Now, it’s time for me to take my kind, nice, “roll with the punches” couponing attitude toward cashiers and set my hat strongly on my head and get that “Look over my the top of my glasses” stern!
We discussed (actually, I discussed, you read) my encounter a few weeks ago with the new “coupon friendly” (<—- read with sarcastic voice) Family Dollar.
Well, today, I had another opportunity to visit my local Fa
mily Dollar with coupons in hand. Now, let me back up for a second and tell you there has been 1 more such visit since the last one. In which, as I approach the register, before the cashier is done with the customer in front of me, he looks over at me and says loudly, “If it doesn’t scan we aren’t taking it!” I smiled and said, “I understand and that’s fine.”
So, back to today, I go in with 10 $1/1 ANY Reach Toothbrush from 5/16 RP and I collect 10 $1 Reach Toothbrushes. I get to the counter and the girl scans the first coupon, it beeps – now, I was just sure this wouldn’t be an issue, because it was not internet printed – so, she calls a woman over and says “What do I do, it won’t scan?”, she had only tried once, but, ok… The woman she called over was on her way home, she took the coupon and looked at the back – weird, What was she looking for on the back…… Then she told the girl how to take them off manually, so the girl did the first one and the woman said, “yeah, just do that.”, then the girl says “She’s got 10 of them.” So, the woman takes off the next one and then, she says to me “I need to see what the limit is”, she proceeds to read the coupon. I immediately know where this is going. But, I wait for her to say it, she says “It says 1 per purchase.” There it is… she said it, I said “Yes, I am purchasing 1 toothbrush with 1 coupon for each.” She continues to read, she finishes reading and repeats, “It says 1 per purchase.” And I repeat “Yes, I am purchasing 1 toothbrush with 1 coupon for each.” , “NO!” She says, “a purchase is this!” And she shakes my bag of toothbrushes at me. I said, “A transaction is the entire sale and a purchase is 1 item, I am purchasing, I do this at other stores all the time and….” She quickly cuts me off, rolls her eyes and says, “I’M SURE YOU DO!” So, I shut up, she then says, “I’ll do it this time, but I am going to call my District Manager.” I smiled and said “Good, thank you.
She finished deducting all of my coupons, and was taken aback by the zero balance – I just knew I was in for round 2! lol But, no, she was ready to go home, so she left and so did I.
Now, I then called the District Manager, told him I was tired of being treated like a criminal EVERY time I go in there with coupons. He wasn’t very sympathetic and went on the whole thing about internet coupon fraud, as I reminded him twice, these were cut from the Sunday paper. So, the saga will continue and I will see what happens next, if I don’t get a response back after he speaks with his manager, I will be calling corporate.
Finally, I went to Kroger immediately after and the cashier was a gem, I picked up the wrong detergent she kept smiling – genuinely and took all my coupons like a pro and was very helpful and extremely friendly. I made sure to tell her manager what a great employee she was.
The lesson? Always, always make sure to commend the ones who do a good job. Take a moment and stop at the customer service desk and tell the manager on duty, what a good job they did. When I have a lot of coupons, if they were good, I always tell the cashier what a good job they did, too. Today as always the good cashier made my day nicer after the other experience!
