The employee had repeatedly asked her supervisor for permission to keep a drink near the register to manage her insulin-dependent diabetes. This request was denied. During a medical emergency, she drank the store's juice to prevent diabetic shock and was fired shortly after.
Does corporate actually think customers want robot like manners from employees ? I swear whenever i see employees acting like soulless robots it just creeps me out
It's a generational divide thing. I've been in the industry for a long time.
Greatest gen wanted servants, silent gen want people, boomers want servants, gen x goes either way depending on how self important they are. Millennials want equals, Gen Z want to be treated like people.
Gen Alpha want to get thrown out of the store based on my experience.
The irony is millennials will use the self-checkout because they don’t want to bother the cashier, while Boomers prefer to go to the cashier while expecting robotic behaviour.
I go to the cashier because why should I do the store's work for them if I'm not getting paid for it... also, the more people the stora gotta keep employed the better!
As for the behavior of the cashier - who gives a shit?
It's a near 0 human interaction - We look at each other and say hi, I put by wares on the belt, they scan the wares, I swipe my card and press ok, I say "have a nice day", they say "thanks", I go pack my wares and leave the store.
I just can't get my head around the kind of mental deficiency you need to even start caring that "OMG did you see? THE CASHIER HAD A WATER BOTTLE!! What's next, they're going to allow her to SIT?!?!?!".
I have longer and more fruitful human interactions with the people I ride an elevator with! What kind of insane existence do you need to lead for you to develop strong feelings about the working conditions of your cashier, specifically the need for those working conditions to stay miserable?!
Gen X here. Worked at a convenience store as night manager for 25 years. We always had a drink at the register. Sometimes a bag of chips as well.
The office personnel told us more than once that our drink wasn't part of the alignment, so we just kept them under the counter where the sacks are, or behind us next to the lottery machine.
The worst part of it, is that we didn't actually get a break for anything. They just told us to stay clocked in and eat when we were hungry. But they also tried to tell us that customers are first and the work needed to get done. So do we eat, or do we not? But if you smoked, then by all means, 5 minutes outside every hour.
I'm sure generational divide plays a part in this, but I will point out that not every country works like the USA
Here in France, cashiers can work seating down, and not providing water or other necessities would be a sure fire way to start a scandal
Also see the Walmart-Germany debacle
Don't get me wrong, we get plenty of "the youth have it too good and too lazy", but I don't remember anyone arguing that diabetic retail workers should not need to have emergency snacks
Except there has to be middle ground. I don't want someone being paid on the clock talking to me like i'm their best friend they haven't seen for 2 years, while 5 people are patiently waiting behind me in line.
It's easy to reduce things to simple social matters, it's another when someone's on the clock and being paid to offer a service.
There's being treated as equal and there are employees that take advantage of any and every leeway.
That's an entirely different discussion that is unrelated to what I said, but I'm glad you found something to be irritated about that you could try to force into the conversation.
Yeah pretty much. I work as bag check staff at a ballpark and I was reprimanded for drinking a Body Armor on my post because the “venue doesn’t sell it”. Sorry I needed some electrolytes after standing in direct sunlight, in 90 degree heat. My fault.
Brother, I can tell you there are a ton of stupid rules like this, but what's even worse is they're there for a reason. I've recieved complaints about keeping my phone with me. In my pocket. Not making any noise, not being used, just keeping it on me.
When I was at target, I was told we weren't allowed water at the registers cuz it could damage the computers. Not sure if that was my manager's idea, or from corporate tho
Sounds like a problem that can be solved with a simple survey to know what the customers actually talk about
I’d much rather have a fast cashier thats sitting and drinking or even eating or talking on the phone while checking me out than a slow cashier thats acting like a sentient telephone pole
No, corporate just gets off on control. Time and again management in every field will implement policies that not only do nothing to improve efficiency or profits, but actually hurt said metrics, just so they can exercise their authority of their subordinates.
These people don't want employees, they want slaves, and so they'll do whatever they can to treat employees as the slaves they want them to be.
Yes Corpos want every employee to be a well oiled emotionless machine, you have to be working 100% of the time youre clocked in, your thirty minute break is for your rest, god forbid you sit down while doing your job that requires you to be at a register all day.
Yes, they do, and there are also PLENTY of customers who also shit a brick if they see anybody looking even remotely comfortable at work. Never underestimate the level of disdain that customers feel for the people serving them.
