Working as a cashier is simultaneously one of the most boring and most interesting jobs there is. Long periods of monotonous ringing up items interspersed with interesting/frustrating/entertaining customers.
After working the job for a while, most folks stop noticing the actual items they are ringing up. Sometimes the combo of items, or the behavior of the customer, is just so bizarre that you can't help but notice.
Reddit user u/LordZozzy asked:
20.
I once had a guy come through my register in a hurry with nothing but a pack of condoms... I'm usually on guard with this sort of thing and say something like" thank you, see you again"... nope. This night I said "bye, have a good night!" We then made eye contact and both laughed.
The other one was a girl, must have been about 15 or 16, came in dressed in her school uniform and purchased a pregnancy test. I then saw her go straight down the corridor to the bathrooms... about half an hour later I saw her run out in tears... I'm thinking that was NOT good news...
19.
I work at a hardware store, with house charge accounts for local businesses. Lawncare, the local city departments, some home/repair companies, etc.
We have a local funeral home with an account and I'm starting to wonder if they are just buying stuff to mess with me.
One week it was about 6 pairs of pliers, and 4 50ft garden hoses.
One week it was insulation, plaster, and 6 canvas drop cloths. They returned the insulation.
They also use discretion and never give the name of the funeral home, just the phone number. I know them now, so I just punch in the account name before they even start.
Also had a local hair stylist come in and buy 12 pair of needle nose pliers for the salon she works for, and order 12 more pair to be delivered. Like...what the heck are you guys doing with all those pliers at the hair salon????
18.
i was a cashier. not by the items but how they handle their items. the paper in plastic double bag with the "please pack them light" with $600 worth of groceries combo is the worst kind of person
17.
When I was a cashier at Little Caesars a customer came in on the phone saying something like "Okay hun I'm at the pizza place. Since 20 kids and their parents came to the bday party I was thinking like 5 or 6 pizzas. Sound good? Okay loveyoubye". But when he moved his phone from his face he didn't hang up and the screen was very clearly on the home screen the whole time. He ordered made some small talk about too many people, paid, and then left. The only judgement I made was pity because he must be a very lonely dude, that really loved pizza but didn't want to be judged for buying so many for just him. Other than that the only people I "judged" by their purchases were the super fryed stoners that couldn't decide between cheese and pepperoni, and only because it took them forever to choose.
16.
I used to work for a sporting goods store that sold tattoo sleeves. Not just any tattoo sleeve.. but specifically the tattoo sleeve of Monta Ellis. So you'd be "wearing" the same tattoos he had. I'm in the Bay Area so this was a while back when he was with the Warriors. We had less than 10 in stock and I did judge the customers that bought them. It was $12.00.
15.
One customer bought like five jars of mayonnaise among other things and my bagger was like "OH I used to love eating mayo right from the jar!"
Her and my bagger then had a 5 minute conversation about the joys of mayonnaise and I just sat there trying to hand this lady her change wondering what plane of existence I had ascended to.
14.
I worked at Taco Bell for a year & a half, most of the time didn't really pay attention to what you ordered. But one time, at 7:30 am on a Saturday, this guy pulled up to the drive thru & ordered a single side of sour cream. When he got to the window he paid with change (obviously, as his total was 35 cents or something). But the weirdest part was he asked for a spork. I still wonder what he was doing.
13.
Worked at a OffBrand Kroger store. Guy would always come in for a can of whiped cream and pop rocks (the candy that fizzles in your mouth) Atleast twice a month.
I always wondered wtf was this about (probably some weird oral act) It was confirmed when a lady started coming in for those 2 items, aparently he got into a wreck bevause i seen him in her passenger seat with crutches in the back.
12.
My first job was as a cashier in a supermarket (this was like 20 years ago though). I never judged people on what they bought, but I would occasionally judge customers for certain other behaviors. There was this one regular who nobody could stand because she would come in early in the day with her magnifying glass, and she would methodically pick up every single item, on every shelf, in every aisle, and read the nutrition facts through her magnifying glass while taking notes in a notebook. It wasn't at all unusual for her to come in at the beginning of your 4 hour shift, and she'd only be maybe 2/3ds of the way through the store when you left.
God help you if she ended up checking out on your register, like I said she kept a note of every item she selected and during check out she would watch like a hawk, and then have a complete freakout/meltdown if an item rang up at literally one cent more than it said on the shelf. Because of this she took like an hour just to check out which killed the soul of that unlucky cashier as well as pissing off all of the other customers by clogging up that line for an unreasonable amount of time.
