tiltedbc

I'm standing in line at the grocery store the other day (Extra Foods, big in Canada) and was watching the cashiers working away.

This has to be a tough job. They stand for hours at a time and move huge amounts of items. All of that for what I'm guessing are low wages.

The other thing is that they only seem to hire women. I don't think I've ever seen a man as a cashier at this place. Do men just not want to do it or is this a female dominated job?

maleficent

I was a cashier in a grocery store (before the days of scanners and such) for a few years while I was in high school, and ended up with a case of what is now known as an RSI (repettitive stress injury) really before anyone knew what it was.... (Doctor was convinced I has some form of arthritis)

I have seen male cashiers in thegrocery stores, but the males tend to find more work stocking the shelves and such..

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Cynthetiq

Back on the day grocery cashiers were very highly paid. Unions ensured them good wages and working conditions to help reduce the RSI.

As far as only women, I have noticed over the years that less and less males are the ones who greet me at the checkout counter.

__________________
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guthmund

My sister has some serious back problems because of working as a cashier in a grocery store. She was working long hours, trying to go to school, and not taking care of herself and it eventually all caught up to her.

About the male cashiers.. I can't speak for every store, every where, but the local Wal*Mart has a preference for women cashiers. Again, I don't know if that's company policy or just this one particular store. Also, my sister's old boss prefered to hire shorter people because the counters and belts were built too low. He told her it was to help keep the taller kids from getting hurt (bending over all day and pushing stuff through), I tend to think he didn't put the taller kids on the registers because they looked so damn ridiculous.

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StanT

I spent a significant amount of time servicing the cash registers and scanners. Pay depends on employer, with union shops paying suprisingly well with significant seniority (more than I was making fixing them at the time). Males seem to pass through the job, but generally end up at jobs that require heavy lifting. I don't know if these jobs pay better, but it doesn't seem to involve sexism. I would assume they could stay a cashier if they chose.

Blackthorn

Around these parts I believe there is still a union (UFCW - but let's leave the union debate for another thread) that protects the cashiers at the local Kroger.

Kroger seems to hire as many men for cashiering as they do women. I don't know for sure what sort of wage they earn but I understand that it's better than minimum wage. Even so it's not likely any of them are going to become Rockefellers in this job. They do get a great corporate benefits package including medical, dental and disability insurance so putting that on top of a low skill (labor) position with a better than minimum wage and there is a real draw for those jobs. Of the non-high school aged cashiers at my local Kroger most of them have been there for years so it must not be all bad.

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ngdawg

The supermarket I frequent has male cashiers, but they don't seem to be there as much or stay as long as the women. There are several women at the store who have been in that same job for at least 15 years-they all worked at another of the same chain until that closed.
You need the patience of several saints to be a cashier: slow customers who can't count or just aren't ready to pay, rudeness of people in general, scammers trying to get something for nothing and my all time favorite-the snooty woman who thinks '10 items or less' applies to all but her....
I did retail, I did cashiering very briefly. I handled childbirth easier.

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la petite moi

I work at Starbucks, where we either are the cashier, stocker, or barista. It really does kill your feet after awhile, and if you don't have good arches, don't even try to get the job.

Like ngdawg said, you MUST have patience, no matter what.

Kubz18

i worked at a grocrey store for over a year as a bagger and when i started there i saw that every cashier was a girl, and i mean every one and every bagger was a guy... the job sucked because we got paid less then the girls and we did more work

it really was strange to me how a company can get away with something like that having all girls as cashiers and all guys as baggiers....weird...and this wasnt your small grocrey store its a division of supervalu

but i think i got more aches and pains from bagging(i also was a cashier at target) then doing cashier, and i never heard the girls complain about aches and pains from checking

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TM875

Cashieres have one of the worst jobs in the store. Not only do they get paid shit money to stand on their feet all day (and almost all are part-timers, so their shifts may only be 4 hours long), but have the terrible consequence of having to deal with customers. Personally, that would be a private form of hell for me. Treat them with respect (as long as they aren't total idiots...a lot are...)

Edit: Oh, and to actually answer the question, at the store I worked at there was a pretty even split. Women typically tend to be more reliable and better at dealing with customers than young men, which is why most guys are baggers or stockers.

