Ask The (former) Convenience Store Clerk
As suggested in this thread
http://www.mellophant.com/forums/sho...443#post137443
I have worked in a few different types of stores. 2 regular gas stations, 1 higher end liquor store, 1 neighborhood convenience/liquor store/fried chicken shack and 1 mom & pop convenience store/sandwich shop.
So ask away. I am prepared to reveal all industry secrets.
And yes, I was supposed to be here today.
How often did you have to work all by yourself? And when you did have to work alone, how in God's name did your bladder survive?
I know it's a silly question, but whenever I see a clerk all alone in a convenience store in the middle of the night that's the first thing that pops into my head.
Did you ever catch anyone shoplifting? I imagine convenience stores get ripped off all the time.
I worked by myself more often than not, especially when I was on graveyards. You learn to time bathroom breaks between customers or you get get one of the regulars to keep an eye out for a minute while you go take care of business.
I was the shoplifter ninja. I got them all. Most of the time I would just ask them if they were going to pay for the stuff in their pockets or was I going to have to call the police. I had a guy try to drive off from the gas pump while I was outside changing trash bags. He took off but I was able to jump in the bed of his truck and pounded on the window until he stopped. I got a raise out of that one.
The best was when a group of about 6 teenagers came in and all of them immediately took off down different aisles. I tried keeping an eye out on all of them. I saw one pocket a candy bar so I walked over and asked if I could help him find anything, then gave him the "you gonna pay or am I calling the cops?" He returned several items. What surprised me was when he went around to his buddies and they started putting all the stuff they pocketed back on the shelf. They bought some sodas and apologized on the way out. Never had a problem with those kids again.
duplicate post
Last edited by Revs; 27 Sep 2009 at 01:52 PM. Reason: duplicate post
Get robbed/held up often?
Last edited by Muffin; 27 Sep 2009 at 01:54 PM.
I hope you don't mind other former clerks chiming in, TFR.
I was only ever alone on the graveyard shift, and I was a bad employee. I'd just lock the door to use the restroom.It wasn't a busy store at 3am, though, and I never actually left anyone waiting outside.
How often did you get underage people trying to buy cigarettes or alcohol?
Speaking as another former convenience store Asst. Manager (not just a clerk - I got $0.25/hr more, and could be asked to work 80 hour weeks) who was working in MA when the first cigarette laws with teeth came out, I didn't get many minors trying to buy off me. I quickly got a rep for being a hardass. About a week after the law went into effect a woman pulled up to my Scumbie's and sent her six year old daughter in, to get her cancer sticks. And watched me while I told her little girl that I couldn't sell to anyone under 16. She was not pleased to have to go out into the weather for her cancer sticks. Never had to worry about alcohol purchases, since Scumbie's didn't carry that.
Current gas station Assistant Manager here.
Never been robbed, knock wood. Though once, a really tough looking gang banger came up to me, hand in coat pocket, and said "I'm about to make some reeeeal trouble for you." Then pulled out a handful of coins to pay for gas. I was so relieved to be alive that I babbled something about there being no trouble at all and commenced counting. Then cleaned my undies.
I've caught plenty of shoplifters. I have some advice to any clerks out there - the homeless regular is not your friend. No matter how nice, how friendly, they will steal from you as soon as they get a chance. I caught all the regular homeless drunks stealing at one time or another. Fuck you, get your beer somewhere else. My boss once caught a cop stealing cigarettes. Worse, he was the father of one of our employees.
Where I work now, we don't sell beer, but I constantly have kids trying to buy cigarettes, or mostly cigars. Once had a 13-year old kid bolt out the door with 2 18-packs of Bud light from our display. I've had the county pull a sting on me for alcohol sale to a minor - I passed, perhaps because the girl they used looked WAY young - only a retard wouldn't have carded her.
I've been attacked once, by a local crazy guy who was off his meds. He picked up a huge coffee urn, and was just carrying it around the store like he was going to buy it. I told him he'd have to put it back, and he started throwing sandwiches and cupcakes and shit at me, hard, at close range, and ran out the door. I survived, and the cops recovered the coffee urn.
I will not hesitate to lock the door when I have to use the bathroom, though I have been known to piss in a bottle.
When I was a kid, in the late 80s and early 90s, I was much more full of hate than I am now. I used to do terrible things to the fast food. Chew up hot dogs and spit them into the chili sauce, rub hot dogs in my ass crack before cooking them, spit in the coffee pots. I used to bring a pint of vodka to work, and have vodka slurpees. I'd smoke up out back all the time. Once, a guy I worked with was smoking a joint INSIDE the walk-in drink cooler, and, of course, a cop opened the door. Just gave him a lecture. The boss and his brother-in-law were major druggies, as were ALL of my co-workers at that store. I really mean ALL of my co-workers, not most.
