Grocery stores should have either a manual cash registor or auxiliary power in event of a disaster.

No problem seabag,

I enjoy reading your many threads as you are a talented writter and make good sense.

Maybe my problem is that I feel our children are not being given a well rounded education and it scares me.

Peace, we are in this together.

reply to post by dizziedame


Please don't think that all people who are cashiers are stupid and can't do basic math. That is a very untrue stereotype.
Most retail workers are college students, many have degrees. Some people enjoy the social aspect of dealing with other people.
For me, working in retail helped me get over a social anxiety disorder and gave me confidence. Something all the high I.Q. tests, top grades and hours with my nose in a book couldn't do.

reply to post by dizziedame

No problem seabag,

I enjoy reading your many threads as you are a talented writter and make good sense.

Maybe my problem is that I feel our children are not being given a well rounded education and it scares me.

Peace, we are in this together.

Awesome!

I’m glad you responded. I re-read your post 5 times and was beginning to question my own reading comprehension.

There are no hard feelings and it wasn’t a personal attack…at least it wasn’t intended that way.



Well, I know the educational system in US has become an indoctrination center but I don’t discount the individual’s ability to see through it…at least not my kids and kids from good families. You get your kids past the indoctrination by doing your own form of education at home, which I’m sure you did and your kids do now. And running invoices without power is a little more time consuming but not rocket science. My guys do it at work every so often...usually during a storm when the power goes out. It's part of our training, so I'm sure other companies do it as well.

reply to post by smilesmcgee


You have apparently not read every post in this thread.

Go back a few posts and you might be enlightened.

Back in the 60's flipping burgers was called slinging hash and I certainly did my share while in school.

Now read the previous posts and be schooled.

No job is greater or less than any other job.
It takes a whole team to win.

Flash back to 1993.
Storm of the century at that time.
I'm in a grocery store on the south east coast.
Power goes out.
Cart is full.
I had to leave it there because they closed the store because they had no mean to process the transactions.
Flash forward.2013.
It takes longer to write a check or pay in cash then it does to run your debit card, which still takes a considerable amount of time.

When a major event happens that all the power is out,if you are not prepared,you are screwed.
Plain and simple.

Yeeaah, sorry but it's true.
It's been true for many years.
Students apparently aren't taught how to make change anymore!
It happens to me so often, that I just expect now!

I bought something for $5.07 the other day.
I had a ten dollar bill, some pennies & a dime on me.
I wanted a $5 bill back. Gave her the ten and a dime & 2 pennies.

She stared at the money for awhile, then said, "You gave me too much!"
I said, I don't have a nickel. It's okay, I'll get $5.05 back!

She still couldn't grasp it. But she punched it in.
She looked surprised that I was right & $5.05 came up!
She handed me the change & was still frowning & looking puzzled as I left!
It happens every time I try to keep from getting a handful of coins back too!

The worst though, was once when I went back to a major chain grocery store,
with a receipt that had $13 worth of mistakes on it!
The produce item that I bought was rung up with the wrong code,
or she didn't know what kind of vegetable it was & guessed.
It was twice as much per pound as what I really bought!

Then there were a couple of things from the marked down cart that rang up at regular price.
And one thing on sale that rang up at regular price. And it wasn't the first day of the sale!
Which means that everybody else that bought it, paid full price too! Nobody else caught it?

I had already figured out at home what the right amounts should be.
I took the slip to the office, along with the items & explained what happened.
The girl working in the office didn't know how to do it, she called the manager.
He came & he couldn't figure it out either! I had to walk him through it.

He apologized profusely & seemed really embarrassed.
I was polite, patient & understanding. But really sad!
What has our educational system done to the younger generation???

When I worked in retail, (I started back before computer registers),
our cash drawers had to come out to the exact penny at the end of the day!
A couple of written warnings & you were gone!
They wouldn't be able to keep anyone these days!
We were trained for 2 weeks & also taught how to pack properly!
No bloody, dripping packs of hamburg on top of candy bars & magazines!
Or bag of flour in with damp, frozen food! Or eggs on the bottom, cans on top!
Or loaf of bread & a 2 liter beverage together in a bag! Sigh...I could ramble all night!!!

So...if something were to happen...there will be lots of problems.
Not the least of which will be people who can't think on their feet!
Plus aren't inventory & reordering done as stuff is rung up?

They could have someone in the aisles with a permanent marker to price things.
They don't have price guns anymore, except maybe for markdowns.
But where would they get enough people?
Plus people would probably cheat & mark their own at a big discount!

Nobody knows how to add large columns of figures anymore either!
Heck, not even small ones! (I have tales about this too, but I'll spare everyone!!!)
Not to mention them not being able to make change from scratch!

Some grocery stores do sell cheap calculators & batteries.
But they probably would have to go through all kinds of red tape,
& get approval from corporate headquarters first!
All sales would have to be final once you left the store!

The only thing that could save them would be training for that possibility.
But what big company would be willing to shell out money to train everyone,
for something that they might never need to use??? Or so they would say!

They would have to ration things & have serious security too!
Yep, I see a huge nightmare/ migraine in the making!!!
WOQ

What's wrong with a good old fashioned Abacus?

That would work.

If the power is out, I'm more or less hiding in the stock room.

reply to post by wasobservingquietly


I handle about 1200 transactions during my work day I'd love to test my mettle against a cashier from the old days.

What kind of sick human being cares about maintaining sales in a disaster situation?

