everyone just take a handful of coins and go home.
Yesterday was so bad,it was like a joke. Only part of my day was actually this bad, and i was able to find it funny at the time. Sort of.
I traded shifts with someone so i could open and be done with work by noon- that seemed worth getting up at 4 am. It was also my day to do tips, so i planned to do those for the usual hour or so after noon. Everything went fine, i got the money separated into bills and coins, the coins going into the usual paper bags we use to carry them over to the coinstar machine. They were less heavy than usual so i decided to be a tough guy and just carry them instead of using a shopping cart like i sometimes do. Plus it was snowing big fat snow, so i just wanted to go as fast as possible. When i got there, however, the machine said sorry, it was full, and someone was going to come empty it god knows when. So i gave up and put the bags in a cart, and went back across the parking lot to starbucks to find out where else these machines were. I brought the bags in with me, got vague directions to another albertson's store, went back out and plopped them into the cart.
Ching ching ching! Coins everywhere. The snow had soaked through the paper, and it split. Coins were all over the ground, in the dirty slush. I had to find something else to put them in, but i was like "oh shit! I can't leave these here... " Since my truck was within seeing distance, i ran to look through the junk i have in the back and found my cooler- yeah, that'll be waterproof, i thought. As i tried to spill the rest of the coins in there, a man on his way into starbucks stopped to see what was going on, and when he went inside, he let them know i needed help. So New Sarah came out with the dustpan (it's the grossest dustpan you'll ever meet) and we used a piece of cardboard to push the slush-coin mixture into it. Mmmmmm...
I put the cooler into my truck and was looking for my snowbrush, when Sean walked up. "Hey, Sean!" i said, and promptly locked my keys in the running truck. "I just locked my keys in there!" i said. I was laughing pretty hard at this point. Sean felt bad for distracting me, so he went with me to help find a wire hanger. We ended up finding one at Tony mocha's nail place- already straightened out and made into a hook- lock your keys in much, Tony? Sean succeeded in popping the lock eventually, and i told him i loved him, and was off to find this other store.
There's no point in trying to exlpain Santa Fe geography and why Patty's directions were totally inaccurate, but i got lost, of course. Luckily, I got lost on the right street and found the store. Hallelujah. I lugged my cooler up to the machine and started plopping coins in- they were freezing cold and wet and dirty. I didn't think about the cooler keeping the snow perfectly intact. I was getting frostbite when a guy with a little jar of coins got in line behind me. I stopped what i was doing, got my receipt and told him to go ahead-i would have been there all day. I needed some kind of scoop, anyways, to keep my fingers from falling off. I went over to the little starbucks franchise which all these albertson's stores have, and asked if i could have an empty plastic cup. They insisted on charging me 21 cents for it. Bastards. Anyhoo, i went back to the machine, and continued scooping change into it, trying to throw the pieces of snow into the garbage. The machine kept rejecting msot of the coins, because they were covered in dirt and crap. Suddenly, it made a wierd noise and said "Sorry, we cannot continue with this transaction. Please see a store employee for assistance." When i finally got someone to check it out, she took out the little dirt-collecting tray and it was just swimming with water and yuck. I was like "Yeah, there was some snow on my coins, i guess some of it got in there..." She gave me my receipt and was very nasty to me and i was outta there. How was i supposed to know you can't put dirt and snow through there? Sheesh!
I had to go all the way back to my store to find out what plan C was. Plan C was another albertson's practically downtown. Before setting out, i spread all the coins out on dry towels, so as not to break another machine and possibly be banned from albertsonses for life. Blah de blah, i got all the way there, didn't break their machine, got all our moneys, got lost on the way back, and arrived back at my store around 5:00. I'd spend 5 whole hours fucking around with these coins. I was fearing an angry mob awaiting their tips, but no. So i counted up and divided up and distributed into envelopes, and got the hell out of there. Shelby called later to say that i had totally messed up some people's tips, but she fixed it all, and was sympathetic as she's the person who used to do them before me. She also reassured me that she often had this type of misadventure. Well, maybe not this extreme, but still.
