Do we have to Mini-Rant every month?

The BBQ Pit
1
  1. I Work in Retail and People are Fucking Idiots and Santa Isn’t Real

Our home decor store has a new sale just about every other week. This week the promotion includes a selection of wicker patio furniture, that comes with its own cushions, at 60% off. It’s a good deal for decent furniture with not-so-pretty cushions.

Every place in which our stores operate gets the same ad in the paper showing that deal. Unfortunately our store isn’t carrying that selection. Other stores do, but not us. So, you annoying, stubborn geriatrics, when the ad, ON THE DAMN PICTURE WHERE YOU CANNOT MISS IT, says that “Quantities and Selection May Vary,” it means that not every store has the wicker that comes with its own cushions. We ain’t got it, and I told you that kindly and politely three times before you left the store.

Yes, I’m pretty damn sure that our ridiculously expensive patio furniture isn’t on sale. No, it ain’t 60% off. Those chairs are $250 a pop and if you don’t like it, tough. We can’t always get what we wanna.

Until.

Somehow, sometime later, your wrinkly, retired asses came back. Apparently ya’ll decided that Yes, you WERE, in fact, going to get the expensive, Not-on-Sale patio furniture for 60% off because YOU decided that’s what the ad said. Somehow, you browbeat my manager into convincing her district manager to get you an insane discount (and free cushions). And you know, congratulations on that. Really. Personally, I’d love to get $2,600 worth of furniture (and free cushions) for $1,300.

The thing is, you have to A) live in some kind of fantasy world or B) believe we were really just fucking around with you and that expensive furniture really WAS on sale the whole time to SEND YOUR FUCKING FRIENDS to come and get the same non-existent discount. Which they damn well didn’t, by the way. My manager did this to shut you up about our “Bait and Switch” tactics (Honestly, that was ass-baggery of tremendous magnitude) and got your other geriatric pals in return.

Oh, and fitting 10 pieces of furniture in the back of a Chevy Avalanche? Ridiculous, you addle-brained retirees.

  1. Enough with the Stuttering Already

It’s about time that talking heads on radio and tv slowed down and stopped the stuttering. These guys wouldn’t have gotten their jobs if this stuttering was an actual pathology out of their control. It would be mostly unlistenable.

From Jon Stewart to the local sports radio guys, stuttering has taken the place of “Uh, uhm, er,” etc. Terri Gross on NPR kills me with it.

I know these folks don’t really stutter because they can read copy without trouble. It’s when they try to extemporize th-th-that their, w-w-w-well, their, uh-uh-uh tongues get ahead of-of-of-of their brains.

Slow the fuck down. Think about what your going to say instead of trampling all over one another trying to spit your words out first.

2

Santa isn’t real?

3

Sorry.

4

If your store ad advertises something that you actually don’t have, at a deep discount…
Then you probably shouldn’t be at all surprised that the customer is pissed off.

And if you actually are mad at the customer for being pissed, you deserve all of the shit they can hand you.

5

When McDonald’s nationally advertises a new milkshake, for example, they usually slide in a “Prices and participation may vary.” So, if your local McDonald’s doesn’t have the ingredients yet, it probably isn’t that location’s fault. Trucks delay, mistakes are made, the store may not participate. You can get mad all you want. They haven’t got it.

It’s the same thing. I’m not surprised the customer was pissed. I was prepared for it and I treated them with kindness and respect, a courtesy they didn’t return for a second.

6

It appears to me that he’s more upset that, despite explanations that the advertising states that it’s not available at every store (it’s there because not every store has room for every product), the people are still angry and not listening to him when he tells them that. Then, his fucktard managerial staff comes around and completely contradicts him and undermines the whole concept of supporting company policy [sub]and let’s not forget about the fact that the manager just proved that he won’t stand up for his staff when they’re in the right[/sub] by giving them a deep discount on the wrong item.

