Another B-Buster rant (but not what you think)

The BBQ Pit
1

From this thread.

I’ve seen/heard stuff like this many many times. Now as an employee of said “devil company” I’d like to rant myself about the customers of the place. Not all of them, most are very pleasant. This is directed at the few who make my job unpleasant If you wish to argue with me, that’s fine. I know people, cashiers and customers alike, make mistakes. I’m sorry some idiot who wears a similar shirt to mine was pissy to you. However, unless I have personally waited on you, please do not direct your ire at me.

RANT

Yes, you do have to have either your rental card or your picture I.D. with you to rent. No, I cannot take your word for it, nor can I accept a credit card as proof of I.D. Unless, of course if you don’t mind me letting just about anyone rent on your account. If so, I’ll be happy to make a note of that on your account once you prove to me it is YOUR ACCOUNT.

Get this straight please, we do not target anyone for fees. You complain that you get slapped with a balance everytime you come in. Guess what? It’s not our fault. We tell you when the movies are due back. It’s printed on your receipt (yes, which there is usually 4 feet of other crap printed with, but I personally put the one with the due date on top) which is either put in your bag or inside the film box. In case you missed either of those, there’s a big wheel chart right by the door you left the store from telling you again what day your movies are due back. If your short-term memory is shot, our phone number is on the cover of every film box. Give us a call and ask when your movies are due back. If you’re so sick of our fees, BRING THE EVER HUMPING MOVIES BACK WHEN THEY ARE DUE! Will you have a fee next time you come in? Sorry, they don’t pay me enough around here to be psychic, but judging by your past return history, I’ll go out on a limb and say yes.

Please stop lying to my face. If your items are late, cough up the money. Don’t try to tell me you were told at checkout that it wasn’t due back until 6pm. We’ve never had anything due back at 6pm. Ever. I try to be understanding, even if you thought it wasn’t due back until midnight, though it does read “all items are due back by 12pm(noon)” at the bottom of your receipt. Heck, most of the time, I’ll personally take half the charge off as long as you don’t throw a temper tantrum. But screaming in my face isn’t likely to make me sympathetic to your cause. If I was here on Sunday, and you swear you turned in your movie at 10 am, guess what? I was here and your movie wasn’t checked in until 7pm. You didn’t drop it in the drop box that morning, as I personally emptied, counted and checked in all the movies that morning and afternoon. Feel free to scream at me, I have kids, I’m used to it. Be advised it won’t influence me to work with you, but go ahead and scream. (sidenote; I even try to work with people who could have been mistaken about days/times if they are trying to be reasonable. But, I do have limits and trying to take advantage of me will not last long.)

I realise some of the cashiers here are borderline rude, but you should have seen them 6 months ago, bright, chipper, eager to help. Now they’ve just been beaten down to surly robots trying to get you the hell out of there so they can do everything we have to do before we can close the store. I’ve had to bite my lips as of late whenever someone tells me they won’t be back.
“Okay, so see you next weekend then.”
Instead, I grit my teeth and reply,
“I’m sorry to hear that. Have a good night.”

If you decide against renting anything, feel free to bring it up to the counter. We have to run around the store putting back returns all the time and we really don’t mind adding what you’ve brought up to our stack. Really. We think everything has a specific place in our store, something about making it much easier for you and us to find.

Oh, and hang up the cell phone before coming up to the register, ya rude bastard.
/End Rant

Now time to go to work.

2

I work in customer service, shudder, and I agree with everything except this:

Shop guys are there to serve me. I shouldn’t have to stop my very important conversation to give them money.

3

I wouldn’t have a problem with it if the folks yapping on the cell phones simply hand over the money while conversing. However, the people like this that I’m usually stuck in line behind seem unable to complete their transaction while talking on the phone; they stand there and hold up the line while finishing up their conversation, and then pay/answer cashier questions/etc. It’s like they can’t do two tasks at once, and saying “just a minute, let me take care of this” to their caller doesn’t seem to occur to them either.

4

No. This is rude no matter whether you are in a shop or speaking to the Pope. Put the phone down and interact like a normal human being for 30 seconds.

5

It’s kind of funny that you could have that many unhappy customers, and never stop to think that your company might be doing something wrong. Of course they will have to come back after vowing never to return; Blockbuster has monopolized the video-rental industry.