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Grasshopper Green

I worked as a cashier for four years before switching over to stocking. I would never cashier again, unless of course my family was destitute and it was the only job I could get. It's boring, very hard on the knees, feet, and back, and you get the benefit of dealing with the public. Everyone has to get food, so that means you get to deal with every sort of person out there, and you have to have patience of Job and a good attitude to last very long.

There are a few men that cashier where I work, but there are definitely more women. I don't know why they tend to last longer than the guys, they just do.

As far as pay goes, the first company I worked for paid their cashiers like shit. Therefore, they got all the high school kids who were more interesting in talking and flirting with each other than working; no adult could have supported a family on that wage. And they always wondered why customers complained about the service The company I currently work for pays cashiers a lot better, but only if you were hired before a certain date. Cashiers hired after that date make several dollars an hour less now; our benefits are being slowly stripped away and that includes decent pay.

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Formerly Medusa

ophelia783

I worked in retail/food service for the last five years, ever since I was 17. 3 and a half months of that took place in a grocery store, Loblaws, and another 6 months of it was in a renovations store, Reno-Depot (Canadian).

Both jobs have both male and female cashiers; however, at Loblaws, the guys generally chose to work in departments other than service, as it paid slightly better, had more hours and had a better program for advancement.

However, at Reno-Depot, just as many women worked in departments such as hardware and lumber as men, and did their jobs as well, if not better than, the guys.

At my current job, which is a restaurant, only women can be cashiers; however only men are allowed being cooks.

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eribrav

All right, time to put on my "old man" hat here.

1. I've worked as a cashier. Life could be a lot worse than spending your day in an air conditioned building. Trust me.


2. It's called WORK for a reason. That's why they pay you. Why does it surprise anyone that actually performing work might leave you sore, tired, and otherwise temporarily inconvenienced?

3. Don't like the pay? Find something else to do. Go find another job, that probably involves more responsibility, more physical and mental discomfort. Or go further your education.

SiN

I cashiered for a few years ...

started in a convenience store, so that doesn't really count...

later on, worked for a few months in one of the 'big' groc stores. Union, so pay and bennies were quite decent for the job.
A few men there, mostly women.

then cashiered at a health-food cooperative for a couple years ... good pay, good bennies, not a bad job, considering ... it was a bit more 'yuppie' and a bit less 'granola' really.
a few men cashiers there.


It's not something I'd spend the rest of my life doing, for sure .... but it wasn't horrible, either.

What's weird is, in Germany
1. the cashiers sit down. that would drive me insane, actually. standing is better, so long as you've got a good mat.
2. there's no express lanes. really only matters to the shopper tho, i suppose.

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Pip

I'm a supermarket cashier since five years. I enjoy it, it's not that heavy if you know how to do things properly. We alternate between sitting and standing and have check-outs back to back so we don't always do things in the same direction. I'm pretty tired by the end of the day, but nothing lethal. I'm impressed by some of my co-workers though, who work full-time and also single-handedly raise wonderful kids. I don't understand how they manage.
We have two men and maybe twenty women cashiering at my store. The rest of the store is fairly evenly manned. It varies between stores though, some have 50/50 in the check-out too. Part of the reason can be that most cashieres get recruited by a friend already working there. I don't think either gender is better at cashiering, I've seen my share of good and crappy male and female cashiers. It'd be nice with a more even share at my job though, for some variation. (A bit of eye-candy wouldn't hurt either, all the hotties are way over at the deli for some reason!)
In Sweden customers do their own bagging, in fact we don't have any greeters and "courtesy clerks" whatever that is either. When I read stories from my american colleagues it always seem like there are a lot more people working in an american grocery store than in any european I've been in. If I ever go to the USA the sight I'll be most curious to check out is a typical grocery store, how weird is that?

noodle

Publix supermarkets actually had a few lawsuits against them in the past due to women not being promoted beyond cashier or customer service. I had a guy friend in high school that went from bagboy to supervising his own store in four years. His girlfriend had just made it from cashier to customer service desk in the same amount of time. For the most part where I live it's mostly women behind the cash register in the grocery stores. The only males I've seen are kids in high school and junior college and they're mostly baggers. But most of the supervisors and higher-ups seem to be male. It's almost glaringly obvious.

