Shoe Silliness

$90 for Gardening Boots??? Do they weed the garden for you?

Customer Service - The Flip Side

I ran in to Target today on my lunch hour to pick up a few things and I wasn't in the best frame of mind. That started to change shortly after I arrived. I noticed a lot of busy, happy red-shirted people scurrying around. Two even asked me if I needed help. I witnessed a team meeting (the team didn't look very enthusiastic, but the young leader was giving it his all). I also heard two calls for register back up and one for restroom check. Someone was really paying attention. I don't know exactly how or why, but being around all these hard-working people who seemed to really care about doing a good job was energizing.

Then when I was in the check out line it happened, not once, but three times....proactive customer service. The woman in front of me had picked up three-piece baby outfit that only had two pieces. The clerk not only noticed it, she pointed it out AND offered a discount after the customer said she wanted it any way. Then it was my turn, where the clerk offered me a $.05 discount for bringing my own bag.

I always love Target, but this was so refreshing it made my whole day.

Customer "Service"

I've expressed my disapproval in the past about customers talking on their cell phones while going through the checkout line, but how about cashiers who talk on the phone while checking people out? I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of that, either.

(I'm not talking about cashier's talking on their cell phones, because seriously, that should be grounds for disciplinary action.)

If I'm in the process of purchasing something and the cashier feels the need to answer the phone, I think the customer should be placed on hold until our business is concluded. I think talking to anyone on the phone while simultaneously taking my money is rude. (If it's some kind of emergency, politely excuse yourself, I don't mind waiting.) And, hey, Sur La Table girl, don't shoot me a dirty look (while you're on the phone) because I dared to ask you for a bigger bag for the fancy knife I just bought for Father's Day. At that price point, I don't think it's too much to ask for a bag large enough so the item doesn't extend beyond the handles. I wish I'd just waited for Bev, the rockin' salesperson who helped me picked out my knife.

Shocking!

Hold on to your socks. A Central Market employee was rude to me.

I know, it really is shocking. It's also a first for me, after seven years of shopping at Central Market. {For those of you unfamiliar with Central Market, it is a food lover's paradise. An amazing grocery store full of all sorts of exotic delights. One of the coolest things about CM is the "foodies" (aka employees). They are passionate about food and (seem to) genuinely like their customers. They're also incredibly patient with all of my random and sometimes stupid questions and seem to have a sixth sense telling them where they're needed. They always seem to pop up right before I completely loose hope as I wander aimlessly seeking some obscure ingredient I've never heard of but need desperately.}

That's what makes today's encounter so, well, shocking. I was minding my own business in the bulk candy aisle, delighted to have found teeny, tiny bags; the perfect size for the small portion of non perils I'd decided to treat myself to for finishing my errands.

After carefully arranging the opening of the bag inside the bin's spout and gingerly moving the lever to allow just a few candies to drop in my bag I was startled by a harsh a voice sharply admonishing me that I was "using the wrong bag." The voice continued "that bin is not designed for small bags." Both I and the woman behind me stopped cold and stared at him. His scolding continued predicting that candy "was going to go everywhere and I needed to get a bigger bag." I did (and ended up with way more candy than I wanted) and continued shopping. I couldn't even respond. I might have thought it was just me, except the woman who witnessed his tirade came up to me and rolled her eyes behind his back. (Thank you to the hip gramma who was buying her ridiculously cute granddaughter chocwit. I needed that!)

Seriously, bag Nazi, was that really necessary? I was actually negotiating the candy bin quite successfully. However, if you were so concerned about the impending doom of an avalanche of chocolate candies cascading all over your precious candy aisle, how about just offering me a bigger bag instead of treating me like a misbehaving five year old?

Bargain Shopping

I will admit that getting stuck behind someone with loads of coupons usually results in some eye rolling, but these days I have a different perspective. With all the talking heads yammering about impending doom, everybody is hunting for bargains. So, this morning when I found myself behind a bargain shopper extraordinaire at Walgreen's I was impressed with her shopping savvy, at least initially. She had a coupon for every item and a couple general coupons. She got a bottle of laundry detergent, two three-packs of Scotch tape and at least three bottles of cough syrup for $.79. That's right seventy-nine cents. SCORE!

But wait, she wanted her "register rewards" (the frequently irrelavant coupons that print out at the end of your transaction at the grocer store and aparently drug stores) but, as the cashier explained you don't get the register rewards if your discounts the price down so low. Made perfect sense to me, I'm not sure she even covered the sales tax. But bargain lady was not satisfied. She became irate and demanded her coupons back, resulting in the need to completely void the transaction. The poor cashier called the manager, rang up my bottle of water, which took about 30 seconds, and I got out as fast as I could. As I was leaving I could hear bargain lady demanding to know why it was taking so long for a manager to come. As it had been less than a minute since the cashier paged the manager, I'm guessing this did not end well.