When hours get low at the store, I have had the opportunity to branch out to other departments and pick up some extra shifts in order to supplement my paycheck. For quite a while, the only extra department that I was working in in the evenings was the deli. I got pretty used to the regular deli crew, and I pretty much became a regular fixture over there by closing a few nights a week. As the summer has worn on however, the deli manager has hired some new folks to help out on a regularly scheduled basis. This means no more hours for me. It hasn't been a big deal thus far, but it has made me appreciate what it's like to have good help. With people graduating, moving, going back to school, getting new jobs etcetera, the number of new faces over in the deli at our store nearly outnumbers the people who have stayed along. This equals a lot of inexperience, and sometimes ten to fifteen minute waits at the deli service counter waiting to get what you want. This was exactly what happened to me. I clocked out of work at noon today and figured that it would be a good opportunity to do some quick shopping before I headed home for the afternoon. My hope for a quick run around the store to grab a few things totally stalled out once I hit up the deli. I had gotten everything else I needed in about ten or twelve minutes and then went over to get a few lunch meat things and some cheese. As my luck would have it, I ended up being waited on by one of the new girls who has never worked at a deli before in her life. I know that she has been around for at least a week or so at our store, because I've definitely seen her...and let's face it, it doesn't take a degree in rocket science to work at a deli. Apparently it takes a little more than what this girl had in the intelligence arena...or maybe it was a lack of commitment or concern for doing her job, because it took me over fifteen minutes to get some turkey, salami, and provolone. By the time the fifth person walking by the counter asked if I was being waited on, I started to get a little bit miffed. My entire order should have taken less than five minutes to take care of, but not today. The new deli worker added insult to injury when she finally handed me my three requested items, all "half pound" orders, and not a single one of them was anywhere near a half pound. Each of them was far over the requested weight, and not by a little bit. What she probably doesn't know that I know is that if you go over five one hundredths of a pound from what the customers wants, you're supposed to ask to see if it's OK to go either over or under the weight, depending on the situation. Let's just say that my turkey was approaching the three quarters of a pound mark, and I asked for a half. At eight dollars a pound, I don't need to spend the extra money, because with just me eating it, the extra that I'm paying for will likely end up going to waste. She handed me the items, I looked at the weights and prices, and just looked back at her, and she looked entirely unphased by my look. I really didn't want to give her a hard time, since I was standing there still in my work uniform, and of course she is new too. I thought though to myself that it might be better for her to hear it from me that she was making a mistake than to have a "real" customer complain to her or worse to a manager, and then have her actually get written up or in some other sort of reprimandish-trouble. After weighing my possibilities, I decided to keep my mouth shut, but I did walk down to the other end of the deli and say something to one of her coworkers, in hopes that a little bit of peer pressure to actually give a care about what she was doing might help her to keep her job in the long run. In all honesty, I just felt like I was in a very awkward position, and I wondered what customers must feel like sometimes. Most individuals don't enjoy challenging an unassuming person's negative face by telling them what they are being paid to do they are doing incorrectly. This goes double if you happen to just be a generally nice person, which I would like to think that I am. I don't know if I did her a favor or not by not saying something to her, but it's definitely a situation that has stayed in my head for a while now, and I thought that I would let you all in on the situation, which most importantly resulted in a loss of hard-earned money...not good Chompy....not good at all.