Now, tell me why he shouldn’t be upset that, not only did the angry customers get angry because of a lack of listening, but his manager made him look like a moron while creating a possible worse situation in the future. What if all the geriatric couple’s friends came and wanted the same discount? The store would have a lower profit margin because they’re making a lot less on those expensive pieces and when shit happens, it gets piled on at the lowest level.

7

So “Quantities and Selection May vary” is now the same as “Prices and Participation may vary”?!?!?!?

The key word participation indicates to me that the local shop may not have the item.

The key word Quantities implies that at…least…one…fucking…item…is…available.

Maybe I’m the only one who interprets it this way.

I’m going to open a store, advertise an item that I don’t have, at a discount of 90% with “quantities may vary”, and then tell all of my curious customers that my quantity was zero.

8

I see what you’re saying. We’ve got about 30-ish locations from Missouri to Orlando. We all have the same ad. While my store has a wicker rocker for, say, $60, the location on the other side of town may not.

It may be that three locations in Kentucky have that specific item set. It may be that, for some reason, those items haven’t historically sold well in some areas and therefore don’t carry them.

It’s the same if someone comes in and says, “I’d like this chair from the ad,” and I told them we were sold out. Zero is our quantity.

9

But why be upset at the customer? They walked in expecting to get a good deal on furniture. When they didn’t get it they were angry because, in this case, they were baited and switched, so they complained and got a deal on some other furniture.

So Hung Mung gets all pissy ** at the customer**because:

  1. His corporate is too stupid to word an advertisement correctly

  2. His managerial staff is too stupid to understand that giving a loss leading discount to one customer is going to attract other customers

  3. He’s not up to speed on how his own business handles customer dissatisfaction.

So why again, is he pissed at the customer?

10

:eek: Your reading comprehension really sucks. A quantity value can be any positive integer, meaning that zero is also included.

[ul]
[li]The store may only have one of the item[/li][li]The store may have sold out of the item[/li][li]The store may not carry the item because statistically, no one in East Bumfuck buys that item[/li][li]Stores in West Bumfuck may stock a lot because people LOVE that item[/li][/ul]

These are all explanations of why “quantities may vary.”

Bubba, he’s pissed at the customer because it is the customer that is not only not listening to what he’s saying, but causing his managers to fuck him over in the process by being assholes about the store not having the goddamned wicker furniture.

11

{Bolding mine}

You weren’t sold out. You stated that you didn’t even carry the item. You never had any "quantity.

12

They were not baited and switched.

At no time did I get pissy with a customer. I treat everybody like a family member because that’s how I expect to be treated.

  1. And your qualifications for this judgment are?
  2. No argument from me on this one.
  3. I can handle customer dissatisfaction. I can’t handle delusionals.

I’m mad because they were assholes about the whole. Damn. Thing.

13

Dude, it’s the same thing. Either way, we don’t have the item in question. End of argument.

14

I went into my local Target last week to buy a new alarm clock. They had a really nice one on display, for a good price…just what I wanted.
I look on the shelves…they don’t seem to have one in stock. I get a Target guy to come over and check the top shelves - no luck. He breaks out his little inventory scanner doodad and scans the barcode.

“Oh, it looks like we don’t sell that model anymore.”
“Well, why is it still on display?”
“Uh, I don’t know.”
“Can I have that one, then? The display model?”
“No, I don’t think we can do that…sorry.”
“OK. You might want to take it off the display then, if you don’t sell it anymore. Just an idea!”
“Yeah, good idea. I’ll do that.”

I went there yesterday. The clock was still displayed.

It’s one thing if they are out of stock…sure, leave the display model up. But if they aren’t carrying it anymore? What purpose does that serve? Sure, I could go online and pay shipping. But I don’t want to.

Shit like this makes me take my business elsewhere, Target.

