Is it just me, or is everyone so beatchy nowadays? I mean, in the town we used to live in, people were more friendly and nice, even to total strangers. There, you'd hear a "Hey, how's it going?" or a "Hello!" as you walked by. Here, people act as if they are hiding from law enforcement, and refuse to acknowledge you or even look you in the eye. We've also noticed that well... either the retails sales folks are less customer-service oriented, or they are just rude and lazy jackasses who forget that it's the customers who help keep their position in demand.
For instance, at the ol' town, Wal-Mart clerks always bagged your stuff for you, no questions asked. Heck, they even asked if you needed help with bringing that huge TV out to the car, and would have a guy with those little flatbed carts come up & load it for you. In this area, however, I have had a Wal-Mart sales clerk tell me that they couldn't bend down or lift a bag of cat food, dog food, or cat litter, in order to scan it (with their portable scanner no less)! WTF?! How hard is it to grab the portable, really? I've had one tell me she had bad knees, even though she was at least 10 years younger than me. The thing is, we know people who work for Wal-Mart, so we know that they're supposed to do that sort of thing, or else they should not be working at the register and should instead go be a lame greeter.
Now, it's not just Wal-Mart workers that are like this. We've encountered sales clerks at other places, where the sales clerk couldn't even bring out a ladder to grab something off a shelf that was just beyond my reach. WTF is that all about? In the end, I just ended up stepping on the bottom shelf with something in my hand to shove the box up top a few inches closer to the edge, and then I'd get the sucker to tip off & fall, and I'd hopefully catch it without breaking it. Hell, the next time I have to do this because of some lazy azz, I'm gonna knock a bunch of stuff OFF the shelf first and just be a real klutz, and after they see the mess they have to clean up -- maybe, just maybe, they will do their jobs right the first time.
Almost 2 weeks ago, we were at GameStop with at least 4 games in-hand, and still browsing around for more. After all, my family is full of gameaholics; we own so many different platforms so we keep GameStop real happy by dropping big bucks there all the time. We have an Xbox360, an Xbox, 2 Nintendo DS, a Wii, and 2 PCs. We used to have a PS2 and another PC but we got rid of those when we moved here a year ago.
Anyways, while we were perusing the store, another lady came in to return an item she's had for only 1 day. It was an open item, and basically she was honest and said that, "There's nothing wrong with it -- I just didn't like it. It's just too slow for me." They wouldn't do a return for her, wouldn't give her money back even when she had the receipt in hand showing that the item had not-quite been out of their store for 24 hours. They didn't even bother looking at the receipt; just glanced its way is all.
Do you know what they told her? They told her that they couldn't take it back. She was a timid woman, but she tried to explain and show the receipt, to which the current store manager balked. Do you want to know what the item was?
It was a freakin' Wii Fit!
Now, how hard do you think it will be for them to resell the Wii Fit, when tons of the stores in the area are sold out and even before that, the stores were limiting them per household because they knew their stock was in limited supply. So it's not like an item that GameStop would have a hard time getting rid of. The manager told the lady, "I can't take it back and offer you a refund... but I can take it as a a type of trade for less than what you paid for it." They were offering her less than half of what she paid for! WTF?! So they were gonna give her less than half of her $89.99?!? Uhm, I don't know about you but, even though my math skills suck -- I can tell you that their math didn't add up to me!
The lady grabs her stuff and starts to head out, shocked at the so-called "offer" the store manager gave her as if they were doing her a favor by offering that amount... Now, my hubby, who is an assistant manager & will soon own his own store after his 3-month training is over (NOT a GameStop, thank god), he knew I wanted a Wii Fit but haven't had much luck finding one. So he approached the lady near the front door to ask her how much she wanted for it, but before they could even continue their conversation, the manager hollered out, "You can't be doing that in my store. You need to take it outside my store if you're going to be doing sales with someone other than GameStop." Wow, I guess she was listening in on their conversation, wouldn't you say?
