The Vent and Rant Thread

[John F]

Originally Posted by DNSB

If you had complained about the incorrect pronoun I applied to you, I would have listened and apologized. A third party who, IMNSHO, seems overly concerned with minor errors committed by other people and who decided that calling me out in public was worth doing? Pretty damned unlikely.

...

FWIW, I find Issybird to be one of the less confrontational posters on MR, and I have had disagreements with her in the past. I wish more posters would follow her example.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Renate

And speaking of Elton John, what the hell is with his song/video of "Nikita"?

No idea, not a fan, only knew about his wife from a remaindered turgid biography I didn't finish .

Originally Posted by Renate

"Nikita" is a man's name.

In Russia, yes. But in India its a female name.

There's a couple of Bollywood female actors, and Nikita Singh the novelist.

[JSWolf]

And don't forget the movie La Femme Nikita and the TV show Nikita.

Both main characters are women named Nikita. So I do think most people (at least in the US) would think Nikita is a female name.

There was Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet Union. But I think most people don't think of him when they see/hear the name Nikita.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Renate

Arrg! Such brainless idiots!

I use plain web OverDrive for my libraries.
I keep a lot of things on my "Wish List".
Normally, since very few are available at any time, I use the "Available now" filter.
Overdrive just got rid of that.
So now I have to scroll through pages of Wish List to see if anything is actually available to borrow.

Maybe give the web version of Libby a try? It has available now, and things you waitlist in Overdrive are Waitlisted in Libby.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by DNSB

A self-annointed member of the gender grammar Nazis? Not so much.

It's not the grammar, it's the bias.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Curious - who shuffled the smileys

used to be top right, etc, etc.

I am forced to retrain my memory muscle - where do I send the bill

TPTB changed it back to the way it was

I've always been spatially oriented, more so as the years pass.

Not opposed to change, providing it has purpose, and if does I am more likely to welcome it rather than reject it.

[Rumpelteazer]

I know it wasn't completely the team leaders' fault, but whoever made last week's schedule wasn't thinking straight.

On Wednesday, the busiest day of the week, there were supposed to be three of us until 5pm, one of which was the new girl that was being shown the ropes by a team leader in the morning. The cashier working on the regular register in the morning didn't show up. So they had to pull people from other departments to help us. Add to it that throughout the afternoon we had a bunch of self check-out registers freezing because of connection issues and a customer completely losing it on me and it wasn't a fun day.

Since the no show also wasn't able to come in on Thursday (she had hurt her knee) I offered to take on her morning shift on Thursday, normally my day off.

On Friday, when it isn't busy during the day we had seven people scheduled to work the afternoon. So a bunch were sent off the help with restocking.

Looking at next week's schedule and the colleague with the hurt knee is scheduled at all, on Wednesday there's just three of us until 1pm, so that's going to be fun. IMHO we should be with at least four and even then we would need someone the help during break times. On Thursday only the new girl is scheduled until noon. They haven't asked anyone to fill in for the sick cashier yet and I will neither volunteer nor agree to work when asked. On Friday there will be five of us in the afternoon.

It looks like the week after that we're getting a new colleague and the sick colleague is back on the schedule. So at least we should be with enough people, although the Friday we're still with too many during the day.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by issybird

It's not the grammar, it's the bias.

Hanlon's Razor is being overworked? Apophenia? Hypervigilance? Bias bias?

Can you offer any real evidence that I am showing prejudice for or against a group, person or object?

And perhaps this discussion might be better taken up in the P&R forum.

[Rumpelteazer]

Mentally preparing for today. The higher ups have decided to introduce a 100% bag check for customers. We, the cashiers, have to check all shopping bags and shopping trolleys (personal bags aren't allowed to be searched). At the regular cash register it's easier than at self check out (especially when we are often understaffed at self check out). How will people react at the self check out that after it's been checked if they paid for all of the groceries that we have to search their bags?

And of course they want to implement this on a Wednesday, the busiest day of the week when it's already chaotic.

Add to that that when employees leave they have to get their bags checked as well. At the service desk. Which the people working the self check out also run. So even more work for us.

I hope the team leaders are prepared to have one of them at the registers today and probably for a while, because I'm expecting a lot of disgruntled customers.

At least there's 5 of us this morning (last week we had three cashiers, one of who was working her first day). Before we open we have a talk how best to deal with the new rules.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

The higher ups have decided to introduce a 100% bag check for customers.

Grrrr.

I realize the considerable losses that businesses endure due to internal and external theft, but I'm not doing business with anyone that wants to check my bags. Very rarely will I even bother to visit a business that requires me to put my backpack in a locker.

Considering how many cameras they have in stores can't they track this stuff anyway?

I keep my backpack on my back and all my purchases in my hands. But I'll often have identical products in my backpack bought at a different store.

In the US at my local store I like cashier checkout because I know them and like them. In Germany where they just shove stuff at you I much prefer "SB" (Selbstbedienung, self-service).

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

Mentally preparing for today. The higher ups have decided to introduce a 100% bag check for customers.

One person I know works in the backend of loss prevention at a grocery store chain. Their employers do have a policy of checking customers who are using their own shopping carts (the bags on wheels). It was surprising the first week they started this policy just how many times they found items, oddly mostly the more expensive ones, that had been "forgotten" in the bottom of the bag.

Their biggest losses seem to come from people who were replacing the bar code with that from a cheaper item, "mistyping" the produce code, etc. The old weight sensors in the bagging area which were so useless that they had been disabled were recently replaced with more accurate and sensitive ones and the camera systems upgraded with an AI component. Now when you place a prime rib roast on the scale and then punch in the code for bananas, a staff member will get very interested in checking your order. And yes, that was a real example.

Sadly, 2 years on that job has turned a bright optimistic human into a darkly cynical being who has taken "You are not paranoid. They are really out to get you" as a personal motto.

Originally Posted by Renate

Considering how many cameras they have in stores can't they track this stuff anyway?

Yes, they can probably track you putting stuff into the bag. The checkout is where they find out if you are removing all the items from the bag and paying for them.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The checkout is where they find out if you are removing all the items from the bag and paying for them.

I see (presumably honest) people using their "carry-out" eco-bags as their in-shop collection bags.
I would never do that, I just don't want the hassle.
I usually only shop a few items in my hands or grab a store basket.
The most suspicious thing I do is sometimes go against the flow of the store to the entrance carrying a bunch of (unpaid) items which I dump into an empty basket as I underestimated my shopping.

[DNSB]

The sad part is that >95% of the shoppers are honest people. The remaining % are why the >95% group gets annoyed when we run into new security procedures.

You are correct that most of the people using their own bags are honest. It's also an easy way for the dishonest to reduce their costs so we all have to live with the annoyance.

[BetterRed]

What's this about?

One of our major supermarket chains (grocery stores) has taken to painting the ceilings of its stores black and turning the lights down to about what you might expect in a cocktail bar.

I guess one way to stop theft is to make shopping for groceries difficult. Today, I saw someone using their phone to shine a light onto a packet of salad greens!

Added: I don't recalling see a single child in that store today, it was late morning - no Mums or Dads with toddlers in tow, no school age children standing in aisles wondering what sort of chocolate bar to buy.

[nana77]

They maybe might funnel the VAR in there lol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_assistant_referee).