Joe
I was never robber, but there was one night when someone called in a bomb threat to my store. They called the police station directly so I never got to hear the actual threat.
The worst fake ID I ever saw was two kids that had the bright idea to make fake British ID's. Now I was working down the road from Whirlpool world HQ so I saw overseas ID's on a regular basis. These einsteins didn't even put pictures on the cards, just a name, birthdate, and fake address. Then they got upset when I wouldn't sell to them. I told them I would be more than willing to call the cops and let them sort it out.
Minors trying to buy tobbacco wasn't ever really a problem since every other gas station in town was fairly lax on carding.
Were there any specific customer behaviors that just completely drove you nuts? Grabbing milk from the back of the row? Belaboring their scratch-off choices? Anything like that?
Last edited by OneCentStamp; 28 Sep 2009 at 08:01 AM.
My store was in part of a strip mall. We also had a gas station out front. Every so often you'd get a yutz who couldn't be arsed to park properly, and he'd (and it was invariably some XY idiot.) part either across two spaces, or perpendicular, blocking three of them. If you mentioned it to them, they'd say, "Well, I'm just in for a minute."*
I never got frustrated with the coffee freshness freaks, but we had one long haul trucker who was their opposite, and came through every Tuesday and Thursday. So, for him, we made up a special pot of coffee. Normally, to placate the freshness freaks, we would dump coffee after about an hour. On Tuesday and Thursdays, we'd make up an extra pot around 9 or 10 - and have it ready and nicely boiled down for the trucker when he came in around 4 to 4:30. (Before anyone screams - that's what he wanted, and why he came to our store.)
* The Gas station manager did get a beautiful revenge on one of those guys while I was on duty, though. This guy comes in, parks like an asshole, and Mark suggested that he should try again, like a normal person, and got a ration of shit for his troubles. Then one of Mark's buddies comes in to the donut shop nextdoor, and parks just behind this asshole's car. And in the words of the movie: Then he got an idea. An awful idea. The Grinch Mark got a wonderful, *awful* idea! He asked his buddy how long he was going to be, and pointed to the asshole's car. Mark's buddy said he planned to be a while, and didn't have anything pressing. So Mark went and got his car, and parked about two inches in front of the asshole's car, blocking it in. And then joined his buddy for a coffee and donut break.
When Mark and his buddy were finally done with their coffee and donut, the asshole pulled out of the parking lot, like a bat outta Hell.
And got the attention of the cop pulling out of the bank across the street.
Instant karma was good that day.
Well the lotto freaks were the worst, followed closely by people returning cans and bottles. In Michigan there is a 10 cent deposit per can or bottle that you can get refunded when you bring in empties. Some people though couldn't figure it out though. Water, no refund,store brands,we can't refund those,empty liquor bottle no refund. and people would bring box after box in. We were not equipped to handle large returns like that. If you have a few beer boxes with empties fine, but don't bring in a refrigerator box and then expect me to count them out while trying to wait on other customers too.
Actually I take that back. The worst customers were the tourists. The area I lived in was a very popular tourist destination, especially for Chicago area residents. They always took forever,would constantly bitch about the prices and deposits,park like assholes. and generally act like they should get some sort of special treatment. I had one lady who told me "I spend enough money in this town, I should get something for it." Yeah you do get something for it, we let you stay here. You may be here for 3 weeks out of the year, but we have stay for the other 49.
I had some really good customers though.
This guy was one of my regulars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Mantei
Nice guy, always fun to talk to and he would come in every week and buy a keg of Killian's.
But favorite customer though was
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Lee
That guy was a riot!
Lots of little things - not knowing which gas pump they're on, not even saying "Hi" when I say "Good morning," dropping their money on the counter and leaving, without a word, asking me if we have more of whatever they want "in the back," as if my tiny store has room, etc. There are a lot of people who can't follow simple instructions on how to pump gas.Originally posted by OneCentStamp
Joe
What drove me nuts were the stoned kids that would come in and would make a mess of the sandwich/coffee bar. We had a microwave for customer convenience and they'd forget burritos and such in there, or cook them in the plastic for too long, and open sugar packets and spill them, or miss their cup and spill the hot cocoa from the machine all onto the floor. I mean, everyone at all times of the day did stuff like that, but they'd come in at 2am in groups and do it all at once, like coffeebar destruction ninjas.