Worst tips day ever. I had to tell someone about it.
I traded shifts with someone so i could open and be done with work by noon- that seemed worth getting up at 4 am. It was also my day to do tips, so i planned to do those for the usual hour or so after noon. Everything went fine, i got the money separated into bills and coins, the coins going into the usual paper bags we use to carry them over to the coinstar machine. They were less heavy than usual so i decided to be a tough guy and just carry them instead of using a shopping cart like i sometimes do. Plus it was snowing big fat snow, so i just wanted to go as fast as possible. When i got there, however, the machine said sorry, it was full, and someone was going to come empty it god knows when. So i gave up and put the bags in a cart, and went back across the parking lot to starbucks to find out where else these machines were. I brought the bags in with me, got vague directions to another albertson's store, went back out and plopped them into the cart.
Ching ching ching! Coins everywhere. The snow had soaked through the paper, and it split. Coins were all over the ground, in the dirty slush. I had to find something else to put them in, but i was like "oh shit! I can't leave these here... " Since my truck was within seeing distance, i ran to look through the junk i have in the back and found my cooler- yeah, that'll be waterproof, i thought. As i tried to spill the rest of the coins in there, a man on his way into starbucks stopped to see what was going on, and when he went inside, he let them know i needed help. So New Sarah came out with the dustpan (it's the grossest dustpan you'll ever meet) and we used a piece of cardboard to push the slush-coin mixture into it. Mmmmmm...
I put the cooler into my truck and was looking for my snowbrush, when Sean walked up. "Hey, Sean!" i said, and promptly locked my keys in the running truck. "I just locked my keys in there!" i said. I was laughing pretty hard at this point. Sean felt bad for distracting me, so he went with me to help find a wire hanger. We ended up finding one at Tony mocha's nail place- already straightened out and made into a hook- lock your keys in much, Tony? Sean succeeded in popping the lock eventually, and i told him i loved him, and was off to find this other store.
There's no point in trying to exlpain Santa Fe geography and why Patty's directions were totally inaccurate, but i got lost, of course. Luckily, I got lost on the right street and found the store. Hallelujah. I lugged my cooler up to the machine and started plopping coins in- they were freezing cold and wet and dirty. I didn't think about the cooler keeping the snow perfectly intact. I was getting frostbite when a guy with a little jar of coins got in line behind me. I stopped what i was doing, got my receipt and told him to go ahead-i would have been there all day. I needed some kind of scoop, anyways, to keep my fingers from falling off. I went over to the little starbucks franchise which all these albertson's stores have, and asked if i could have an empty plastic cup. They insisted on charging me 21 cents for it. Bastards. Anyhoo, i went back to the machine, and continued scooping change into it, trying to throw the pieces of snow into the garbage. The machine kept rejecting msot of the coins, because they were covered in dirt and crap. Suddenly, it made a wierd noise and said "Sorry, we cannot continue with this transaction. Please see a store employee for assistance." When i finally got someone to check it out, she took out the little dirt-collecting tray and it was just swimming with water and yuck. I was like "Yeah, there was some snow on my coins, i guess some of it got in there..." She gave me my receipt and was very nasty to me and i was outta there. How was i supposed to know you can't put dirt and snow through there? Sheesh!
I had to go all the way back to my store to find out what plan C was. Plan C was another albertson's practically downtown. Before setting out, i spread all the coins out on dry towels, so as not to break another machine and possibly be banned from albertsonses for life. Blah de blah, i got all the way there, didn't break their machine, got all our moneys, got lost on the way back, and arrived back at my store around 5:00. I'd spend 5 whole hours fucking around with these coins. I was fearing an angry mob awaiting their tips, but no. So i counted up and divided up and distributed into envelopes, and got the hell out of there. Shelby called later to say that i had totally messed up some people's tips, but she fixed it all, and was sympathetic as she's the person who used to do them before me. She also reassured me that she often had this type of misadventure. Well, maybe not this extreme, but still.
Worst tips day ever. I had to tell someone about it.