Where I Was When the Lights Went Out

Some neighborhoods surrounding my area are experiencing planned blackouts during the night so that the power company can make necessary repairs or upgrades. If overnight power failures are happening in my neighborhood, I’m asleep at those times and unaware of them.

Unlike the power failure that happened years ago when I was running a register at SmartMart. I wish I had been able to avoid that one.

The new SmartMart had been open for about two weeks and, being the first one in the area, it was still drawing crowds of customers. Like most associates, I had been trained to run a register. However, I worked in the fabrics and crafts department. When an associate worked alone, she was exempt from cashier duty because she had to be available to cut yard goods.

Unfortunately, that night two of us were working in the department.

At one point, the register lines were so long that the head cashier called for anyone who was trained to run a register to come to the front. One of us had to go. My coworker, who had a rather nasty attitude, told me, “I’m not doing it, so I guess it’s going to have to be you.”

Okaaay. Not something I particularly wanted to do either, but not a battle I wanted to pick. I went up to the front and was assigned to a register.

About twenty minutes later, a loud crackling noise echoed throughout the store, and the lights flashed and died. As if on cue, generators turned on the emergency lights in the main aisles, but the departments were left in the dark.

Backup batteries in the front row registers enabled us to keep checking out customers, but for only thirty minutes. “Darren,” the assistant manager on duty, sent the cashiers in the back row to bag for us.

It was my first time running the register. I was a little nervous, but I was doing okay. It helped that most people paid with cash or check. Back then, cashiers had to wrestle with flatbed credit card imprinters that sometimes jammed and held up the line.

Approximately fifteen minutes into the power failure, Ms. Nasty marched up to my register with a frown on her face and hands on her hips. In front of a long line of customers, she yelled, “Get back to the department and help me straighten up.”

Excuse me. With the departments in the dark, just how did she think we were supposed to see to straighten up?

I decided to be nice and not argue with her. Even though I knew what his answer would be, I told my bagger (Bagger) to find Darren and ask him what I should do. Bagger came back and said, “Darren wants you to stay here and keep running the register.”

Ms. Nasty gave both of us the stink eye, muttered something I didn’t catch, and marched back to the department.

Yes, we did get all the customers rung out before backup batteries died. The lights came on about five minutes later, and I went back to the department to help Ms. Nasty straighten up. She didn’t speak to me for the rest of the evening.

Which was fine with me.