The cashier age ranges seem to be polarizing more around here. Most are under twenty or over fifty. It's odd. But, this being Florida, there aren't as many jobs for older women since they're not considered to be on the "career path". And of course, there's the blonde twits twirling hair and snapping bubble gum that get reprimanded by their superiors due to poor customer service. Most of them can't be more than 18. I've never seen a cashier sitting down in Florida, either. It a job requirement that you can stand for long hours just like the stock personnel has to be able to lift heavy things. The little old ladies have calves like rocks.

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Grasshopper Green

This really got my goat. I don't know if it was meant this way, but it's certainly how it came across to me...

I don't know what company you worked for, but the two stores I've worked at weren't bastions of air-conditioned bliss. The checkstands are right by the doors, so every time they open the heat or the cold blasts in. In fact, last summer we had a cashier pass out from heat exhaustion. It's a rarity to see a cashier without a coat on during the winter; when I cashiered I had many a customer tell me my hands felt like ice as I handed them their change. Granted, it's not the same as construction or the road crew guys, but it's not always comfortable either.

Firstly, I don't think anyone posting in this thread thinks that work is a place to play around or have fun. Secondly, there are discomforts related to any job; I don't know who your post was directed to, but I was certainly listing the physical hazards of being a cashier. Work in an office? You get carpal tunnel, eye and neck strain, and hemmroids. Doctor? You work around sick people all the time, etc. There are pros and cons to any job.

This is precisely why I switched to stocking. I didn't like cashiering. As far as furthering my education, I can't speak for others, but that's impossible for me right now. How do I know? Because I've tried. Between my job, my husband's job, taking care of my son, and my husband going to school, it is not a possibility for me right now. While I'm not happy about it, I accept that and know it will be a few years before I can start school, and work towards a better job. I also don't know where you live, but finding a new job can be difficult. It took me a month to get the job I have after I moved cross country. Perhaps you should rethink this before making blanket statements about this line of work.

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"They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings; steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king"

Formerly Medusa

eribrav

[QUOTE=Medusa99]This really got my goat. I don't know if it was meant this way, but it's certainly how it came across to me...

It was meant exactly how it was posted. I get the impression you didn't like it, but each thing you've written in your response seems to agree with what I said. (Well, except for the store not being exactly the desired temperature at all times).

Suave

Working the till at a Micky D's (not quite supermarket cashier, as I had more duties, but similar), I can safely say it was one of the more enjoyable jobs I've had so far. The worst job to date has been dishwashing, which is most definitely a rotten hellhole of employment.

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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

Spartak

As a cashier/jack of all trades in a small but feverishly popular grocery store, I can say that it is a very tough job, I'd say the toughest out of any jobs I routinely perform. I'd rather be hauling crates of produce in and out of the produce room.

You constantly have to be in a state of total mental alertness, be able to recall 400+ individual PLU numbers for all the fruit/veges pretty much instantaneously, and then have the strength/agility to reach over the counter to grab the groceries off a trolley/put the shopping bags back in. With a packer the job becomes heaps easier, and nowhere near as draining.

This entire process most of my co-workers find quite draining, luckily by law we get breaks every 2 hours, and since we are pretty much free to move around the store, we do other jobs if its not busy. That and the supervisors rotate the staff around during the day, and also they mostly get the newbies on the chekouts, which is pretty good because I've been there for a while now.

All of this is a great stimuli to graduate and find a proper job, so I can look back on it all and laugh.

PS: Most of the time, if we make a mistake it is because of a slight lapse of concentration, we are not out to intentionally rip you off, and just if you explain what the error was we are more than happy to correct it.

And what SiN said, a good rubber mat makes standing so much more easier.

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bing bing

I was a cashier for a year and a half and have to say that it's the most boring, monotonous piece of shit job imaginable. It makes you age 3 times faster than what’s natural.

raeanna74

I worked as a cashier at a restaurant. I switched to doing dishes because I hated cashiering. I'd rather have my hands in old soupy eggs, pancakes, and grease than deal with cranky snotty customers. For every customer that says something pleasant it seems like there's two that have to complain, even if they're complaining about the weather.

Most of the grocery stores here have women cashiering and men bagging or stocking. Walmart has a lot of women supervisors and managers. In fact, very few men in authority there. I see a lot of men doing the stocking and some doing cashiering.

I try my best to be polite to the cashiers that I deal with. I try to be patient with them and say something nice when my brain is functioning. It's not an easy job and I admire those who do it with a pleasant attitude.

