They buy crap, junk food instead of using that money given to them by the government to get their essential grocery needs. This, might I add is only the situation from my experience in Tallahassee, it was not this bad at my store at home. By now I can just tell by the groceries on the conveyer belt, the customer will be using food stamps. It is ridiculous and frustrates me how much people take advantage of what the government is doing to try to help.

The Crazies!

People who come shopping at Publix are CRAZYY! Sometimes it really scares me to think that they got in a car and drove themselves to the store. Just yesterday while I was at work there was an old man, probably in his seventies or eighties sitting on the bench up front with a razor, dry shaving his face. He cut himself, blood was dripping down his face, and he continued to shave. I think I saw him even stick out his tongue and run the razor down that as well! Of course, all the employees and customers noticed but it still took a good fifteen minutes for any of the managers to do something about it. It was very disturbing and I was quite thankful that my register was not near him. Besides the crazies, we have paranoid people. Once a boy I work with was checking a customer’s credit car when his phone rang in his pocket. He forgot to turn it on silent that day so he took it out to turn it off. The customer then freaks out and causes a huge scene because she thinks he is trying to take a picture of her credit card number. She complained to the store manager and then the boy was fired. Personally, I don’t think that’s right at all because he was not trying to steal the credit card number and now he is out on the streets looking for a new job, and that is not the easiest thing to do these days. As long as it’s not me getting fired, I love to see these crazy, paranoid people. Makes my job a little more interesting.

The Beginning..

Almost four long years ago I was hired at Publix Supermarkets in Palm Harbor, Florida. Then, it was a very depressing day but now I look at it as the beginning of a very interesting experience. The thing that gets me through work every day is the customers that come through my checkout line. I never truly appreciated my customers until i transferred to the Publix in Tallahassee, Florida. Now, I must point out that in the little town of Palm Harbor where I grew up was a headquarters of the KKK years ago therefore, probably 90% of Palm Harbor is white. Tallahassee is a little bit different. Unless you are a college student my customers include ghetto African-Americans, or redneck white people. My favorite thing for customers to do is "forget their wallet". Probably at least twice a shift someone comes through with $100 worth of groceries, I ring it all up and at the end they realize they left their wallet in the car and will be back in a second. "Okay, I can save your order." I tell them. Thirty minutes later they are not back and guess who gets to put their groceries back into the store, yours truly. Throughout this blog you will hear some more of my favorite customer stories and trust me, they are good.