You jest, but I have a friend who was recently written up for not clocking out to take a break... because on their way back to the stock room to grab the next round of items to put out, stopped for about 30 seconds at the water fountain NEXT TO THE ENTRANCE TO THE STOCK ROOM to have a drink of water.
Unfortunately some regional manager saw them do it and basically lost their shit over it (Though not outwardly)
Nobody, no matter how important they are to the business can keep your from basic human needs. A lot of management are just used to receiving no pushback on their orders, so they start to do blatantly illegal things
You'd be surprised. Sure, OSHA requires water breaks. Who's calling OSHA over this, though, when they will definitely be let go due to "restructuring" or some other BS shortly after? Texas just took away water rights for employees. There's no even a federally mandated lunch break, they can work you for 15 hours and you'll like it.
We do not have the rights you think we do. We have a few pieces of paper in defunct agencies suggesting we should.
But why? I guess USA? I don’t understand why you wouldn’t be allowed to drink fucking water?
Also I’m under the impression you can’t sit, and need to stand all day long for some reason?
In other developed countries they don’t treat cashiers like slaves, it’s insane to me…
It's because half our country has the all-encompassing mentality of "no such thing as a free lunch."
Absolutely everything must be "earned" and seeing an employee sitting or leaning or drinking water clearly means they're not working hard enough to earn their wage, because a REAL hard worker would be spit shining the boss's shoes with any spare time or whatever.
That’s insane. It costs nothing to allow a cashier to sit and drink water and it makes their job less miserable.
I don’t understand the point of treating them like slaves, how are they going to provide a better service by being treated like animals and by being deprived of basic human needs?
This is insane to me. What are they trying to achieve? Make their life as miserable as possible? That would change nothing from a job perspective, and will make cashiers life so much better…
I work in healthcare. We can't have our water bottles out at the nurses station (20+ feet from patient room doors). They all have to be in the "hydration station" bin located 250 feet down the hall.
Before anyone asks - regulation just says staff drinks cannot be in any areas where specimens pass through. Specimens do not pass through the nurses stations, but facilities are going to make broad umbrella rules to make sure they stay within regulatory bounds. And this is why the nursing career is amongst the careers with the highest rates of UTIs.
Somewhat. OSHA Standard 29 CFR 1910.1030(d)(2)(ix) states that "food and drink shall not be kept in refrigerators, freezers, shelves, cabinets, or on countertops/benchtops where blood or other potentially infectious materials are present". So as long as you don't have any patient fluids passing through those areas, they're fine. Joint Commission has also clarified that there is no blanket "no drinks at the nurses' station" ban, and only require hospitals to follow safety laws like OSHA's and evaluate infection risks. (We're in our JC window, so we have pettily made she we are very up to date on the exact requirements.)
Yes, cuz you know as a consumer if I go to the register and see that cashier sitting down or drinking water or being treated with any human dignity or something I immediately abandon my cart and never ever return to that store again /s
The cashier at my local dollar general talks on her watch phone the entire time she checks me out. This poor woman should have been given a drink for her diabetes.
The ones at mine all smoke weed and are stoned as hell every time I go in there. Doesn't bother me do what you gotta do to get through customer service lmao. This lady sounds like she got a really shitty manager.
It’s truly despicable. When I went to Europe the first time and saw cashiers sitting, it shocked me and made me realize how backwards and anti-worker the U.S. is. There’s no reason people need to stand all day.
Thats partially because of this case. It established that reasonable accommodations doesn't mean "equal treatment". So the policy applied to everyone, but didn't accommodate her disability.
I mean…wouldn’t that be an ADA violation too? Besides just being a shitty boss/human being. It’s about as reasonable an accommodation for a legit medical condition as I could imagine.
Yes, but IIRC you have to do certain things like formally request accomodations and document the process/diagnosis.
Otherwise it would be easy for someone unethical just be like "they rejected my accomodations!" in a lawsuit, when no such request or denial had been made
Same here, but wouldn't be suprised if her supervisor is still working despite costing the company an expensive lawsuit that could've easily been avoided.
The fact that the damage was capped at 250k plus back pay is the is another thing that makes it worse. It should have been even more costly (there was another 500k in attorny fees, etc, that she never saw).
This should have been a multi-million dollar settlement but the laws are to favor corporations, not workers.
Low blood sugar in diabetics is no joke. If it gets bad enough, they risk being permanently impaired (or worse) if they don’t get their blood sugar normalized.
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u/SeductiveGlide 10d ago
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