Monday 31st August 2020
I can't believe it is the last day of Winter today. It has been a very long Winter - It's been a very long year and there is still 4 full months left until the end of 2020!
It's now been 24 weeks since I was made redundant due to the Corona virus pandemic that's 6 months or half a year of world turmoil and we have had it all and it continues - floods, bush fires, recession due to economic down turn resulting in unemployment, COVID, terrorist attacks, hurricanes, trade wars etc etc what next WW3 ? Donald Trump's re election as president of the United States ? ( and I thought he has already served his 2 terms hence ineligible to run for election again? )
I am working again at Myer from 11 am - 4.30 pm today. To get to work on time I left at 9 am. I could catch a later bus but I don't want to miss the transfer buses either at Chatswood or Neutral Bay. I need time to have a breather before beginning work and also a toliet stop and to put my badge on, put my stuff in my locker wait for the extremely slow lift ( which is back up and working since Saturday thank goodness as I would have had to use the goods lift again to get down to the ground floor to exit out after my shift again which is a very long walk) etc
Oh my goodness - I'm on the bus and just checked the analytics of my blog I have just reached 25499 readers today. Today is the last day of August and the last day of Winter - Can I hit the 25 500 readers mark today? It will make my day if it does!!!
My blog just crashed again after I just saved what I had just written!
Today I caught the 144 to Neutral Bay Junction again then transferred onto the B line bus again. It takes approximately the same amount of time as taking the 144 in the opposite direction and transferring onto the 280 bus at Chatswood. Only difference is I've discovered the B line bus besides being a big yellow double decker bus ( probably for the daytrip tourists pre Covid) has USB charging ports on the bottom deck. I think there maybe only 2 hidden below the seat belt near the front accessible seats. I have only sat on the upper deck once because I am not travelling all the way to Mona Vale but if I was I would sit up there and enjoy the views of the scenic route.
Well I did my best today to try and avoid a few angry/rude customers who just were impatient and wanted instant service and just wanted to either return stuff ( linen which since last October is non returnable due to health regulations not just due to COVID and insisting they have returned linen many times previously) ) or had items from other department that had mixed discounts. Just because a customer is a Myer One Gold member it does not entitle them to be rude or abusive towards me as a team member of Myer ( and as a shareholder as I am a stakeholder of Myer just as the customer is). I won't serve them and pass them onto someone else.
I used the phone to call for assistance when I was alone and a queue started to build up. I asked if customers in the queue were happy to wait or I advised them that they could pay for their purchased at the other registers if they liked which may be quicker
I was a few minutes early arriving on the floor to start work today and started serving a customer as soon as I arrived ( which I often do) then the first thing I asked is if my work collegue needed any help with anything at the beginning of today and helped her with putting up signs when told to put them up at the last minute today. The signs for the daily special were printed to be originally put up on Tuesday however the manager decided to have them put today for tomorrow. So I put up 10 of the 40% off glassware signs around the glassware displays
I asked questions and made notes on my phone which I hopefully will remember.
I voted for a team member favourite - I had to think about who to vote for and had a few team members in mind however I chose a team member I had to apologise to today realising when I arrived home on Saturday that I had called him by his team mates name by mistake on Saturday because I was trying to get to my one on one with the customer service manager ( and probably because I see his team mate more often then him) and kept getting bombarded with customer enquires on the floor. He was ok with it ( well I hope he was).
I scanned or looked up every single customers Myer One membership and asked every single customer who didn't have a Myer One membership if they wanted to join and they all said not today and I asked almost every single customer if they wanted to round up their purchases and donate to the current charity The Salvos and only got 2 donations everyone else said no thanks. One customer even asked me which was the current charity donations were going towards and when I mentioned that there were a few of them one the women's shelter and the other was the Salvos and confirmed the current charity was The Salvos men's charity for Father's day with a team member , the customer said no thanks and that if had been the women's shelter then she would have made a donation towards it. I can see on my metrics that the amount of donations I get from customers is also being monitored - I'll repeat again you can't force customers to round their purchases up to make a donation. Noted that customers can also make a donation other then just rounding up their purchases on the POS eg if a customer wants to donate $2 or more dollars for example. Rounding up sales is better as it is less steps and the POS does it automatically for you. You cannot process a donation whilst you are scanning purchased it has to be entered at the beginning or end of the transaction before payment and requires you to process it separately via other options on the POS.
