Archived Cashier Training? Anxiety!!!!

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themusicalfruit

themusicalfruit

No, I'm not open. I get paid to stand here.
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So, I was just hired on as a cashier, and I have my training shift on Thursday. For some reason I am just super anxious about starting and not doing a good job. I worked as a cashier at a fast food place a few years ago, but that's it. I keep telling myself that stupid people cashier every day.

From what a lot of you have said, I guess Target isn't a big fan of slow and steady training. More like throwing you to the lions with their fingers crossed.

So, I was wondering if any of you had some good advise to calm my nerves? What's the hardest part of cashiering at Target? Any super stupid mistakes people make?
 
Relax, you will be fine. If you are lucky you will be get a trainer, when I was hired the trainer was sick so I was just thrown on the register. The target registers are very easy to navigate. If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask the GSTL/GSA or another cashier. Coupon scammers will usually target the newest cashiers hoping to get away with it. If you get a guest with a lot of coupons or high value coupons, turn on your blinker and the GSTL/GSA will come and see what's going on. At my store all cashiers are very friendly and always happy to help out a newbie.
 
Sell Red Cards.

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Okay, question.

Do cashiers have to balance their drawers or anything before and after shift? I had to do that at my last cashier job and it sucked ass.
 
Nope, no balancing for you! There's someone who works in cash office who counts all the money and worries about that. You just have to make sure you have enough change in your cash drawer and request more if you need it.
 
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Try not to be nervous. Just focus on being friendly and doing a good job. After a day of training/shadowing another cashier you should get the hang of it.
The POS does most of the thinking for you, really. Just be careful in entering the correct amount when a guest gives you cash. I know I messed that up a couple times when I started and boy did it throw me into a tizzy trying to calculate change on my own :p
I think most cashiers would tell you the hardest part is getting REDcards. Cashiers are under a lot of pressure to help the team make REDcard goals, and it can be difficult to sell them. Read up on them, be familiar with what they are, what the guest needs to sign up for them, what the benefits are, and what the process of signing up for one looks like. Chances are they'll have you train with someone who is good at getting them. Pay attention to how they talk to the guests about it. Also, if you don't already have one, you should get one. You can use it with your TM discount to get a total of 15% off every time, plus it helps in selling when you actually have and use it yourself.
Other than that, it's pretty easy. Focus on being friendly, talking with the guests, and working with a sense of urgency. If you are ever confused about how to do something, ask the cashier next to you or flip on your blinker and the GSTL/GSA will be happy to help teach you.
Good luck! :)
 
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1. Remember to put coupons in the drawer.
2. Throw away used gift cards.
3. Don't forget to ask/look to see if a guest is using Cartwheel. In my experience, they don't always tell you...they just expect you to know somehow because they have their phone setting out.
4. Red Cards...but don't stress about this yet. Learn to navigate the whole cashiering process first.
5. Practice taking off spider wraps because they are tricky when you are new and it is even more stressful when you have waiting guests.
6. Don't hesitate to turn on your blinker.
 
Learn to say yes to the guest. Most people in this thread have focused on turning on your light and asking for help. This is fine for the most part, but if there's a minor price change or a few extra coupons it is usually better to just do it, then ask questions to your leaders later. You're new, you're going to make mistakes and that's fine. It's important to minimize the impact of those mistakes on your guests though.
 
TM2 said:
Learn to say yes to the guest. Most people in this thread have focused on turning on your light and asking for help. This is fine for the most part, but if there's a minor price change or a few extra coupons it is usually better to just do it, then ask questions to your leaders later. You're new, you're going to make mistakes and that's fine. It's important to minimize the impact of those mistakes on your guests though.
Click to expand...

Minor means $5 or less. Otherwise you need supervisor approval.
 
When I was Cashier trained, my trainer was an EPIC nazi......

"No your left hand, not your right!" (Literally) this type of person.

It got bad enough where I had a guest actually complain to her about how mean she was too me. This only increased the awkwardness as I had never worked a register in my life. Needless to say, it got even worse as she did it to other people, and is no longer a Trainer, lol... She by far gets our most Red Cards however, so to hell with her actual Personality.
 
BigEyedPhish said:
When I was Cashier trained, my trainer was an EPIC nazi......

"No your left hand, not your right!" (Literally) this type of person.

It got bad enough where I had a guest actually complain to her about how mean she was too me. This only increased the awkwardness as I had never worked a register in my life. Needless to say, it got even worse as she did it to other people, and is no longer a Trainer, lol... She by far gets our most Red Cards however, so to hell with her actual Personality.
Click to expand...
That type of person is annoying as hell.