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Janey

[QUOTE=eribrav]
uh, ya. nuff said. I've seen people nailing houses together in the dead of winter. Or worse, in the depths of this super hot summer. Me? I'd rather take the above dscribed job characteristics, even dealing with pissy customers, over the realities of other jobs.

raeanna74

I think the key is that some people can handle the physical stress of some jobs and others handle the emotional/mental stress of others. It's the way we're built. I've worked both and I'd take roofing over cashiering any day.

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My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

kutulu

Cashiering is easy. I did it for a year and a half at Sam's Club. It is not a phyically demanding job.

Also, if you think grocery store customers are bad you've never worked in food service.

Jimellow

I cashiered, and later worked in produce..

I'm a guy, and one of the only benefits on cashiering was that I met a lot of really cool girls my age, a few of which I am still close friends with.

It comes down to mindset and how willing you are to get shit on by the customers.. I am a pretty nice guy, and didn't see the point in arguing over pointless things with customers, so I generally got along with "most" customers. Of course, there are always those that come to the checkout line to pick a fight and won't leave you alone until you obligue them.

The pay was not good, and the second benefit I gained from working at the grocery store (almost 5 years, despite past co-workers claims that I was there WAY too long, which I was) was that I learned to manage money and deal with people. By getting paid as little as I did, I learned to manage money and be frugal (which I consider a good thing). I also learned a lot about people in general and how to deal with negative situations, namely avoiding confrontations and arguments when at all possible.

I wouldn't work as a cashier again, but in a sense, I am thankful for the mediocre experience it was, because after that, life, and employment, can only get better; and so far it has.

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kutulu

They pay just depends on where you work. If it's Costco, you'll start at over $12/hr. Not something to feed a family but nice for a young person in school. The unionized stores pay pretty nicely. OTOH, if you go to WalMart, you'll get the min.

StuckinRow

I worked at a grocery store for 3 years. Six months of bagging, 2.5 years of cashier. As a bagger, the cashiers were all girls. When I left, most of the cashiers were guys. It changes all the time.

I always enjoyed bagging after being a cashier. You didnt have to deal with customers and it was very mindless. Hell, there were days that I didnt speak to a single person as a bagger.

Cashiering was an easy job, once you got the routine down. I learned the PLU's fairly quickly and never really had to think about them. A couple of us ended up having competitions to see who could go the fastest. They had some sort of Items per minute scale they would post. I won a lot.

The customers were always annoying as hell. They never look at the sales signs. I loved the one item per customer sales, 10 people in a row with shopping carts full of that item. If something got priced wrong on the computer, they would always blame you for it. Most the time you wouldnt actually know the price of the item unless it was something VERY common, considering prices changed all the time with sales and such. They dont understand that the cashier really has NO control on how the item comes up on the computer.

Oh man, I forgot about them... grr. I think some of them tried playing as if they couldnt read English, since we had a large amount of mixed ethnicities. Oh yea and the ones who come into your line even though your light is off AND the sign says Closed.

At 15, the grocery store was the only place that would hire me. Plus, I was still in the most difficult classes at my school...

Demeter

I am a union cashier & I hate hearing this crap all the time.
The tills we work at are designed for the average man, not woman & they are uncomfortable. There is no way to get around the repetitive strain. After years of scanning items from one direction to another, for years on end take their toll eventually.
And as far as the wages go, I started at just above minimum wage. It takes years to achieve the high wages you are refering to. And considering the company I work for makes it near impossible to obtain fulltime employment (we are capped at 24 hours weekly) unless people phone in sick. Then its callins according to seniority.
It usually takes an average of 8-10 years for the average person to achieve top wage rate. I spent years working at a till for 6, 7, 8 bucks an hour.

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shesus

I worked as a cashier in a grocery store for about 4 years total. I took some time off in between thinking that working at a clothing store would be better. The employee discount on clothes was awesome, but the job was worse. So I went back to the grocery store. The standing didn't bother me. However, the twisting and lugging the heavy cases of soda and beer through my shoulder out of joint. That was an injury that stayed for a few years after. Working the midnight shifts was always the most interesting because the strippers would come in and do dances on the belts for the guys.
Yes, men usually were not cashiers, but on those nights they would knock a lady down to get to the register.
I sometimes miss the job because it was low mental stress and the people were fun. There was always gossip and the management was typically easy going. Of course, I only worked in 2 stores, so my experiences may not be the norm.

