John Shaughnessy
2005-01-07 09:18:52 UTC
(This is kind of long, but hey - y'all read Brian's long posts)
So there's finally a full line music store within a 10 min. drive of my
house. It's a local chain that is owned by the Brooke Mays conglomerate.
I go in there today to poke around, and to put up a teaching flyer on their
board (I already know they don't do lessons). I'm dressed "business casual",
and I've taken all my medications. And not to blow my own horn, but I'm sort
of known on the local music scene.
There's two salespeople in there, both are at least in their early 30's.
Never seen either one before.
I wait at the counter about 3 min. while both of them try to find the organ
sound on a keyboard they're trying to sell to a Church Lady. Finally, the
girl comes over to help.
I ask her if I can put my teaching flyer up. At first, she says "Sure, no
problem"; but as I turn to walk over to the board,she grabs the flyer and
stammers "Um, uh, I guess we'll put it up for you", and she puts it behind
the counter. Apparently there is some sort of manger approval thing going
on. Or she thought she saw a dirty word on the flyer. Or not. Whatever.
Here's where it gets weird:
So I poke around for a few minutes, and eventually grab a "$1.99 special"
pair of drumsticks for my new drumset (more on that in another thread).
I go up the counter, and the guy is there this time. He gives me the
standard BS ("anyone help you today?" Yeah, ME!), then asks for my phone
number. I casually tell him what I tell every merchant, and what I've told
other people in that store before "No, I'd rather not give it out"
I swear to God, he looked at me like I just gouged a hole in the top of the
Yamaha grand piano! It was a look of complete horror and disgust - as if NO
ONE had ever refused to give him their phone number before.
So he tries the old trick: "Well if you're paying with a debit card, I have
to have your number". Having worked retail for years and years, I KNOW
that's BS. Now he's pissing me off. I politely say "Look man, I already get
too many catalogs and too much spam. Anyway this is a 2 DOLLAR item that I
don't even have to sign for. You don't need my phone number".
He says, all disgusted again "I need to go in the back and talk to my
manager" and he hustles off to the back of the store. I'm ready to walk out
and never come back at this point, but I'm interested to see where this is
going.
After a FULL 5 min.of keeping me waiting (with occasional dirty looks from
the chick), the guy comes back out WITH the manager! The manager proceeds to
hover around me as the guy tries to complete the transaction. Now I'm ready
to bust out laughing. I jokingly tell the guy "Dude, I used to work a lot of
retail myself. Why don't you just put a dummy phone number in there and be
done with it?"
The guy says, in a gravely serious voice: "I know. I'm gonna have to now."
Then he has the balls/stupidity to say to me "You know, I've had a lot of
people steal stuff outta here. They don't give a phone number, and then we
can't track them down."
OK - so you're implying that I'm a thief (reinforced by the hovering
manager), and showing your loss prevention cluelessnes in one fell swoop?
Nice job.
Next he asks to see my drivers license. Check the name and picture against
my card? Fine, that's reasonable. Then he wants me to take it out of my
wallet. Um...OK.
While he's checking, I make the mistake of looking away for like 30 sec. I
look back and he's GONE! Another 5 min. pass. Now I'm really pissed, but I
can't leave because he's got my license, And I don't even know where he
went.
Eventually, he comes out with my ID, PLUS a photocopy of it! WTF do they
need that for? So I said "So what do you guys need if I buy something
expensive? A blood test?". He just scowled.
As if all that were,'t enough, I had to wait for him and the slow-ass POS
terminal to actually process the transaction.
Remember that all this was for a 2 DOLLAR pair of cheapo drumsticks. Total
time of sale, about 15 min. So basically, he lost the company money on that
sale by wasting everyone's time. Good.
Obviously, I won't be shopping there again.
I have no grand statement or question to tie it all together. It was
just...weird. Or is it just me?
PS: I SWEAR this is not some wacko PD thing - Outside of a few sundries,
I've never had any dealings with them. I've never dealt with these
salespeople either. I was polite and restrained through the whole thing - I
even resisted my impulse to dive over the counter and take my photocopy.
What the hell gives?
