42 years- if you count when I started working part time at Mr. B's IGA as my first job.
Before that I cleaned houses and babysat for extra money. I learned to dry dishes at 2, or so my Mama told me. I know I helped in the kitchen from an early age, that's for sure. I remember learning how to iron, starting with pillowcases and hankies, at 7. Yes, for those of you younger than 50, we did use to have to iron things like pillowcases and hankies. Don't know what a hanky is? Look for them at estate sales, rummage and garage sales and second hand stores. Little squares of very soft fabric, usually linen or cotton. Usually printed or embroidered. I don't use them for my nose, except in an emergency: but I do use them for
- drying my eyeglasses after I wash them (about 5 times a day--they never scratch the lenses) and
- dabbing at tears
Anyway, I digress. Alot has changed since I started working at the tender age of 15. For example, now instead of manually pressing buttons on a cash register to input the price of an item, it just slides over a scanner and automatically prints the price on your receipt, and tracks the sale in the store's computerized inventory database.
At my first job we were required to "make change" and then "count back the change". The point of counting back change was to ensure both for your customer and your store that you had made change correctly and thus not subjected yourself to the wrath of your customer, nor your manager, should you, god forbid, short the till. In fact at my first job, the cash register (no it wasn't a hand crank, just a glorified adding machine) did have an "Amount Tendered" button, but I was required to count back the change regardless. Because as the manager pointed out, if I made a mistake entering the amount tendered I would give back the wrong amount of change.
Anyway, counting back change is apparently a long lost art. Most cashiers nowadays enter the amount "tendered" (an old fashioned term for the amount of money taken in) and let the computer tell them how much change to give back. The concept of counting it back up to the amount tendered is no longer required.
Apparently saying "thank you" to your customer is no longer a requirement at most places. Except at places like Jiffy Lube, where they still say "thank you" and "please" and chat up the customers. Especially if you show up in a completely original, clean, straight old 1997 M-3. The guys will be giving you instructions and discussing the beauty of your car at the same time in the same breath.
And they say thank you after they are done giving you free top-off of your power steering fluid.
At most retail stores you are lucky to get a smile after you tell the clerk thank you. The clerks hardly ever say thank you. Sometimes they say "Have a nice day". Usually, depending on the age of the cashier, I have found they say "No problem" when I say thank you. I gave them money, I find it rather irritating that they say "No problem" as if they went to all that trouble to take my money and frown at me. Sheesh. Customer service is gone the way of the dinosaur at many retail establishments.
Oh and chatting up the customers. Most places frown on the clerks chatting up the customers. At the cafe in my workplace there is a wonderful woman who treats her customers like human beings and actually talks to us, and knows our favorite orders, etc. She is a doll and she gets in trouble for being "too helpful" and holding up the line. Oh my god, she actually talks to us and gets reprimanded for it.
If management can no longer see the value of the human factor then we might as well all go home and order off the internet. Whatever we need to order. Having said all this, I now make it a point to patronize locally owned businesses, where they still say please and thank you and treat their customers as "valued" customers, not people for whom they are doing a thankless favor. Civility doesn't have to be dead, but it sure could use some CPR.