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Stiltzkin

I have a (female) friend who was a cashier for about a year and a half and she hated the job with a vengeance. I can't blame her at all. And as for the gender thing... I don't see it. I've seen lots of male cashiers at Wal*mart, Albertson's, Big 8 and other places.

Cynthetiq

I'm sorry you hate hearing that it as good in the past? I'm not clear on what you hat from my post.

Because in today's environment I see the union doing little to nothing to benefit you. I see them as yet another "tax" onto your back for someone to be your "advocate" and when they decide to "advocate" for you and they don't get what they want they say strike and give you something like $14/day. Hardly enough to warrant the high dues you pay into.

As far as the RSI, my "back in the day" was when they didn't have laser scanners, flip books for the mulitiple codes of produce, 18 different ways of payments, big box GIANT items, etc.

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Martian

At the risk of upsetting a lot of women, I'll attempt to explain why guys are less often used as cashiers.

Guys tend to be (not universally true) taller and stronger, primarily in the arms and shoulders than girls, which makes them better suited to jobs that require heavy lifting and reaching, such as stocking shelves and carrying out purchases. Hence stock boys and bag boys, but fewer male cashiers. They're better employd elsewhere in the store.

I worked construction for several years and I've also spent time in a warehouse. I've never met a female construction worker and there are very few women in the warehouse I used to work at. Not saying they can't do the job, just that men tend to be better suited. It's genetics.

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I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

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Cynthetiq

maybe you want to rethink that statement because what you are saying then validates what Jimmy the Greek was saying back in 1988.

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Squishor

I know this is kind of off-topic, but at work today I watched a video of a female cashier today who was ringing someone up and just dropped dead. Nobody tried to do CPR or anything for her except call 911. It was pretty disturbing.

As for the question, it seems to me that I've seen a lot of male cashiers, some of whom have been older, obviously in the job for many years.

Martian

Cynthetiq, I disagree. Snyder made a claim that is backed up by very little other than a vague historical fact and countered by the fact that physiologically blacks and whites are virtually identical. But I think we can all agree that there are rather a lot of differences physiologically between women and men. I'm 5'11" and where I am in the world at least, I'm considered on the short side of average for ehight. I have a female friend who is about a quarter of an inch shorter than me and considered quite tall.

Similarly, men tend to have more upper body strength due to the higher level of testosterone in our bodies. Look at the changes girls go through during puberty compared to the changes boys go through. A girl fills out in the hips and develops breasts, whereas a boy's shoulders broaden with much less emphasis on the hips. Boys also tend to get a much larger 'growth spurt' during puberty than girls do, so when fully grown, men are on average taller and stronger.

I'm not saying it's a universal. I'm not saying that women are incapable of doing these jobs. I'm not saying that men are superior to women. I'm simply noting that in this case men are on average better suited physically to a certain type of work.

I don't buy into political correctness bullshit. Women should be equal to men in terms of rights and opportunities. The problem with the political correctness movement is that it tries to assert that women are the same as men, instead of equal peers. This is simply not the case (and frankly I think it'd be a boring world if it were). Women are equal to men, but they are not men and as much as some people might wish to pretend it's not the case either gender is simply better suited to certain tasks due to the inherent differences.

I knew my view wouldn't be very popular and stated that at the outset, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to share it.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Suave

Martian, it doesn't matter if your view isn't popular, because it's correct.

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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

Pip

I stock shelves every now and then, and it's hard work alright, but so is cashiering. And cashiering is all about upper body work, while stocking involves the whole body. Also, cashiering means doing a lot of things at the same time, being nice to customers, handling lots of cash, working a computer, learning lots of produce codes by heart... yes, I understand why male cashiers are so rare.
There are a few jobs out there that require a physical strength that most women don't have, but none of them are in a grocery store. Really. It's not like we're digging trenches or something.

kutulu

What is absurd about saying that? People are nothing more than smart animals and we have successfully bred animals to be all sizes, shapes, and strenghts. Slaves were treated like animals and slave owners had over 200 years of forced breeding. Based on that, why isn't it possible that it could be a contributing factor in the reason why more black athletes have a share of hte athletic population that is much larger than their overall population?

It doesn't mean he shouldn't have been disciplined for saying that. He should have realized before he said that that people would be offended by it.

Cynthetiq

sorry that was exactly what I was trying to get across....

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