Having said that, I'd love to do that with half of the cashiers at my store. Some people who cashier 20-30 hours per week get speed scores in the low 80s. That's insane. Anyone with over 100 transactions should easily be over 90. And yet we were 13th out of 75 stores in the group for cashier speed. I can only imagine what goes on at the bottom 10...

To the OP: I'm harping on speed a lot, but don't worry about it yet. I was really slow for my first week or so. Then the speed came. It's just a matter of working hard and doing it efficiently.
 
TheLurkerBelow said:
It's cashiering, I don't know what you're getting anxiety about lol.
Click to expand...

Exactly but for some reason I keep imagining myself totally fucking up and getting in a situation where I have no idea what I'm doing.

Are most transactions simple and done with card/cash or will I actually see a lot of coupons, checks, etc?
 
As has been said in other threads, work on learning the system first - accuracy before speed.
Trying to speed up too soon causes more mistakes & it will take you longer to stop & fix your mistakes than it would have learning it right the first time.
As you get more familiar, you pick up a slight pace.
With familiarity comes confidence, with confidence comes speed.
Your brain will tell you when to speed up.
 
I only do backup cashiering and my score us usually in the upper 90's. As for payments i have been with Spot for about 10 months and just took my first check last night. I almost forgot how to do it. LOL
 
themusicalfruit said:
Exactly but for some reason I keep imagining myself totally fucking up and getting in a situation where I have no idea what I'm doing.

Are most transactions simple and done with card/cash or will I actually see a lot of coupons, checks, etc?
Click to expand...

Not too many checks, though with debit redcard applications they're required, after a few sales fail you'll wish you'd see more checks, haha. But even when you do see a check its simple--guest fills it out, and you run it through a little slot at the register. It won't take it until you put it in proper, but there will be a place on the back of the check that clarifies and the register screen will show a visual. It's pretty simple.

Coupons you'll see a fair amount of, and for this, I cannot stress enough to ask for help from whoever is running the front (GSA or GSTL). There are some people who will try and run fraud coupons and glitch the system, and they try to target new cashiers. Anyone buying a questionable amount of soaps, detergents, etc, and a handful of coupons are often trying to pull a fast one. I go so far as turning off my light so I can take my time without feeling rushed by a building line of guests. You'll learn how to handle this on your own in time. Ask your GSTL for tips.

Spider wraps will be a pain at first. Ask if you can practice on some when it's slow.

Cash will be simple, just make sure to mark 20 and higher bills, there will be a marker at the register. Cards will be a consistent annoyance since Target uses chip cards.

I second what was said to above, when it's a small price difference, go ahead and override it. The rule my GSTL has told me is "within reason" and I've also heard "under 5 dollars". Sending someone back to check a 30 cent price difference isn't worth the hassle.

And sell Red Cards as much as you can!
 
themusicalfruit said:
Exactly but for some reason I keep imagining myself totally fucking up and getting in a situation where I have no idea what I'm doing.

Are most transactions simple and done with card/cash or will I actually see a lot of coupons, checks, etc?
Click to expand...

Yep. Scan, scan, scan, hit total, wait. Hand over a receipt and coupons.

However, I will say that it's helpful to be aware of the screen when the guest is paying w a card. If it says "waiting for guest" and the guest is looking at you with a "why the hell don't you hurry up face," then you can gently tell them to "go ahead and finish the transaction when you are ready."

Also...get familiar with the card reader itself. Be aware that they need to say NO if they don't want cash back, not CANCEL and YES if they want it all on the card, not NO and if they just want to use it as a credit card, it is the GREEN CIRCLE, not the red X.

Also....not every store is the same re: cash. My store doesn't have markers at the cash register for $20 or higher....what is that for, btw? And we don't have a bill checker either.

You'll do fine.
 
themusicalfruit said:
Exactly but for some reason I keep imagining myself totally fucking up and getting in a situation where I have no idea what I'm doing.

Are most transactions simple and done with card/cash or will I actually see a lot of coupons, checks, etc?
Click to expand...
It's a very intuitive system for the most part. If you can operate a self checkout you can do 75% of cashiering already
 
When I first started as a cashier, the hardest part for me was interacting with the guests. I had an excellent trainer and picked up how to operate the register fairly quickly, but my social anxiety (which was more problematic at the time) made for many awkward transactions. The more time I spent at the register dealing with guests, the more comfortable I was.

If you're already comfortable dealing with people, you'll be fine because the POS is very straight-forward.
 
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