"Has no one ever redeemed a gift card before?"

I messed up. One of the downsides to only working 2 days/week is that I don't do the same things over and over often enough to build muscle memory. Consequently the cash register still feels like my adversary, and today I pissed a customer off.

She came in today with a store gift card. I have not checked the value on a card since right after Christmas. I admit it: I forgot how. I had to call Jen over. I apologized to the customer and she said it was OK. That was then.

When she was done shopping, I rang her up and her total was $118. The value on her gift card was $75. I asked her if she wanted me to take some of the items off her total. I said I'd be happy to go it with her item by item to get her back down to $75.

"No," she said, she wanted to split the payment between gift card and credit card. She added that she was in a hurry.

I have never done this before. Once again, I had to ask Jen. It was humbling to watch her manicured nails dance across the register. Then, wouldn't you know it, the customer's credit card was rejected. Now that was not my fault, but still, she was in a hurry and every part of her transaction was going wrong.

"Has no one ever redeemed a gift card before?" she asked, clearly pissed.

I told her the problem was likely with the credit card terminal and I had to ring her up at the other register. I apologized. I acknowledged she was in a hurry and took responsibility as we had to go through the whole thing again. 

As I finally handed over her purchase, I again thanked her for being patient with me. She softened a bit and thanked me for helping her, which was gracious under the circumstances.

I was in the break room when my boss CeeCee got in. When she came back to hang up her jacket, I told her all about it. "I heard," she said. "Don't worry about it. You're doing great."

Yeah, well, the fact that Jen told her about it right away makes me think I'm not doing great.

I am lucky in that I work at a card shop, not a grocery store or drug store. Nothing is a matter of life or death and our customers are generally in a good mood. Even when I fuck up.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash