Coupon envy: The Myth Debunked at RCSS

[oogieboogie]

Hey there!

I was shopping at RCSS today and had a fair amount of coupons to use. I went to a young cashier girl who was whipping things through at light speed and super friendly.

When it came to taking two $10 off coupons on some diaper wipes, she had to call the manager over to override everything after that due to high amount.

That was still cool, she's wasn't grouchy or anything but I caught her saying to her manager: "oh no, this is totally gonna mess up my ring-time."

I said, "ring time, what's that?" And she said, "we get measured on how fast we put things through and coupons slow it down and drag down the average scan per minute ringtime and we get penalized for it." I said, "wow, that sucks..."

And there you have it. We are screwing with their "stats"

There had been some theories flying around that they were just grouchy or they had envy of our deals. These still may be true but at least we have it from the horse's mouth what might be the culprit of all the hums and ha's at RCSS.

Oh and one more thing.....I care lots.

[jojos_n_kelowna]

good...i'm gonna keep 'screwing'

HAHAHHA!

[lekate]

Just tell 'em to hit 'total' before punching coupons in, it momentarily freezes their ring time.

The cashiers get worried because if they're at the top, they have the chance to win 10$ GC each week. I used to win them, until I went back to school (my store requires that you work 3 shifts on cash to win, and I dislike cash greatly, so if I can, I'm never on...), and then I broke my foot, so all I can do is hiring right now (store manager is too awesome).

[lekate]

Oh and the goal is something stupid like 16+ items per minute. Cashiers have to be on the express cash to actually have a chance of winning.

[Justine]

When I was a cashier we had this too, don't remember what we called it. But no one really paid much attention to it, no one in management ever came up to you and told you that your time was too slow. I think we had giveaways for fastest though.

I think for the most part, they are scared to put through a coupon that isn't allowed, used incorrectly etc, in fear that they are going to get talked to about it later.

[travelgeek]

Costco has a white board which is regularly updated with the top 10 cashiers.

[callaroz]

I work at the Real Canadian Wholesale and they do the same thing. There is a board upstairs that tracks all of the cashiers, every week it changes.

[freeplease]

I hate it when companies do this, I find that there are more issues with your bill when the speed through everything.

[canadian_girl]

When I worked at Wal-Mart, they had the same thing. The faster you scanned, the better your chances were of winning "Cashier of the Month", and earning your 'red vest' (or Star Cashier vest). I'm not sure if they still do this -- it's been a few years now!! lol.

But you're right -- hitting 'total' will pause your scan time. (We even had a function on our cash registers that let us print out our 'daily' scan speed so we could monitor it ourselves... the things they think of!!

[Justine]

I hate it when companies do this, I find that there are more issues with your bill when the speed through everything.

They mostly just don't want cashiers standing around doing nothing, so when they get customers they want them done fast. You can get through more people if you go faster, and it makes customers happy too, get out of there faster. They are also looking at accuracy, not only speed. If you charge someone for romaine lettuce instead of iceberg, granny smith apples instead of golden delicious and vice versa it isn't good for the store.

At the same time, someone who is working on the express line will have a higher handle time, so they look at that too, how many items you do in that time too.

[lekate]

I hate it when companies do this, I find that there are more issues with your bill when the speed through everything.

I found many of my coworkers were just pushing things down the other side, or bagging poorly, like just throwing everything in without putting any thought into it.

[EvilTofu]

Reminds me of that movie "Employee of the Month".

I am skeptical about this practice. They are rewarding speed, rather than doing work properly.

[Justine]

Perhaps you didn't read what I wrote.

[eloyse]

"Just tell 'em to hit 'total' before punching coupons in, it momentarily freezes their ring time."

I had the same thing when I was a casier at Provigo.

In my first annual review, my boss told me I was slow, that I had
to work harder at speeding things up. But she didn't put any heart
when telling me that. I think it was because I was a good cashier :
no absence, always on time for start of shift, return of break,
cash and coupons balancing, etc. So she said it for the form...

[oogieboogie]

They should require a lot less for someone in a min. wage job.