My first day at the hardware store

I have started part-time employment at my neighborhood hardware store. It is a national chain with several franchises here in the Twin Cities.

I spent a few hours last week doing on-line training. Today was my first day in the actual store. I was assigned as a cashier and shadowed a very friendly associate for a few minutes before turning the roles and he shadowed me.

The store is definitely a neighborhood kind of place where most people walk to the store and purchase smaller items. My largest sale in my 5 hour shift was for $95. And that was for a single item.

There were several house account customers. Mostly local apartment building types looking to purchase small repair project items.

The store is very busy with these small sale transactions but most interesting (and confusing) to me were the number of returns. Nearly every other transaction involved a return. I'm still not sure I got the process down completely because there a variety of steps ... or it may be it just seemed that way to me.

Before my shift was over I was on my own. Thankfully there is always someone to help just a headset call away.

Also, my first day I interacted with 3 people I knew including the owner of Isles Bun and Coffee, my old ophthalmologist and a customer from Juiced Nutrition. There was a fourth customer that I know from my store but he didn't see me.

I guess I did okay because I got my schedule for the rest of the week. Now I just need to learn where everything is in the store!