There are 2 things customers like - 1. You walking around with an iPad so you can instantly search for products and prices for customers and 2. price checking of products so they know the exact prices of items on sale and the confirmation that things that are not on sales when you advise them are actually not on sale or the reverse.
A customer bought some cosmetics from I think Mecca and some lingerie from Myer down stairs. She went to use the toliets next to the Myer toy section and the detector kept beeping as she came out. I spent some time reassuring her she was all clear. I first went through and located/deactivated any tags that were on the lingerie she purchased which there did not seem to be any and it could have been a security tag hidden on her cosmetic purchase that was not deactivated but I advised her that I couldn't deactivate it ( as it was not a Myer purchase) , then I took her with her bags to the closest security detectors and passed everything through it - nothing beeped. I mentioned to her it could be just her keys or phone or hidden tag in her bag but nothing was going off so she was fine. We even joked about the shawl she had that was given to her as a gift and how that may have been shoplifted hence making her beep. Nice to see that we still have some honest customers around and with a sense of humour.
I watched my work collegue process a reconciliation and cash clearance which I've seen and done previously.
2 customers approached me and asked me "Do you work here?" - in my head I am thinking but didn't say it " No, I stole someone's Myer name badge and am wearing it just for fun. Of course I work here!" One of the customers actually tells me the story that they actually were asked if they worked here. It happens and I responded with my story of how I used to work in Westfield Bondi Junction and during my lunch breaks would go shopping at Myer only to be approached by customers to serve them and having to say that I didn't actually work at Myer on a those occasions.
I asked about the what was happening with the cookware set a customer was looking for from the day before which a team member had written and left a note about and I could not read ( typical gen Y can't write or spell anymore as everything is done via a phone tablet or computer and using autocorrect/spell check). Customer still did not call back about it today.
I returned stuff to The Hub downstairs which was quite funny because I approached someone working downstairs and she must have been a brand partner employee not a Myer employee and I told her I had some returns for her to put away she says to me "You can do that at the register" I think she thought I was a customer so I ended up going to The Hub with my returns to be put back also mentioning to the team member there how no one wants to sign up for Myer One membership if they don't have one. She mentioned that she has the same problem.
Saleswise for me it was a shocking day - the lowest amount of sales I have made in all my time at Myer! It was rather quiet at times and I could have done with working 30 minutes - 1 hour less of my shift today ie told to go home earlier today.
Still have not done any customer orders however did do 1 online return after sending a previous one to electrical advising them I needed to get authorisation ( maybe wrong word used but intention was correct) as this customer I could see was getting impatient and slightly rude and there were other customers waiting in the queue to be served. I had the iPad to the correct online return screen by the way.
Finally I managed to save a sale today and I left before the customer come to pick her purchase on hold today ( I hope she picked them up as I went to a bit of effort to find 2 sets of them for her). She rang and gave me a vague description of the set of 4 S & P Winston glasses she had seen on the Myer website but said they were in short supply and she wanted to come in and pick them up in store today if we had them as she needed them today. After looking the product up on the iPad and confirming that the product was out of stock and that we could not place an order for her. I rang her back and advised her however after getting an item number or description off her I was able to luckily find her the set of 4 S & P Winston 355 ml glasses she wanted checking the description against what I had found. I ring her back to confirm and where I will leave the sets of glasses for her to pick up. I mentioned to her how lucky she was as there were a few customers hovering around that display looking at the last few boxes of the sets of 4 glasses she was wanting to purchase. I knew exactly where and what glasses the customer wanted as soon as she gave me the description where she asked me if the glasses had a type of pattern on them - my response was that they looked like cheap crystal cut glasses and that was the only way I could describe them - luckily she had a sense of humour. I also advised her that I had checked the glasses as well for her and leave them on the back counter in the homewares department with her name on them. I also put my team member of on it and let other team members know in the event I am not around someone else can put it through for me.
Today I learnt how to put a sale through that was made by another team member so I did the same thing and wrote my team ID # on this customer's sale with a hold note on it for the other team member I was working with to process. Not so great system if you end up selling quite a few items with complex discounts or item overrides as you have to remember to enter the team members id for each item not just once for the entire transaction on the POS.
So glad It's 4.30 pm and the end of the day. By the time I make my way back to the staff lockers, punch off, grab my stuff and make my way down and out of Myer, purchase a drink and have toliet stop and walk to the bus stop, It's a little past 5 pm.
It's 5.30 pm , I am waiting for the 280 Chatswood bus ( I just missed the last one) and I just checked the analytics of my blog and a big thank you to all my readers! Last day of Winter and I reached 25 501 readers!
Home I make myself some dinner of whatever I can find chicken and vegetables. Watch Plate of Origin Greece verse France on Channel 7 before falling asleep. Would have loved to have watched The Masked Singer on Channel 10 but it clashed with The Plate of Origin unfortunately. I will just have to watch catch up episode on Tenplay tomorrow.
I also caught up on watching some YouTube.
Sleep around 9 pm .
Tuesday 1st September 2020
I'm up and It's 1 am in the morning catching up with my blogging. I can't sleep and am scratching.
It's the first day of Spring and yesterday afternoon on my way home on the 280 bus through my mask I could smell burning - this was the beginning of back burning in preparation for Summer bushfire season. More allergies- every year this occurs Winter/Spring Eczema, Spring/Autumn Hayfever, Spring Back Burning - all my senses are affected.
2.30 am and time for me to try and go back to bed after a drink of tea and a snack perhaps.
I went back to sleep and slept in until 8.30 am. I vacuumed the floor had a quick breakfast of ancient grain rice crackers with mini tomatos goats cheese and basil with a yakault and cup of earl grey tea and a snack of corn chips and Brazil nuts and leftover baked chicken brocoli and potato.
It's another do nothing day today. It is not the best day to be out and about in the morning but clearing up in the afternoon.
I made a few things to eat a baked slice made of rolled oats dried figs almond butter golden syrup dark chocolate hazel nuts and mashmellows. So yummy. Sorry no photo I forgot to line the pan so it stuck and was a little difficult to get out so I had to dog it out in bits.
I watched Plate of Origin again had a shower washed my dishes and went to bed. I applied for anothe job closer to where I live in Chatswood ( What's Cooking) . I am concerned that if I do continue to work for Myer and it gets busier towards Christmas that it will become more dificult to get to work. I would prefer to work closer to Chatswood although I did recently apply for a position at Dangerfield's Galleries store in the city. Finally most of my last batch of laundry has been put away and my bed linen changed.
Did one of my team mates accidently butt dial me today? I got a shock when my phone rang it was actually making a funny vibrating ring that i had not heard before) and tried to return the call only to realise I think it was by accident.
Wednesday 2nd September 2020
I do have stuff I must do today and preparation for work tomorrow.
First thing I did today was started writing notes on my phone of how to do things at Myer.
Read any posts from team members on the What's app group chat. I still need to check my metrics and payslip ( for Centrelink reporting due on Friday).
My allergies are still driving me crazy - it tends to get worse when I think about work.
Sorry no attractions to blog about and It's overcast and slightly windy today.
I do have a few things I plan to see when these events or places of interest open to the public.
Lunch is a large fillo pastry log filled with corned beef feta cheese silverbeet onion chilli flakes & 2 eggs lightly beaten. It is still in the oven piping hot but smells so good! Can't wait to eat it. I did cut into it to see if the mixture was cooked through as the egg onion and silverbeet are raw ingredients.
Thursday 3rd September 2020
Today I was working at Myer again for a 4 hour shift from 11 am - 3 pm and had a customer to the last minute so punched out a little after 3 pm.
I left home before 9 am this morning and caught the 144 bus to Neutral Bay Junction transferring onto a B line bus to Warringah Mall. I just missed the connecting B line bus so had to wait for the next one. This is why it can take me upto 2 hours to get to work. I could have gone in the opposite direction on the 144 bus and transferred onto a 280 bus from Chatswood to Warringah Mall but the frequency of the 280 bus is much less and it takes slightly longer however gets you closer to the mall's entrance.