6

Oh, yeah, Blockbuster.
I asked the Blockbuster guy for a movie suggestion once. for my 5-year-old son. He likes baseball and animals.
He’d been through all the “Air Bud” movies, and the “Angels In The Outfield” series, and I asked one of the ever-helpful employees for a suggestion.

You know what he suggested?
The horror that is Ed. :eek:
I wanted to shove that “helpful” employee through the return slot headfirst.

My son loved it, by the way. :wink:
We’ve rented it twice.
The above is purely in jest. The BB employees I encounter are always helpful and courteous.

7

Not in Phoenix, they haven’t. There’s another biggie here in Hollywood Video. And there are a couple smaller ones about. BB is the biggest fish in the pond, perhaps, but there are others about.

8

Disclaimer: None of the complaints in the following rant are intended to apply to any Dopers who work at Blockbuster.

Blockbuster is to cinema what McDonald’s is to dining–the cheap, crappy panderer to the lowest common denominator

BB hires retail monkeys who know nothing about movies

A typical conversation:
Me: Do you have The Quiet Earth in stock?
BB: Duh. <drools slightly> Is that with Keanu Reeves?
Me: No, it’s a science fiction film from New Zealand.
BB: Is it subtitled?

Anytime I have ever requested a movie that isn’t a Sandra Bullock Piece of Crap that Tanked Six Months Ago, the retail monkey has to look it up. C’mon, if you’re not familiar with the work of Stanley Kubrick, Billy Wilder, or John Huston, let alone Luis Bunuel, Akira Kurosawa, or Federico Fellini, you have no business working in a video store.

Blockbuster has a limited selection of DVDs
I know better than to go to Blockbuster to rent Zhang Yi Mou’s Raise The Red Lantern or the Criterion DVD of Children of Paradise because Blockbuster won’t have them. But it WILL have 27 copies of Murder By Numbers or Death to Smoochy. If it wasn’t released in English by a major studio in the last five years, Blockbuster won’t have it.

Blockbuster supports pan and scan DVDs.
Pan and scan is an abomination that caters to the uneducated tastes of the culturally illiterate. It chops off a full third to half of the original print, and is nothing less than butchery of art. But Blockbuster STOCKS pan and scan lest their less acute customers ask, “Why come they’s black bars on my tellyvishun?” Blockbuster, by its sheer size, has the power to ensure the commercial viability of widescreen releases. By catering to , instead of educating, the tastes of the masses, Blockbuster will eventually persuade the studios that widescreen releases are a waste of money. This pisses me off no end.

This is why I don’t go to Blockbuster. Instead I go to Video Vault in Old Town Alexandria, or to Potomac Video, where I can rent Kurosawa’s Red Beard, Izstvan Szabo’s Mephisto, or the Region 0 DVD of Battle Royale.

9

I’m an ex-BBV employee, and believe me, I feel your pain. People just don’t realize that while BBV CSRs are completely powerless to do anything about things like crappy selection (blame the uncultured heathens in your neighborhood for crappy selection- Blockbuster stocks what rents, be it Fellini or the Red Shoe Diaries), CSRs are capable of figureing it out when you are lieing through your teeth about your late fees.

Folks, if you want better service, there is going to have to be a lot of changes in this world. These companies thrive on a constant stream of minimum wage employees. At the place I worked, the average employee turnover was about two months. This is not considered alarming. High employee turnover, minimal training, and zero concern for their employess (I’ve read the managers handbook where they say "You may think higher pay will make your employees better workers, but in reality, what they want is a good workplace, so instead you should create a system of rewards and penalties) is the standard practice for these corporations. How can you expect good service from a company that esentially uses it’s employees as robots and cannon fodder?

10

Braaaaavo.
clap
clap
clap

11

Jebbus Christ… just join Netflix.com and screw Blockbusters. No late fees and returning said movie is as easy as going to the mail box. It’s also cheaper, I can get about 7-10 movies a month for $20. If there is a crapy business out there like Blockbuster then someone will invent a new business to overcome the formers shortcommings…

12

Yes, I know the Blockbuster company itself is flawed. Thank you all for showing me the error of my ways. You all have convinced me to turn in my badge and keys and never accpet another paycheck from the evil that is Blackbuster. Forget all the people I talked out of renting Shallow Hal because it was awful. Forget that my work availability is nights and weekends, so I can be home for my kids when they need me. Blockbuster sucks and I shouldn’t even try to be there to help anyone, no matter my brain’s knack for holding useless information like who was in which movie about what and no one can recall the title. Or, I’m the only one there who acually tries to explain how to search for a title on the website or what the 4 feet of useless receipts mean. Fuck Blockbuster.