Originally posted by smilesmcgee
I worked in a grocery store for many years and we did have auxillary power when it went out. The tills and emergency lights worked.

We would close the store for other reasons though.
- when power goes out, so does the security cameras.
- when it's dark, people can trip/ get hurt
- the deli hot food heating lamps go out, so the food becomes unsellable.
- food in the freezers/coolers starts to warm.

i have to agree with what you said, i also worked in a store that had a grocery store as part of it. before that i worked in one before the grocery store was added. we HAD MULTIPLE power outages in each location, in fact in the one for awhile it was every couple weeks. now with the grocery store as soon as power went out there was a mad scramble of employees putting up insulation around coolers and fridges to try to save food, as well as transporting food into reefer trailers that happened to be there. so it would be pointless trying to stay open. even then we threw out thousands of dollars worth of food away each time. now WHY this MEGA corporation store did not install backup generators was beyond me, they certainly spent enough on the renovation that it would have been a minuscule extra cost, that would have save thousands in food wastage, but i guess they felt it was just easier to have insurance pay for the wastage.

but the other big issue was the fact that emergency lighting only lasts a short time, we had a back up system for the registers that would work for maybe a half hour so we still had them with the emergency lighting. it let us cash out customers as we tried to clear them out of the store. thing is even WITH emergency lighting it was DARK we all had flashlights to try to find customers that would always try to continue shopping. once those lights were out it was pitch black. so guess what kinda hard to shop in the dark.not to mention all the theft that would happen as no one could see. and of course lawsuits for injures people would get from trying to shop in the dark. as well as someone mentioned almost nothing had a price tag anyway since we were dependent on bar codes to the degree where it supposedly worked with things like ordering stuff.

in all honesty if a store does not have a generator to run the lights and registers it is almost impossible to shop anyway. i still question why big stores especially don't have backup generators that would let them be open during a power outage.

what i think is even worse than something useless like being able to pay for stuff you can't see to buy anyway is the fact that as was found out during that big multiple state/province blackout years ago was that for even people that had generators could not get gas to run them since almost no gas station has a way to pump fuel without power. cars ran out of gas everywhere as that blackout was for a few days in many places. i think the lack of backup generators is a far bigger issue for things like stores and gas stations when the power goes out

I once did some work looking at standby power and the bigger the store the bigger the problem as the load can be quite high to maintain lighting/heating/cooling along with all the infrastructure that would need power as generally it seems like you have to be able to provide about 66% of the sites normal power load which can require a hefty generator along with fuel storage and a size able UPS to handle the blips as the generator kicks in cleanly and thats before you consider the work to rewire the entire site into 2 zones of generator covered and basically tough luck

At one place they had it installed but an enterprising employee eager to save a few quid kept dipping into the diesel tank to fuel his ride and when there was a power cut the generator lasted about 2 mins before it died as nobody ever bothered to check the dial saying how full it was

Originally posted by seabag
reply to post by rickymouse

 

Most businesses do manual invoices when the power goes out.

Any business without a "lights out" plan is poorly managed and certainly ill prepared.

And for those who only use credit/debit card, most businesses have a manual card swipe with carbon copy invoices. Does anybody remember these?

edit on 10-3-2013 by seabag because: (no reason given)

I remember those! Some people still use them actually. When electricity goes out we all just need to use our common sense and above all help each other out.

reply to post by rickymouse


Living in the Midwest power outages are not uncommon at any time of year and you are right, there should be the old fashioned method of placing a credit card into the hand held CC machine and giving the copy to the customer, keeping one and sending the other off to the CC company. Or better yet battery powered back ups on the cash registers, but no this is an evil design and one that all big chain/grocery stores are moving into if not complete.

With all the technologies at our disposal, you would think that continuity of humanity would come first, especially in an emergency situation.

Its frustrating I know.

reply to post by peaceful1oflove


That is the very same machine I referred to in my post above.

reply to post by zonetripper2065


LOLz I really loved your comments, I bet you could give them a run for their money...

Hope you never have to find out!

reply to post by wasobservingquietly


My son and i went out to eat the other day and the cashier gave us back 10$ too much, my son points it out and looks at me for direction, so being the great parent I am put it in his trusted hands...

(He did the right thing)

reply to post by rickymouse


Thing is, they really just need a backup generator. (and most do)

They can't ring up sales without power because...

1) The majority of customers do NOT use cash.
2) There would be no way of reconciling the inventory of what was sold (the system tracks this when checking it out).
3) Most of the time, power is restored very quickly
4) Security is the primary concern, not sales.
5) Most stores don't even have enough light (without power) to do it anyhow.

I remember those! Some people still use them actually. When electricity goes out we all just need to use our common sense and above all help each other out.

Sure, but you run the risk of it being overdrawn, etc. and now you're out the merchandise. My wife and I run a small business on the side. We simply have a little cube that goes into your cell phone, and using an ap, you can run a card. No problem.

In addition to sales, they have thousands invested in refrigerated and frozen product to lose, if power is out.

reply to post by NthOther

What kind of sick human being cares about maintaining sales in a disaster situation?

What type of sick individual doesn’t want to provide the essential supplies people will obviously need after a disaster situation?

So, if a disaster happens, should we not count on you to be at work helping others get what they need because you’ll be too busy helping yourself?

Yeah it doesnt really happen anymore when the entire global economy HAS to be hooked up to some degree to work this day and age.

Could you imagine hitting the restart button on ALL TECHNOLOGY? I can't either!

It would be CHAOS - for a time.