11.
I make sandwiches, and I definitely judge people who request odd combinations. You want just tomato on a blueberry bagel? Whatever floats your boat, man.
10.
When I was 15 I worked at a DVD store. I wasn't allowed to dust and stock in the adults only section, but only one customer borrowed out from that section anyway.
Small, middle aged man with severe eczema or psoriasis, always wore a blue plastic jacket that made swishing noises when he walked. Quietly came in at 8 AM when nobody else was around, would borrow out whatever the titles were, and quickly depart. Carried a black bag and declined our transparent plastic ones. Back in my day, you had to leave your home for porn.
Even as a 15 year old girl I appreciated he seemed embarrassed and made the transaction as fast as possible. After a year of this, he came in one morning and borrowed out a single DVD.
Finding Nemo.
I guess I couldn't hide my surprise, so he said the only thing he's ever said to me. "I have clown fish, and everybody keeps telling me to watch it."
And that's it, he eventually ran out of titles I guess and stopped coming in. Over a decade later and I still remember the customer who liked MILFs and clownfish.
9.
Dude comes in for a frozen pizza, 6 pack of BL, pint of ben and jerry's and a pack of smokes.
"You getting the wife out of town special tonight?"
"My wife's been out of town for 17 years now"
And that's the last time i used that line.
8.
GiphyWorked cashier for many years when I was younger. The answer is...
No. I don't even notice. I don't notice anything. I don't want to be here. You could be buying gasoline and a lighter and tell me you're lighting someone on fire and I'd be like "Would you like a gift receipt sir"
7.
Worked at a supermarket, dude buys $300 worth of cherries. Cleared out the whole area where we had them. We weren't even having a sale. To this day I still wonder what the hell he needed that many cherries for.
Might have been a DIY liqueur person. You take cherries (or any fruit really), soak them in brandy/whiskey/etc and sugar, leave for a while and have a nice drink for sipping or gifting. All those cherries would make a lot of liqueur, making the per bottle cost reasonable.
6.
For the most part I don't really care as long as they're polite.
There is this one regular who likes to bring a lot of stuff to the registers but only buys 1/3 of it (still spends heaps). She's also pretty rude. I judge the crap out of her.
5.
When I worked at Wawa I'd get the same people buying the same coffee, breakfast and pack of cigarettes everyday. But there was this old mailman that bought a bundle of tootsie pops instead of the cigarettes everyday. I'm not sure if he ate them all day or gave them out to kids but he always made me smile. I quit that job and went on to become a mailman myself.
4.
GiphyAlright so I’m working at dollar General, a normal night, but this guy comes in striding with confidence. Greet him with a hello, as I do with customers, but he’s in the zone and forgoes the formalities. He walks straight to the movie rack and grabs a cheesy Kung Fu movie, and walks to the counter, I ring it up and it Costs $5.46. He reach in to his coat pocket and pulled out a bag of nickels and a single penny. A 109 nickels and a single penny for a Kung fu movie called, “Kung Fu masters” or something that looked like it had a 100 dollar budget. I’ve never had more respect for some one in my entire life. He knew what he wanted and he got it.
3.
Not really, only customer that ever really got my attention was a lady who bought a cake that said something along the lines of "We never want to see you again". Previously when I've told this story people have said it couldve been a gag gift but going off of this ladies expression I don't think it was, she showed some real pride when she saw I noticed what was on it
2.
We had a guy come in every week to buy a generic birthday cake. No big, except he was insistent that the cake have a seven day expiration window-essentially meaning it had to be a cake baked fresh that day, which they didn't always have. The bakery people would grumble but whatever. He wouldn't tell anyone why, usually just shrugged but one time he came in upset and didn't buy his usual cake.
He finally spilled his guts to the cashier-his wife had some pretty crippling health issues (Alzheimer's or cancer, I can't remember now) and they would celebrate every day with a piece of cake, like celebrating they were still alive and together. She had gotten sent to the hospital and they wouldn't let him bring her cake. Broke all of our hearts, and the bakery kept fresh cakes for him after that without complaint.
1.
I work in online grocery fulfilment. In short, I shop for people, bag it up and place the items in rolling totes, fridge and freezers. I've seen some weird orders. One of my favorite types to speculate on is when they are 50% organic vegan items and the other half is absolute junk food and meat products.
I always visualize a couple who's polar opposites or a vegan poser who hides their guilty pleasures from their religiously vegan room mates under their bed or in a locked fridge somewhere in the house. These thoughts are all in a funny 90's sitcom style.