I don't think it's good to complain all the time. But a good rant is always fun to read. My latest disappointment with Big Bad Companies? Babies R Us. Proceed with caution.
Yesterday we took Lucy to the baby emporium for some fall & winter clothes. She just doesn't have any. We scoured the store for deals and hemmed & hawed over all the varieties - probably an hour deciding which colors, fabrics, and sales suited us best. We had quite a few "buy 2 for $12" kinds of items.
At the cashier, I watched carefully as she scanned the items, knowing that we needed to be sure to get the sales we were promised. When a pair of pants rang up for $6.99 (instead of $6, since we were buying 2 pair), I said, "That was a deal." She shrugged it off (in a friendly way, to her credit), assuring me all the sales would be reflected at the end of the transaction on the receipt. This is how sales are rung up at our grocery store (the Food Lion where Tom Petty used to work), so I believed her.
However, when we were done (and after we had paid -> with debit card, a fact to be of importance later), I checked the receipt again and saw that not only did those pairs of pants ring up at $6.99, we also did not get the "Buy one, get one half off" packs of onesies at sale price either. Both were at full price. We left the register (for she had a long line behind us) and proceeded to another long line at customer service. I was already rolling my eyes at this point, thinking, "How dumb. I even tried to prevent this mess and was assured it would be fine."
The line at CS was long. While we waited, 2 other cashiers went to the desk to open another register to help our line move faster, which seemed helpful, until both left, saying to one another, "This register doesn't work." They did not go to another cash register to help us. The manager then came up to those ladies and said, "Can you open this register to help?" And they told her it wouldn't work. She looked at Dave and me and actually said, "Well, you'll just have to wait. Our other register isn't working." She smiled as if to add, "Isn't that funny? Excuse me while I go talk to those two employees and ignore you now."
Finally it was our turn at the CS desk. I decided to start off small, having a hunch that this girl was not going to understand all of our requests. I showed her our receipt & the pants, and said, "These were supposed to be 2 for 12, but we were charged full price for them." She looked at me in a frustrated way and said, "Where?" and had me point to the area of the store where the sign was that said 2 for 12. She didn't believe me! She said, "Well, I don't know if I can change that on the computer. I'm going to have to go find that sign." I had a really hard time believing that, since I used to work in customer service at a grocery store and price adjustments are the norm. Of course there was a way to handle this! She just didn't want to. Knowing that it was all useless and I'd soon start talking to her like she was a 6 year old, I said in frustration, "I don't have time for this, you know? I'm just going to return it all." It was an impulse, but I was irritated and without the right words.
She processed our return, offering us the option of cash back or putting the amount back on our card. Dave swiped his debit card. After punching in a bunch of buttons, she said, "It's not reading your card, we are unable to process this transaction..." and looked at us like it was our fault. So we got all this cash back.
After an hour in the store, we left with almost nothing that we came for. I was steamed! The incompetance of the employees there (and their attitude) was awful. And we pay hard earned money at places like these, and get other people to shop there too for registries and the like. I felt that the manager needed to be informed. We went back inside, told the assistant manager on duty a truncated version of our tale, and she made excuses for the problems. Then she said, "Do you have a coupon book?" I said no. She said, "I'd like you to remain our customer and come back, so let me get you one." She ended up giving us the same quarterly mailer that most Babies R Us customers get, the kind that have tons of coupons for the items we never buy. "I hope you come back and see us again."
That made it all okay, let me tell you.
Thus concludes my rant. Back to our regularly scheduled blogging. In the meantime, feel free to lambast your least favorite Corporation. Let's let 'er rip!!
