I honestly don't know how customers keep managing it.
But I really do hate it when it seems like everyone descends upon us at once at work. Especially when this customer rush happens right when we're low on staff and it feels like we need at least three more people and yet we don't have anyone else available to help.
Today....it happened around 1pm. Lunch time. Which yes, there's typically rushes during the lunch hour. Especially on Saturdays. But with the expected incoming heavy snow storm tonight...I do have to wonder if people were trying to get out and get all their errands done before the storm hit.
In any case.
I'd been trying to work on our stupid ship from store orders because we've been getting like 50 orders a day and when a god third to half of those orders contain multiple items over 50lbs...well needless to say...we end up boxing up a good 70-90 orders at a time it feels like.
And it's frustrating. Time consuming. Especially because we can only pick 10 orders at a time. And there's no way to hire someone to just focus on picking the stupid orders -because it is like a 3-4 hour endeavor at this point to get them all done....because the orders don't drop at the same time every day. Sometimes we get 20 in the mornings. Other times they don't start dropping until dinner time.
It's frustrating that we can't just have someone solely focus on said orders. No it usually ends up being a manager. And me and VP Manager were tag teaming it today. Where I'd go pick 10 while VP Manager packed their 10 and by the time I got back to the back with my set, they'd be done with theirs and would go pick another set.
Downside to the ship from store stuff...is it's all located at the back of the store.
The complete opposite direction from where the Registers are.
And the second most common place you'll find a manager is backing up the register...especially when our second cashier has gone on lunch.
*exhales* We need to plan cashiering lunches better...though honestly there's never a good time as the timing seems to usually work out that it always gets busy whenever one cashier goes on lunch.
In any case.
We had 1 cashier on the register. 1 at lunch. And just me and the VP Manager in the store.
Technically I was supposed to be just Petcare today. But since I'd finished my tasks and petcare was being rather quiet customer wise I was helping out with the ship from store stuff.
But it wasn't long before VP manager was called up front to back up cashier.
It wasn't long before a third cashier was needed....which would be me as the lines were getting long --because both cashier and VP managers take a bit longer.
But at the same time we were dealing with the rush of customers at the registers.
We were also getting a slew of Curbside orders dinging our phones.
--as we do both ship from store orders which we pick orders, box them up and then have Fedex pick them up to deliver to people's houses. But we also have curbsides where we pick the order, put it in a cabinet and then either the customer comes in for the order, or we take the order out to their car when they arrive.
So those curbsides were dinging like crazy.
BUT THEN it also seemed to be the hour where EVERYONE AND THEIR MOM decided they needed to CALL the store RIGHT NOW.
And it was just....frustrating. Like people calling for stock checks (why don't you check online?), people calling trying to reach the vet (different phone line now. Here's their number), and then of course the typical questions about trying to return product or animals. And it felt like we had 20 phone calls in a row in like a 15 minute period. The phones WOULD NOT stop RINGING.
So needless to say.
The 1-2pm hour I got a bit overstimulated from all the constant noise and having to be at the register, trying to do stuff in the receiving area, and also getting called up to petcare too.
It was....a bit much.
Definitely enjoyed the quiet time when I finally got home away from the chaos.
Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!
-Sarnic Dirchi
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