The technology at Myer is so outdated - besides one of the ipads not working when I tried to do my first online return for the day, One of the team members from Kidswear and toys found out that she had not received the com's about the CBA $10 bonus Myer gift card promotion that started today and will run for 3 days ie until COB Sunday - Fathers Day promotion. I asked her a question about it and other team members knew about it but she did not. We were talking about it in the staff locker area before the start of our shift. Maybe it was because i was aligned with homewares and she was aligned with kidsweR in the coms which should not matter as all team members should receive this information.
Today I had a customer who appeared slightly sick looking. She had a runny nose and when I asked her if she had hay fever she said no but she looked like she had a real fever and she did cough into her elbow. I overheard her on the phone as well asking someone probably a family member how they were feeling - This is scary as she could have had Corona virus and I was potentially exposed to it. I spent quite a bit of time serving her but tried to stand back from her and I was wearing my mask and after I finished serving her I sanitised my hands then went to the toilet to wash my hands thoroughly! She spent time at the counter and one of the other team members were searching for a cotton or bamboo doona on the iPad for her. In the end there was no stock available therefore we could not place an order for her - how am I expected to do 2 orders a week (as well as sign up Myer One memberships) if there isn't any stock. The team member I was working with scoffed when I told her of this expectation of me from the customer service manager.
So today I decided to be no more "Mr Nice Guy". Enough is enough I keep a diary for a reason. I have tried so hard to meet the expectations of the customer service manager - it seems that it is never enough hence I emphasis my efforts by keeping detail notes of every shift I work. I note happy and happy customers as well.
Despite asking everyone if they had a Myer One card and looking up those that weren't sure or didn't have it with them, all those that didn't have one were not interested in joining when asked (not many). Again I can't force everyone to join - I had a few problems with looking up Myer One customers who had one but failed to appear using multiple search fields. I had a little more luck with asking everyone if they wanted to make a donation by rounding up their purchases to the nearest dollar for charity which is currently The Salvation Army. Again you can't force people to make a donation and there were a lot of no thanks and quite a few said no thanks because they had already made a purchase from another department and made a donation which is fair enough. By the way donations you manage to get from customers is also monitored under the metrics. I barely have any donations but it just started and only 2 shifts or so ago. This purchase rounding donation scheme is ongoing with donations received going to several charities on the books into next year.
I had a very happy customer today because I was able to find a specific stainless steel cheese slicer with a wooden handle for her. She had a choice of 4 different ones from looking up what was available on the iPad however she had already looked at 2 of them and rejected them because they were both bulky and plastic. The one I found on the iPad (which looked as if it was almost if not out of stock) was not exactly the same as the one I found in store for her but it was close enough. I knew exactly where it was located and the customer was impressed that I knew it was near the wooden cheese boards display.
I started making notes on my phone using Word of most procedures. One of the team members I worked with asks me " You keep notes?" Yes I do because that's what the customer service manager told me to do and I'm doing it.
Today I did quite a lot from doing a gift card balance using the POS as a customer had found a Coles Myer gift card on the floor and there was no one around to ask that night if it was used up or not. It had a zero balance on it.
I did a cash reconciliation which balanced ( even after a team member used the only cash payment register for a purchase in the middle of my reconciliation) and cash clearance today ( cash register skim only) . I didn't go to the cash clearance machine as I had bern to the dock too many times already today.
It was a breaky breaky day today - 2 x broken mugs, 1 × broken zipper on cushion case, vm breaking a large glass vase on display to bits and a broken photo frame a customer had just purchased and was about to leave the store with it. The 2 mugs and the photo frame were suspended on the POS to be written off. The cushion cover may be reasonable at a discount there a sticky note was just attached to it and the product placed in the box of faulty items action to be decided.
So today I did an exchange of the photo frame on the POS for a customer, One was an online return which was not a store item so had to be taken to the doc with a return sticker on it and one was ripped candle box which was also refunded as thete were no unripped ones left on the shelf.
I had a few more customers who wanted to poay with multiple cards ( myer rewards owed by a retuns card with a balance on eftpos) or a Coles Myer card followed by a balance on eftpos. I also had a customer with a suspended purchase from electrical because the customer wanted to pay with cash which would not scan for some reason so I manually recanned the product for payment.
