MemeMachineGo!

According to Bradlees policy, a cashier had three primary responsibilities: to ring up the prices accurately, collect the proper amount of money, and keep the line moving. I had no problem with this; it appealed to my sense of orderliness. However, I discovered some room for creativity and fun even within this rigid framework.

One of the biggest sources of delays in department store checkout lines is the price check. One of the biggest reasons for price checks is items without a price tag. I decided that, in the interest of keeping the line moving, I would dispense with price checks whenever possible.

If you’ve ever worked in a department store, you’ve no doubt encountered this pricing scheme or something very similar. At Bradlees, everything we sold was categorized by department codes and SKU’s (Stock Keeping Units – not that Bradlees ever told us what it meant). If you entered the department code and SKU into the register, most of the time the price would come up automatically. Department codes were two digits, and there were about fifty of them in the whole store, so they were easy enough to memorize (and we had a list of them under the register just in case). The SKU was six digits, and most of the time they matched the six digits on the UPC bar code. So if someone came up with a boxed item, it was pretty easy to find the department code, enter the digits from the UPC on the box, and voila, there was your price. Sometimes this wasn’t enough. Not every item’s tag or package had a UPC code, and sometimes even with the code, the price wouldn’t come up automatically. At this point, I thought it proper to reintroduce the ancient custom of haggling.

Most of the time this was quite easy to do. I’d simply say to the customer, “I think this shirt is $14.99.” The vast majority of them agreed with whatever I suggested. After four or five months of working in the store, I had a good idea of what things cost, and I was always fair in my estimates (I had no interest in ripping anyone off, and if I gave prices that were too low, someone might get suspicious). Sometimes a customer would catch on to the game, and suggest a lower price. I’d haggle for the fun of it, and we’d come up with a reasonable price that was probably not too far off the actual price tag. It took less time than a price check, and was more satisfying for me and the customer. Once a customer did insist on a price check, and I offered double or nothing: if the price was less than what I’d quoted, I’d give it to him for free, and if it was more, I’d charge double. The customer was so taken aback that he just agreed to my price on the spot. Anyone could have reported me to the managers for this, and it probably would have gotten me fired. Since I continued in my employment, I assume that no one ever complained.

The problem with naming my own prices was that every item had to be entered into the register with a department code and SKU – this was the real reason that price checks were needed. There is always a loophole, though, and I learned that there is a “dummy” SKU of 100-100 that can be used if the real one can’t be found. This was only supposed to be used in emergencies, but I decided that keeping the line moving on busy days constituted a sufficient emergency, and used it whenever possible to avoid a price check.

Now, you may remember that I mentioned earlier that one of a cashier’s duties is to make sure they collect the right amount of money. The register till is one of a store’s biggest sources of lost revenue, whether through fraud or carelessness. All of the cashiers were evaluated for the accuracy of their “count” – i.e., how well the amount recorded by the register matched the amount actually collected in the till. I’ve always been quite conscientious about money and counting, so this was never a problem with me. However, all that entering of department codes and SKU’s was not going unnoticed. I discovered this one day when the front end manager said to me, with a puzzled look, “Jim, you have the best accuracy on your counts of any cashier – but you also entered more 100-100’s than all the other cashiers put together.” Not knowing whether to commend me or reprimand me, she took the safe course and did neither.