15

Exactly. Due to the “Quantities and Selection May Vary” clause in the advertisement, the company is explicitly stating that not every store is going to have these items in inventory. Now, like BubbaDog, they’re having trouble understanding this very simple “thrown in for legal and honesty in advertising purposes” clause and are upset and taking it out on Hung Mung.
Does he deserve it? No. Do the customers have a right to be upset? Not especially. They could have called up the store and asked if the item was in stock before driving out. Things do sell out when they’re on sale for 60% off, and they tend to sell out quickly. It would have benefitted them to do a little bit of footwork instead of getting angry at the wrong person.

Just to clarify things, “quantity” and “inventory” mean different things, especially when applied to the retail world. In one’s inventory, one can have a quantity of items. This quantity can be zero for any item at any time for any number of reasons. The truck may not have delivered it, the store may not be able to order it because of corporate restrictions, and other customers may have bought the last of it because it was on sale. Shit happens that is out of the retail worker’s control. Getting angry at said retail worker is not only counterproductive but futile because, in an ideal situation, there isn’t much that the in-store higher-ups can do about it. This situation wasn’t ideal, and the managers decided that a sale was a sale and that employees are not valued enough to be stood up for.

16

If reading comprehension is “quantities may vary” and “participation may vary” means the same thing then I guess my comprehension is lacking. I bow to your superior comprehension skills and hope that someday, I will be able to enter into a legally binding financial contract (that I write) with you.

Thanks for the math lesson too. Now we know that zero is a positive integer :dubious:

17

Why you are all getting up in arms about how “Quantities” might vary and not looking at the fact that “SELECTION” might also vary is beyond me.

I can get behind the idea that “We have zero of this item” is insufficient to cram “unavailable” into the definition of “quantity.”

But "selection?’ That’s pretty fucking obvious, people. If they ain’t got it, it’s because selection varies and this item is not in that store’s selection.
At no point does Hung Mung mention getting pissy with a customer.

And the fact that a store does not carry one item does not mean you get another item at a deep discount.

And a superior that refuses to stand up for a subordinate who is correct is not only a shitty boss, but has just become an enabler to the same behavior over and over again. You haven’t made the problem go away, you’ve allowed it to pupate. Soon it will be a big, beautiful, hurricane-inducing butterfly of a problem and it will come back.

And the phenomenon of “old person’s entitlement” is not a myth and it’s not the result of a persecution complex. It’s real and it’s annoying and I’m probably going to do it myself in 20 years.

I hate retail, but I love logic, and Mung is in the right here.

18

You’ve stated it better than I have, and have emphasized why I hate having to take customer service jobs. Management often creates more problems than they solve, and then the customer and management takes it out on the non-managerial worker. It also is the main reason why I avoid the behaviors that make an asshole customer when I’m out shopping. There’s no reason to make retail workers jaded more quickly.

19

They weren’t delusional. They came in expecting a discount. When they discovered that the item was never even available, they expected a discount on another item and they got it. Seems pretty real to me.
Look, I think that the costomers position and circumstances were valid but I see some common ground. If the people were acting like assholes in order to bully their way into a deal then I’ll lend a hand in helping you push them and their ice flow out to sea.

I’ve been a customer in this situation and I’ve negotiated a good discount on a non-sale product because if it. Believe it or not I was a hellava nice guy in the process. It just makes more sense to get your flies (and deals) with honey instead of vinegar.

20

In most cases, that’s an unreasonable expectation, as there’s normally a reason why item A is on sale and item B is not. In this case, it appears that the item they got the discount on was significantly higher priced than the item they were looking for. In other cases, stores put item A on sale because they’re trying to get rid of inventory of that one item to replace it with something different or a fresher variety of that item. That doesn’t automatically make item B a valid item to get a discount on.

Wicker patio furniture with not-so-pretty cushions isn’t selling well/is seasonal, so they put it on deep discount. Expensive patio furniture is not on the same level and is, presumably, catering to a different portion of the market than the wicker patio furniture, is selling well, or is on a different seasonal timeline and thus is not subject to the sale. Why should the store have to sell the expensive patio furniture for the same discount as the furniture that wasn’t available?