I wasn't really bothered by the lottery addicts. Most of them would scratch their tickets outside. There was one clearly homeless guy that would come in begging for change for a dollar ticket. Once he started on the other customers we'd kick him out. I always felt more pity for him than anything.
The possibly homeless, clearly addicted to something (I assumed heroin) lady that would beg for change, steal from us, and try to prostitute herself in the parking lot for cigarette money and rides? Yeah, I didn't like her.
While I worked there I was robbed twice in the space of a month. The first time was at knife point, but the guy left quickly after he got the money. $75. It's awful what desperation does to people to risk 10 years for armed robbery for almost nothing. Oh, and for those out there thinking racism is dead? I gave a pretty good description to the police, black guy with very dark skin, and shorter than me (I'm 5'8"). Well, they picked up a guy right outside the store and asked me to step outside to ID him. He was tall, well over six feet, and black, but with lighter skin. But he's black and hanging around at night, so clearly he's a thief.
The second time the guy had a paper bag over his hand, but he didn't have a gun. Just scissors. The bonus fun from this robbery is that as a result I got fired for my drawer being short. Apparently they were trying to crack down on cashiers having too much money in their drawer at once, and decided to make an example of me. Scumbies, indeed. (Thanks, Loki, that's a good nickname for them)
Compared to some of their tricks, that was chump change.
In the early 90s a minor scandal broke, where it came out that Scumbie's Loss Prevention unit was staking out stores to catch teen aged clerks shoplifting. Then, instead of simply firing and charging the idiots when they caught them, they would pull an RIAA on the parents of the kid: either you make good all the losses the store has had over the past umpteen months (On the order of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars) or we ruin junior's chances of college.
I've got damned little sympathy for the kids who were stealing from their stores. Especially since when Loss Prevention was staking out my store, they simply parked across Washington Street from us, and were obviously taking pics and notes. You had to be some kind of brain dead not to realize they were watching. But extortion is is scummy, too. Esp. when the extortion was so far in excess of the loss that the company could prove.
What's the most you've given away by accident (that you remember)?
I'm not sure what you mean. Are you talking about giving incorrect change or handing someone 2 packs of smokes instead of one? Either way for me it would be $0 and 0. Come on I was a highly trained retail petroleum distribution technician, we don't do things like that.
Oh man. WheresGeorge really nailed it, esp about the homeless. Eventually they *will* shit in their own nest. Dunno why but they always do.
I clerked at a liquor store, but quit after just a few months during one of those bullshit underage crackdowns. Turns out one of our regulars had a very good fake ID that we'd all been accepting. I'd sold the guy beer and cigarettes a few times myself. The kid had a beard and looked at least mid-20's and the ID looked totally legit. Just by random luck it was my buddy Mark on the swing shift who did 2 months for that.
The boss paid a fine IIRC but basically scraped off Mark. Well I'm not going to jail for a crap minimum wage job and life's too short to work for an asshole. I quit the day I found out about it. What a bunch of crap.
Yeah, I learned the hard way. Twice, I sort-of made friends with a homeless regular. They were both unrepentant alcoholics and drug addicts, but were always nice and polite, as well as intelligent, engaging personalities with real knowledge and stories to tell. They just were drunken bums. I caught both of 'em stealing beer, just like all the others. Oh, well.
Joe
I'm picturing you as a rather intimidating looking fellow, am I right?
http://s874.photobucket.com/albums/a...73953_1929.jpg
Oh yes I am a tough guy.
Give me whiskey when I'm thirsty,Give me a cold beer when I'm dry, Give me root beer when I'm sickly, Give me a headstone when I die.
You gonna pay up or are we going to have problems?
Last edited by Revs; 29 Sep 2009 at 09:15 AM.
Give me whiskey when I'm thirsty,Give me a cold beer when I'm dry, Give me root beer when I'm sickly, Give me a headstone when I die.
Aw shit, dude, that's a SCARY earring.
I know it. Most of the time I wouldn't even have to say anything, I would just point to the earring and make my patented MEAN FACE (tm) as seen above.
Give me whiskey when I'm thirsty,Give me a cold beer when I'm dry, Give me root beer when I'm sickly, Give me a headstone when I die.
I'm in shock after seeing your photo!
I imagined Rev. Jim from Taxi.
How YOU doin'?
They weren't singing....they were just honking.
Glee 2009
Jali, The Rev. Jim line was the first thing to make me laugh all day.
Give me whiskey when I'm thirsty,Give me a cold beer when I'm dry, Give me root beer when I'm sickly, Give me a headstone when I die.
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