The team group chat kept talking about registering ( or at least they were trying to register for) for this Dyson Academy course which is open to all team members to attend. Was unsure about whether to register - maybe not this time round as it is on days that I work after hours and virtual - probably would not make it home in time to set up and watch/ participate ( it does take me 2 hours to get home so by the time I finish my shift it would be pushing it and I do want to relax a bit and not think about anything work related once I arrive home).
On my way home today I did a grocery top up at Coles Warringah Mall as I was thirsty and wanted a juice therefore heading there anyway and also at Woolworths Metro Chatswood as I decided to catch the 280 bus and transfer onto a 144 bus home instead of catching the B line and transferring onto a 144 bus in the opposite direction home. It's late night shopping so I wanted to visit the Chatswood Mall Markets which are open on Thursdays and Fridays until late. I found the Coles limited edition chicken nugget chips I had been wanting to try since they appeared on the supermarket shelf so purchased a packet to try. At a current price of $3 a packet for a 200 g packet I wanted to see what all the hype was about. After tasting quite a portion of the packet I am rating them a 5/10 I taste the chicken but where's the nugget flavour? Just another packet of chicken chips nothing special about them. Should have used the funds to purchase another packet of lolly gobble bliss bombs!
Friday 4th September 2020
Today is my day off and it's raining therefore I am not venturing out today. Not just patchy rain but constant rain.
First things I did this morning after sleeping in was to pay my bills, do my fortnightly Centrelink reporting take the rubbish out then make myself some brunch . The night before I had marinated some chicken wings in soy and honey and some secret herbs and spices. All I had to do was place them on a baking tray along with some cut up zucchini and into the oven they go. Yum!.
Instead if watching the SBS Food channel which was playing repeats I watched Footy Legends airing on NITV. I have not seen this "show" before. It's actually really good Australian tv and the story is about the little Aussie and the underdog if anyone has not watched it starring Ahn Doh. Damn it - it is interrupted by a news bulletin an address by the Prime Minister - Scott Morrison to all of Australia. Why is this necessary? We all know we are in a recession we all know that the rate of unemployment is increasing daily we all know state borders are shut , we all know Victoria is in stage 4 lockdown and we are all bombarded by COVID news every single day and not much else so why do we need a waste of time address to the country by the Prime Minister? I'm switching off.
Back to wtching Poh cook on the SBS Food channel. Yum apple pie complete with lattice work!
Nice to see readers are viewing my YouTube channel a bit more but the number of viewers lags thousands behind the number of readers of my blog!
I have been working on my art ( drawing different pages of patterns suitable to be printed on textiles ) , catching up on YouTube, my blog, checking emails and facebook as well as reading the news.
How dare Facebook send a mass notification to users about deleting news feeds posted. They say it's a monetary thing but I never thought about it that way. If you look at discussions it's been more about censorship, privacy and freedom of information and speech with some very good debates. I am shocked. Most people get their daily news from social media platforms - by deleting news feed posts it would be cutting people off from what's happening - what happens if the news is vital information that everyone needs to know about? For me it was about censorship and freedom of information and speech. Everyone has a right to be heard and peoples' opinion or feedback matter. Isn't that what drives or makes news? Without them we would all be robots and not make progress in the world. We would be communists - maybe it has to do with Chinese espionage and the dark web - big brother is watching your every Facebook move - now he is watching you every Facebook post.
Another tenant moved out today - why do people always move out on rainy days? They left black skid marks on the top floor hallway down the stairs from moving all the furniture out. There must not be many people living in the apartment block left. Vacant unit include # 1B, 4, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 10 or 11. There are only I think 11 maybe 12 units in the apartment block which there are only 3 units occupied now if my calculations are correct. People who rent here are usually temporary residents, students, contract or shift workers and all single. Mainly males live here although there have been some females living here in the past. You hardly ever see anyone except downstairs in the kitchen ( which i no longer use) /laundry.
My blog crashed again and I lost yet another 2 paragraphs. If any of my previous blogs are incomplete or missing photos promised, it means my blog has crash and i can't be bothered rewriting it or photos were just not up loading or the bog crashed after up loading them and I could not be bothered re uploading them as it takes forever to upload photos one at a time.
Saturday 5th September 2020
Father's Day weekend.