So there's finally a full line music store within a 10 min. drive of my
house. It's a local chain that is owned by the Brooke Mays conglomerate.
I go in there today to poke around, and to put up a teaching flyer on their
board (I already know they don't do lessons). I'm dressed "business casual",
and I've taken all my medications. And not to blow my own horn, but I'm sort
of known on the local music scene.
There's two salespeople in there, both are at least in their early 30's.
Never seen either one before.
I wait at the counter about 3 min. while both of them try to find the organ
sound on a keyboard they're trying to sell to a Church Lady. Finally, the
girl comes over to help.
I ask her if I can put my teaching flyer up. At first, she says "Sure, no
problem"; but as I turn to walk over to the board,she grabs the flyer and
stammers "Um, uh, I guess we'll put it up for you", and she puts it behind
the counter. Apparently there is some sort of manger approval thing going
on. Or she thought she saw a dirty word on the flyer. Or not. Whatever.
Here's where it gets weird:
So I poke around for a few minutes, and eventually grab a "$1.99 special"
pair of drumsticks for my new drumset (more on that in another thread).
I go up the counter, and the guy is there this time. He gives me the
standard BS ("anyone help you today?" Yeah, ME!), then asks for my phone
number. I casually tell him what I tell every merchant, and what I've told
other people in that store before "No, I'd rather not give it out"
I swear to God, he looked at me like I just gouged a hole in the top of the
Yamaha grand piano! It was a look of complete horror and disgust - as if NO
ONE had ever refused to give him their phone number before.
So he tries the old trick: "Well if you're paying with a debit card, I have
to have your number". Having worked retail for years and years, I KNOW
that's BS. Now he's pissing me off. I politely say "Look man, I already get
too many catalogs and too much spam. Anyway this is a 2 DOLLAR item that I
don't even have to sign for. You don't need my phone number".
He says, all disgusted again "I need to go in the back and talk to my
manager" and he hustles off to the back of the store. I'm ready to walk out
and never come back at this point, but I'm interested to see where this is
going.
After a FULL 5 min.of keeping me waiting (with occasional dirty looks from
the chick), the guy comes back out WITH the manager! The manager proceeds to
hover around me as the guy tries to complete the transaction. Now I'm ready
to bust out laughing. I jokingly tell the guy "Dude, I used to work a lot of
retail myself. Why don't you just put a dummy phone number in there and be
done with it?"
The guy says, in a gravely serious voice: "I know. I'm gonna have to now."
Then he has the balls/stupidity to say to me "You know, I've had a lot of
people steal stuff outta here. They don't give a phone number, and then we
can't track them down."
OK - so you're implying that I'm a thief (reinforced by the hovering
manager), and showing your loss prevention cluelessnes in one fell swoop?
Nice job.
Next he asks to see my drivers license. Check the name and picture against
my card? Fine, that's reasonable. Then he wants me to take it out of my
wallet. Um...OK.
While he's checking, I make the mistake of looking away for like 30 sec. I
look back and he's GONE! Another 5 min. pass. Now I'm really pissed, but I
can't leave because he's got my license, And I don't even know where he
went.
Eventually, he comes out with my ID, PLUS a photocopy of it! WTF do they
need that for? So I said "So what do you guys need if I buy something
expensive? A blood test?". He just scowled.
As if all that were,'t enough, I had to wait for him and the slow-ass POS
terminal to actually process the transaction.
Remember that all this was for a 2 DOLLAR pair of cheapo drumsticks. Total
time of sale, about 15 min. So basically, he lost the company money on that
sale by wasting everyone's time. Good.
Obviously, I won't be shopping there again.
I have no grand statement or question to tie it all together. It was
just...weird. Or is it just me?
PS: I SWEAR this is not some wacko PD thing - Outside of a few sundries,
I've never had any dealings with them. I've never dealt with these
salespeople either. I was polite and restrained through the whole thing - I
even resisted my impulse to dive over the counter and take my photocopy.
What the hell gives?
--
Learning funk bass? visit www.js3jazz.com/store.htm
"I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion
and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's."
- Mark Twain
Learning funk bass? visit www.js3jazz.com/store.htm
"I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion
and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's."
- Mark Twain