13

:stuck_out_tongue: I thought this was funny, even though I personally feel most films are intended to be sold as entertainment anyway, so whether they deserve to be treated as “art” is debateable. It’s kind of like saying if you don’t get the fastest computer possible to play ‘DOOM III’ on, you are not being true to the game designer’s intent.

I always suspected BB was as many in this thread have described it. I’ve never rented there. Guess I’m not missing anything.

14

<wholly O/T> Except, if you live near her, the chance to ogle Tequila while you shop for movies. </w O/T>

Heh.

15

You send your kids away nights and weekends??

:eek:
:smiley: :smiley:

16

Not only do they support P&S, they carry only P&S for Insomnia, which I tried to rent last night. Had my popcorn popped, my pajamas on, a rum & coke in my hand, a big fuzzy blanket on my lap, and the patio door slightly ajar. Then what do I see? “This film has been formatted to fit your television screen.”

Sonofabitch!

Took it back, and got “We Were Soldiers”. Meh. At least it I got to see the whole film.

17

I really don’t know what you’d expect… I mean it’s not great, but there’s nothing surprising here. Blockbuster is a giant corporate chain. Thus they are impersonal and use simple numbers - if it rents it’s stocked. You don’t expect the guys at Best Buy to have recommendations and interesting opinions on unknown or local bands, why would you expect that from Blockbuster?

If that’s important to you, drive a little further to the local record store, or go to the smaller art video store. They’ll have movies from a wider range and they’ll be able to talk about movies. The option (hopefully) is there for most of us. There are others who are annoyed by the snobby attitudes the clerks at these smaller stores often have, and would rather go to a faceless video megaplex where they can make their selections in anonymity. It does bug me when I have to explain myself to the person I’m renting from if I get something that is different from my normal tastes or if the checker considers the movie to be of poor quality.

LC

18

You have got to be kidding. The clerks are there to provide a quick and pleasant transaction, not to cater to your selfish, rude, and irritating behavior. If your conversation is so damned important, which I very much doubt it is, step out of line and finish it without inconveniencing either the clerk or the others in line who are waiting behind you. It takes a very petty person to think that treating someone with courtesy isn’t necessary because they are ‘there to sever you.’

Oh, and not only do I think B-Buster does a tolerably good job, I’d drive more than a few miles out of the way to chit-chat movies with Tequila MB.

19

I haven’t been in a Blockbuster in, well… quite a spell. No clue, actually.

But any road up…

We trucked off to the place, this evening. This was the first time I’d ever looked at the DVDs they carry, as we just picked up our first DVD player a week or so back. Owing to my reading of this thread, I was actively looking for Widescreen vs. Fullscreen releases. The store in this neck o’ the woods carries them a whole bunch of widescreened flicks, and titles with both versions available on the same disc. (Or is it just that the player will zoom the image a bit if you opt to watch the fullscreen version? Whatever.) And it seems that the DVD section of the store is growing, as the VHS section shrinks. (Yeah, I know, big surprise. Like I said, it’s been awhile.) P’raps Blockbuster supports whatever rents better, regardless o’ the format?

Personally, I can’t stand fullscreen/pan&scan. If I’ve got an option, I’m gonna go for letterboxing everytime. At least, until we can swing the extra bread for a widescreen TV. At which point, I may just have my ass surgically attached to the couch, and revel in bad movies until my brain leaks out my ears. :smiley:

[CS highjack]
On that note, may I highly recommend the MGM special edition release of Mad Max. It was cool enough to finally be able to watch the movie and not groan constantly at the American voice dubbed over Mel’s (at the time) heavy Aussie accent; it got better when I got to see the whole flippin’ movie, and with the “Pop-Up Video” trivia thing running throughout, no less. At last I understand the appeal of DVD.
[/CS highjack]

20

All those who hate me talking on my mobile while I’m at a store:

First, I do multitask. I talk, the money gets paid. I’m a customer, not the store employee’s new best friend. He doesn’t need to know how my day was.

Secondly, I’m giving the company money. They get it from me. If they don’t like the way I give them money, they can stop serving me. Which is kind of the opposite of what a store is there to do. A store doesn’t fulfill its function by turning away customers, or telling them what to do.