Today is a nice day and the sun is out but I am working at Myer again from 10.30 am - 2.30 pm another 4 hour shift. I have to leave home by 8.30 am in order to get to work in time. In the next few weeks I have been rostered on to work a few 3 hour shifts during the week which I am not looking forward to - so stressful just trying to get to work on time.
I don't celebrate Father's Day just as I Don't celebrate Mother's Day as I don't have a mother as she passed away quite a few years ago and my father well I haven't seen him for over a year and a half as he has dementia and is in a nursing home somewhere. I don't even know if he is still alive and in what condition. Do I care unfortunately not really as he has ruined my life enough. It's better that I don't have contact with him. I blame him for my mother's sudden death- he was disappeared and did not tell my mum the day she suddenly passed away on one of his useless business trips out to Dubbo. I said to my mother that I would not be attending his funeral when he died. My mum and I had planned before she passed away to leave my father who was not a nice person to us - either that or he was just a very stupid man financially. My sister and brother can take care of my father's affairs as long as they don't financially affect me ie any debts outstanding passed on to me. I am in no way responsible for his financial stupidity.
I will continue this blog after work as I am leaving home at 8 am as there is heavy fog around the Northern parts of Sydney this morning which explains why the sun has disappeared. Just missed a bus but that's ok I'll wait for the next one. I'm catching the 144 and transferring onto the B line again as there is only 2 buses from Chatswood to Warringah Mall that will get me there in time for a 10.30 am start. Just missed a connecting B line bus so will have to wait for the next one which according to the indicator board is in 8 minutes. Gee it's cold and windy today. I hope I am wearing enough clothes. The B line Bus' tap on tap off machine was not working and the signage read Wynyard City but assumed it was heading to Mona Vale. I get to Warringah Mall at 9.15 am so decide to go to Maccas to get a sausage and egg muffin less cheese. It's taking a while. First time I've had Maccas here and it's taking ages! 15 minute wait. The muffins are so small now. I had mine with no cheese as their cheese makes me sick. The muffin was quite dry no longer dripping with oil like they used to be however I can see why people have been archiving their burgers for 10 - 20 years to see if they deteriorated over time - the sausage part was so dry and thin I can see why it would not go off! What have I just eaten? I doubt if I will eat Maccas again at least not here. There is no counter service everything is take out and orders via the self service touch screen ie contactless payment.
What a busy day I had today. As soon as I arrived on the floor I had a customer.
Still have not done any orders today. The stuff people want just isn't available to order in for customers. I had a few online returns today - 2 pairs of men's shoes and another item I can't recall. A customer wanted to order a Seale mattress today and I was so excited as it would have been my first order and a big one but unforunately it was decided by management not to do customer orders for mattresses. We can't garantee delivery dates and don't want to take responsibility for returns or incorrect purchases as the mattresses are made to order. The customer was also discouraged from purchasing online and to make things more complicated she wanted to part pay by zip pay and not afterpay. She was advised to visit the Chatswood Myer or a larger Myer that sold mattresses eventhough she went to David Jones to try and test the mattresses out before making a firm decision on the mattress she wanted and purchase from Myer.
I had a customer today that found a particular Paw patrol toy she wanted to purchase on a table with several toys on special on it. All the toys had hand written labels on them although they all had barcodes on them. It turned out that the barcodes did not scan on the point of sale nor did it accept the manual entry of item numbers. There was no one in the toy section to help me sort it out and the manager on duty could not scan or enter the codes. it kept coming up with item not found. I even searched the iPad and nothing came up. In the end the customer did not purchase the item and said she would return on another day as it may be sorted out by then. I advised the manager how I scanned and entered the other items with same code and tgey too did not accept the bar code scanned or item number entered manually.
Today we offered gold coin donation gift wrapping for Fathers' Day from 11 am. A booth was set up and a team member volunteered her time to do the gift wrapping over the Father's Day weekend. She also volunteers at the local women's shelter and all donations will be going to that charity. I told that team member how she should have been present last week and told her about the customer who said no to a rounding up of purchase donation when she found out it was going to The Salvation Army and not the local women's shelter. We were encouraged to tell customers about the gold coin donation gift warapping service offered over this weekend and send them over to the booth. Quite a few customers did pop over to the booth which was great to see.