First of all, she was the one who was rude and indifferent to her customer that she could've better helped. Second, my hubby was picking up their slack! Had they taken it back from her, we would've bought it from the store. But hey, now that they see the potential for business, NOW they want a piece of the pie?!? Fark 'em. Third, the manager didn't even approach them to tell them they couldn't do that in "her" store; she hollered it out for all the other customers to hear, as if they were criminals on the verge of running out with a boatload of cash from the register or something! Fourth, who did she think she was, listening in on a private conversation anyway?! Holy crap, what if we knew her from chemo or something and was asking how it was going?! How freakin' rude for the manager to listen in on a conversation that didn't involve her! Fifth and final, the manager, whether she realized it or not, gave my hubby lip when she said her piece -- an attitude that my hubby totally hates.
He's had enough of lazy or crap customer service. So, he did as she did, hollered across the room to ask her why didn't they provide better service to this lady, and now they are giving him hell for offering to help their customer out. Why she expected us to give her our business when we now see the kind of service (crap one) that's being offered... And after hollering across the room back and forth because the manager was STILL too lazy to approach my hubby or the lady, as well as being unable to give my hubby any concrete answers or explanations other than, "you just can't do that in my store..."
My hubby told her, "You know what? Not only did you lose business and a customer with this lady, you just lost 4 more." On cue, my children and I dropped the games we had in-hand, right where we were standing (yes, we didn't put them away or do GameStop any favors), and walked right out of there without looking back.
Behind us, you could hear the manager hollering at us (STILL not approaching us), trying to say that we didn't need to leave, and repeating herself about my hubby and the lady not being allowed to do exchange stuff in their store, blah blah blah. We didn't care, all 5 of us walked out of there, never to go in again.
If the manager had at least known her job and done it correctly by dealing with the lady in private instead of hollering at her, and then hollering at my hubby across the room with her attitude... And if she had at least taken the time to explain the reason why they couldn't do that -- if it was a liability or other issue... All she had to do was know her job and get it done right, and my hubby would've understood and gone out of the store to complete the sale, and we still would've bought the GameStop games we had in-hand. He's in retail too, so it's not like he doesn't know some of what they have to face, but the fact is that the manager was clueless and didn't know how to do her job, and probably should not have been a manager in the first place.
So in the end, we acted on blind faith. The lady handed over the Wii Fit that she claimed worked fine, as well as her receipt for it. She went on to explain that she was a runner, so having to unlock stuff a little at a time was something she had no patience for, that there was nothing wrong with it other than that. Basically, she was too advanced for the Wii Fit. We asked how much she wanted for it, and she said it didn't matter, we could just give her "whatever." Yes, she really was a bit timid, but no, we didn't want to rip her off like GameStop had already done. We aren't about making people grab their ankles if you know what I mean.
There was no ATM nearby and we don't carry cash, so we asked if she had a problem taking our check, cuz if she did, then we would have to drive around for an ATM. Since we were willing to take the leap and assume that her Wii Fit worked, she took a leap of faith and figured that, although she didn't know us, we wouldn't bounce the check or scam her. I wrote out a check to her for the full amount of the Wii Fit, then I wrote our phone number on the check so she'd know how to reach us, to give her peace of mind. We drove off afterwards, and realized we forgot to ask for her info so all we had was her name, which was on the check duplicate. We prayed that we wouldn't need to contact her, that everything would work out.
We brought the Wii Fit home, set it up, and BAM!
It all worked like a charm.
No damages, no problems.
A few days later, the check had cleared the bank. I guess either she trusted us by taking her time to cash it, or she wanted to give us a few days to have the money in the bank so the check wouldn't bounce... That was unnecessary, as we had money in there all along. Maybe we weren't clear about it to her; I was pretty sure that I told her she could cash it that day - she wouldn't have any problems with it. But I guess she just wanted to make sure. I have no problem with that.
The entire family has been playing the Wii Fit ever since, just having fun trying to wipe out each other's top scores and watching each other look stupid doing the hula. 
Do you have a crappy/lazy customer service horror story to tell? Have you been treated like your money wasn't good enough at a store? Post your tale in the comments!
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