Paige Wakefield's Observations

All of the folks where I work use coupons. We all firmly believe that coupons are a great way to save money. There is a television show called something like “extreme couponing” that the other folks talk about frequently, but since I’m always working the night shift I have never seen the show.

Apparently one of the tips that the producers of the show pass on to the viewers is to organize your coupons in a large notebook binder that has plastic pages with pockets in them, like the pockets you would slide trading cards in and out from. And Becky has one of those big binders that she carries with her to and from work. She also brings the inserts from the weekend newspapers that have the coupons in them and clips them out and files them in the binder on company time.

When I see her doing that on company time I get really annoyed because the boss is usually grouching at me to do my job AND Becky’s job while Becky is spending several hours on her coupons. If it was a slow day at work that would be one thing, fine, go ahead and spend some time on the coupons. But when it is crazy busy and the customers are in line at all three of the counters and the orders still need to be counted and labeled it is really difficult for me to hold my tongue and take care of all of the work.

Last week that happened for about the fifteenth time and the customers were getting annoyed with how backed up we were and I was the one getting grouched at. The phone was ringing off of the hook and no one would even answer the phone! I asked Becky three times to please help me out and she totally ignored me. So I finally just stopped even trying to do anything more than wait on one counter of customers. I let the phone ring, the other customers that were waiting in line at the other counters I told them that I was sorry that they were going to have to wait until Becky was finished with her daylong coupon extravaganza.

A couple of the customers got quite upset over that and went to the front of the store and complained to the store manager. Within a few minutes the store manager came to the back and asked me what was going on. I just pointed at Becky and her binder and the huge pile of orders that needed to be counted and the long lines of customers and didn’t say a word. The manager said “I see” and started waiting on customers himself and told Becky that her break was over and to get back to work. She shot him a really dirty look, but she did put her binder away and went back to work. Before she left that day the manager told her not to bring her binder of coupons to work again; leave them in the car instead.