There is something going on with the Myer One membership look up function. It is not finding people when they have a Myer One catd but not with them. I didn't sign them up again as the problem may be that their name on the membership has been incorrectly spelt or entered hence the POS lookup can't find them. Most gave up and said never mind. Again those that did not have a Myer One membership were not interested in joining and I noticed that those with CBA rewards card did not have or want a Myer One membership card. I even had one customer with a Myer One card but asked if we accepted a Fly Buys card. I think decades ago they were accepted for a while.
Customers were being a little more generous today as I managed to get quite a few purchase round up donations today for the Father's Day charity which is The Salvation Army. I asked just about every customer I served.
Following is a reason why I hate doing returns. A customer comes in with a receipt on her phone on her Myer One app. It wasn't even a hard copy. receipt. She had it in what looked like an online order satchel but she said she purchased it in store. She said she purchased 2 but thos one was the wrong size so she wanted to return it. I tried to find a manager for authorisation and told the customer that I needed an authorisation for the return but could not find anyone so asked a team member I was working with. The black jumper was so suspect and I really didn't want to process a refund. Firstly the tag had been removed off it and it looked as if it had been worn and secondly it was a sale item which we usually do not accept returns exchanges or refunds for but we processed it on this ocassion and advised the customer of this. After processing the return on the POS we put the label back on and I returned it back downstairs.
I had another happy customer today as I was really patient with her. I probably spent all up 30 minutes with her before I was due to punch off to go home at the end of my shift. First she did not have her Myer One membership card with her as she had misplaced her card. That was fine as I did a look up of her membership and managed to find it. She wanted to purchase a wok but said she had a $10 birthday voucher on her phone somewhere. I advised her that she needed to activate it before I could scan it and that there is an access code she had to also enter. She was having trouble finding her birthday voucher because she forgot her password to access her Myer One membership account. I had to repeat her Myer One membership number to her goodness knows how many times and explained what she had to do in order to retrieve her birthday voucher details. I had customers queuing up and could not process their purchases on another POS as I was logged into the POS in front of me already so as it was taking so long for my customer to access her birthday voucher I asked if I could serve other customers whilst she searched her Myer one membership account & reset her password. I didn't suspend her purchase but deleted it as it was easy enough to re enter it again later on. I served quite a few customers and finally my customer found her birthday voucher details. She was insistent she did not want to use her birthday voucher another time and I wrote her membership number down for her as well as repeat it to her at least 10 times as she kept deleting it off her phone. I advised her to ring Myer One memberships and order a replacement card. I showed her how her membership number is at the bottom of her receipt. She purchased 2 more egg cups in a separate purchase afterwards. All good and I advised her to get a new phone.
I put stuff back today whenever there was time keeping the back counter clear.
So annoying today why did the only cash register not have any $2 or $1 coins at all in it today? Soon ran out of 50 cent coins as well.
Finally I had a customer who wanted to pay with multiple types of payment a Myer Returns card, a Coles Myer gift card and the balance on Eftpos. The Myer returns card would not scan - I wondered why until I saw the issue date of 2018 - it was an expired card with a balance still on it . Returns cards are only valid for a year therefore I had to chuck it out. The Coles Myer card was still valid and the balance was used up in full on the purchase.
A customer had something on hold from yesterday on the back counter which she had not come back for or paid for. I did not check which team member served the customer. It was a navy throw or bed cover and 2 photo frames the same size. A customer comes to the counter and I serve her - she purchases 2 photo frames of the same size and a navy throw or bed cover. I process her Myer One membership and purchases. After I process everything on the POS she then advises me that she thinks those exact 3 items on the back counter were on hold for her from yesterday and that they can be put back because she just purchased the 3 same items . I feel bad about putting through a sale tbat was not actually mine so tell the team member what happened. It would have been different if the customer had told me before I put the sale through that the items on the back counter were hers on hold. The team member wasn't really concerned about the sale when I told her.
No purchases over $100 being paid with CBA reward loints today therefore no bonus Myer $10 fift cards processed. Thank goidness as it is s rather long process to put one through the POS.
News - The Hub at Myer is becoming a parcel collection point for Amazon purchases as of mid next week. Apparently the arrangement is to help customers streamline their shopping experience and bring more foot traffic into Myer.
