You came in after a cook-out holiday as I call them. It'll get a bit better once things calm down and the customers recover from hosting or being out of town.
Today's my first day on the floor as a cashier. I feel overwhelmed already. Advice?
You want to talk Overwhelmed, I came in during Black Friday week lol. That said, Trial by Fire. If you can get through busy times of the year, you can get through the rest. Just take it easy, call your PIC when you need to with questions, and keep on your "I'm in Training" tag for the next few days so that customers know you're new. Beyond that, it'll all just come with experience and time.
If you want to survive then you have to learn to stop feeling emotion and leave your soul behind. Customers are terrible people. "A highly satisfied" customer may have made your paycheck possible, but make no mistake, they take far more from you spiritually than they give you monetarily. You'll start thinking really dark thoughts, like wanting to go to the bathroom stall and tying a plastic grocery bag over your head or maybe crawling into the bailer and feeling its cold metal embrace and subsequent spiritual release. The words "Kroger card" will lose their meaning to you. You'll pray to the mighty Allfather Odin to give you the strength to die with honor while gloriously scanning items at breakneck speeds.
Just kidding. It is going to feel overwhelming the first few days until you get used to it. But it's 4th of July weekend so it only gets slower from here. You'll find that job isn't so bad especially when you're busy hecause it makes the time go by really fast. I switched to being in the fuel center and 8 hours feels like 8 days in that isolation chamber. Give it a week and you'll already see how much easier it feels. Two weeks and it will be a breeze, and three weeks to a month in you will feel like it was silly to even feel overwhelmed in the first place. You've just got anxiety from doing something new.
And if you mess up and piss off a customer, just tell "I'm sorry I'm new" and all sins are instantly forgiven.
i started xmas week. haha. they told me i was a bagger but put me on register anyways. It gets better especially since it will die down sorta if youre overwhelmed by the customers. it took me about 7 months to get use to everything (i wasnt on register much unless needed)
but like someone else said before tell the customers youre brand new and they will be MUCH nicer
