Retailmare

Chapter 1 - The Walmart Retail Robot

Hey, all! I wrote this story a few years ago since I was working at Walmart then. Enjoy!

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"How are you doing today?"

"Find everything you were looking for?"

"Have a great day!"

"Thank you for shopping at Walmart."

I couldn't even count how many times I had said those niceties over the course of the six months I had been working at the Walmart supercenter in our small town of Woodford, Washington as a cashier. Way too many to count. I couldn't even count the number of times I had said it per day. It depended on the number of customers I had. And when you were at check stand 3, you received more than any other check stand, since that was the line right after the self-check-out stations, and the first lane people go to if the "20 Items or Less" lane wasn't open.

As I rang up a middle-aged lady's monstrous amount of groceries, I smiled so the customers could see that I was enjoying my job... pretending to, that is. This woman tried to keep her rowdy teenagers in check as I rung up her things. I smiled at her when I met her eye, but she was distracted by one of her boys and looked away.

Last items in the transaction... but there were four people lined behind her, all with full carts. I glanced ahead at the other check stands. The checkers at 5 and 7 were just standing there with no customers. I suppressed a sigh. They needed to pull the customers in my line! I would never get out on my lunch, which was only ten minutes away...

"Check-stands 5 and 7 are open!" I heard one of my managers call out, and two customers in my line moved on. Thank goodness! Should I shut my light off? The light showing the number on the lane, and if it was on, the lane was open.

Another person entered my line. A really hot guy who looked in his twenties. Nah, I'll wait until a CSM, or customer service manager, says I can go. I finished ringing things up for the middle-aged woman. I inwardly gasped at her total.

"Good heavens, you all are expensive," she enthused to her children. She slid her card, and the two-foot-long receipt printed out. I handed it to her, after folding it into fourths.

"Thank you for shopping at Walmart. Have a good day."

She left with her children, and two of them each pushed full carts, as did the mother. Maybe I would take back my dream of having a large family.

I rang up the next hefty transaction and worked on the next. It was ten minutes after my lunch break should start. I eyed the cute guy as I rang things up and hoped that I wasn't relieved of my duties before I got to him. My heart lurched when I saw Sarah, one of the other cashiers, walk up to one of the yellow-vested CSMs. Sherry, the CSM, checked her handheld which told her who needed breaks. I pursed my lips as they looked in my direction.

Dang it. I'll be leaving before I get to the hot guy! I shouldn't have wished so badly that I could go on lunch.

"Oh, I'm sorry, miss," said my customer, a young woman who was round in the face and had dyed black hair. "I decided not to get the gallon of milk and the cheese."

"Oh, okay, no problem," I said, thankful that she didn't do this two hours ago when I got on this register—I would have to claims the milk and cheese. As in, dump the milk out and throw the cheese into the dairy fridge in the back, and they would throw it away and keep the wrapper just so they knew what went out. It really annoyed me when people didn't want perishables and you had to claims them. What a waste of good food.

I put the milk and cheese on the counter next to me, and I noticed Sarah walk up and stand behind me.

"Need a break?" she asked.