After work I had time to actually walk around the mall and do a bit of shopping. I purchased a few more things to add to the parcel to be sent to the US to be posted on Monday.
Home by bus 280 to Chatswood - so many people waiting for this bus. A stop off at woolworths Metro for take away hot dinner of rice veg and fried pieces of chicken.
Not much else except catch up YouTube , catch up on my blog and watch the food channel whilst eating dinner - yum fruit salad I prepared last night after finishing my take away dinner from Woolworths.
End of another day. Thinking about where to go tomorrow on my day off to the city.
Sunday 6th September 2020
A day off today. Unsure if I am going to venture out today. The morning began as a beautiful day but soon began to become a little overcast. No plans for today.
The sun is out again. Time to see where I can get upto today. A bit of YouTube and brunch.
It's past 2 pm and I am venturing outside. I think I am heading to Circular Quay to board a ferry to Manly. Such a beautiful day to explore Manly even so late in the afternoon. I know I've blogged about Manly before but there is so much to see and do in Manly which has 2 sides to it. Who knows what I will discover today there.
The very ride on a much larger older style " Ferry McFerry Face" ferry from Circular Quay to Manly is about a 30 minute ride with the next ferry departing Circular Quay Wharf 3 at 3.30 pm - which is actually now.
I climb the set of stairs to the upper level and sit outside right in front. What a panaramic view - and I am not the only one with the same idea!
30 minutes later I arrive at manly Wharf take a few photos and head down The Corso to the other side of Manly - Manly Beach. Here there are kms of walking and cycling trails/tracks but my destination today was to find Manly Lagoon and the rockpool baths near it ( not that I am going for a swim today - far too cold). On my way I did stop off on The Corso to have a look in one of the larger souvenir stores.
Along manly beach there are people surfing, fishing, walking along the waste water pipes that lead out into the ocean, families having picnics, kite flying, even surf sailing. I walk past the set of 8 or 10 sets of beach volleyball nets where teams were playing or practising , toliet blocks and surf lifesaving head quarters.
There are surf etiquette signs up everywhere, pollution warning signs, dog baiting warning signs as well as a barrage of other regulatory safety signs.
It was a nice walk about 2 km one way to and along Manly Lagoon but I did not continue over the second bridge instead turning around and walking back towards Manly Wharf when I reached the park entrance at the other end just before the second bridge. Maybe next time I will explore further as this was another one of my explore my own backyard first visits. It was great timing by the time I arrived at the mouth of Manly Lagoon closest to Queenscliff Beach , the sun was setting over the lagoon and I just had to photograph it along with others from the first bridge over the walking and cycling trails/track along Manly Lagoon. I don't think it is safe to swim in the lagoon due to pollution warning signs everywhere but a great place for dogs to play fetch the ball on the Sandy surrounds of the lagoon.
Along the way there are a few very old colourful murals - one of which is painted along the entire wall under the first bridge at the mouth of the lagoon - reminds me of walking or snowshoeing under the bridge across Blackcomb Benchland's river on the multi use track/trails towards the Lost Lake Cross Country and Snow Shoeing Park except without any snow.
Along the entire walking & cycling tracks/trails along the shores of Manly Lagoon there are very old stone sculptures of wildlife and information plaques set onto rocks that are so faded and worn they can no longer be read.
Manly Lagoon is a paradise for bird and wildlife watchers throughout the year. Native plants cover the entire area. Pine trees mixed with native Australian plants it's an area of mish mash of anything that will grow around the lagoon - I did not see any ducks or acquatic wildlife though which I expected to as there was an abundance of aquatic plants like bulrushes in and around the lagoon. Maybe they are not kern on the polluted lagoon either!
photos below
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By the time I reached Manly Wharf, it was already getting dark. I was hoping to see some penguins come out from the penguin colony located near Manly Wharf but no such luck.
After a quick grocery shop at Aldi which was about to close, I headed to the bus stop and wait for the next 144 that will take me directly home. I got off 1 or 2 stops before the stop closest to where I reside so had to walk a bit.
As soon as I got home I washed my hands washed my mask with hot water and disinfectant unpack my groceries, put a mushroom pizza in the oven for dinner and watch Plate of Origin.
Recharge my phone and finish my blog before going to bed.
End of another week.
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