This is why I have to side with the customer. If your company can’t guarantee availability at every store they shouldn’t have a national ad. It’s just that simple.
For that fuck up, your company has made it so anyone that complains in absolutely justified in bitching at you about it because they were baited and switched.
You also lied to your customers when you told them you were sold out. Being sold out of something implies you will get more in the future, but as you said, your store does not even carry that furniture.
As Happy Scrappy Hero Pup said, old person’s entitlement is real. But in this case they were bitchin’ because they rightly felt your store was trying to screw them with deceptive advertising.
This is a mini-rant thread, right, not a beat-up-on-Hung Mung-thread?
Right.
Ok, here’s my mini-rant and my complaint. It could go in the “sad” category too.
For 2 years and a further 18 months my boss has been consistently fucking up. The first 2 years he wasn’t my boss and was being protected by another bigwig.
the last 18 months he’s been called on his bullshit. So they put him on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).
So his PIP is scheduled to be up October 1st, and until Monday, it looked fairly evident he would be fired. He wasn’t doing any of the work on the PIp that was allocated to him; he was giving it all to staff.
Until his protector stepped in again.
Now he is going to be “transferred” to another division. So we don’t have to deal with him, but the company is. Apparently we can’t fire incompetent managers.
Bad enough, right? It gets worse.
So we find this out on Monday morning. We have events this fall, fundraising to do, so we need to get on it and work around him if we have to. We start working with the assurance that he will be told Monday or at the latest Tuesday.
Today is Wednesday and they haven’t fucking told him yet. :mad: He is in our office today - he usually works out of a different one - and he’s sitting here blustering and giving orders and being in charge while we all have to lie to his face and bullshit our way through this.
I am pissed and seeing red that I should be put in this spot. They think he’ll never know that we knew first, and he may not, but he’ll always wonder. This is humiliating for him and disrespectful as hell to us.
I mean, I am actually feeling bad for him, even though he’s a horrible boss. He’s not a bad person, just a terrible leader, and this isn;t fair.
No, that’s just silly. There are all sorts of reasons why things pushed in national ads aren’t available at any one particular store. That’s why they use “quantities and selection may vary” or “participation may vary”. It’s part of normal business life and it’s not going to change.
I know it’s not the fault of the minions that engage in this practice – they’re following orders from above, and if they don’t comply they get canned. So, it is to those on high that I wish to address and reiterate here:
SLOW. THE. FUCK. DOWN.
Honest to Og, how you place so incredibly much emphasis on customer turnaround is ridiculous, and it is growing to absurd levels. You hold contests pitting branch against branch to see who can clear out customers the fastest. Sure, great for your bottom line, but what does it mean for us customers? Food that looks like it was thrown together by the Atlanta Hawks from half court with a no-look and one second on the shot clock. It is becoming a singularly unappetizing event to open the wrapping or container of whatever it is I’ve ordered to find that the contents look like they just had a grand mal seizure followed by an epic sneezing fit. Just slow it the hell down! At least make a passing attempt to put stuff where it ought to be and maybe, you know, keep at least most of the condiments inside the bun/shell/bread/whatever. I understand it’s a fast food joint, and you’re not exactly going to make the effort to dress it up nice enough for the prom, but the least you could do is avoid making it look like it ought to be begging on a street corner with its dirty, misshapen bun upturned in front of it and a crudely written sign saying “WILL OOZE FOR CHANGE.”
But possibly more egregious is when, in the mad dash to see who can create the most spectacular sonic boom during food prep, you get my order wrong! I am afraid to modify any of my orders any more because it has reached a point of about even odds that you’ll completely fuck something up, whether it’s forgetting a topping or condiment, putting toppings or condiments on it that shouldn’t be there, or giving me the wrong item(s) entirely, it’s even money that one of these events will occur if I order anything other than completely standard fare. And it happens because everyone is rushing around like they suddenly and shockingly realized what’s happening and start desperately looking for the souls you’ve crushed out of them, and they forget or mix things up in their as-yet untempered 10th grade heads. I end up having to watch them make my food and often as not I have to correct them on how to make it. Do you know how sad it is when your customers are telling your staff how to make their order?
Not that I expect this situation to get anything but worse, of course, so I suppose you might as well just consider this whole not-so-mini diatribe a “fuck you in the ass with a utility chicken” and be done with it.
Stores run out of stuff, especially end of season stuff that’s on 60% clearance. The whole fucking point is to run out, that’s why it’s 60% off. You have to be senile or a moron to not understand that. It also costs a LOT of money to set up non-national advertising, who has the time and money to create a flier personalized for each store, each week? Even if you did, and put those two sets of patio furniture on sale next week, they could be gone by then. Nobody orders more end of season products to put on deep discount, there is always a risk that they will be out of stock.
Although, I do have to take my hat off to the elderly couple who wrangled 60% off 10 pieces of high end patio furniture, just by being a pain in the ass. If I learned how to do that, it would sure stretch my budget.
I know that’s not the official legal definition of “bait and switch” (which I had to know for a class once, but I’ve now long forgotten), but it’s close enough for this analogy.
Which does not apply in this case. Zero is not a quantity. They weren’t out, they never had any and never will have any. That’s dishonest business practices and, while I’m sorry Hung Mung was caught in the middle of it, I’m glad his company was called on their shit.
This just reeks of the idea that shops are meant to be subservient to their customer. It’s bullshit. Shopping, especially when you’re dealing with a particular member of staff, should be a meeting of equals. Until that person does something asshole-ish you don’t treat them like an asshole. Works both ways.
I had a customer today make an unreasonable demand. I explained I couldn’t do that as it was against our policy and gave him our very real reason why we have that policy. I was calm and polite the whole time. He then insists that someone in my store took this action for him less than a month ago. I explain again that this has been our policy for sometime. He insists I can do it.
At this point I barely contain my anger and calmly say “Dave*, I don’t mean to sound rude but I know a bit more about our procedures than you do”
*Not his real name. I used his first name only after he used mine earlier, signaling the level of formality he expected
What I wanted to say to him was “Either you’re trying to bully me into doing what you want against the wishes of those who pay me, or you’re calling me a liar. Neither is going to get you any favors”
Well done to Hung Mung for keeping his cool in the face of irrational customers who think they know more about his job than he does, and for living with asshole managers who refuse to back you when you did what you were paid to do. Glad you kept it for the boards.
ETA:
It’s only dishonest if they said they had one in That store. Not only did they not say that, they specifically said there might not be one in every store. How much more upfront can they get? Take an additional ad out with terms and conditions in bold?
I went to buy a TV from Target a few weeks ago. The one they advertised was not available at the Target I went to. It seems they were out of stock and this was a “sell them all because we’re not carry ingit anymore” sale. So the store put a sign up notifying customers of this discrepancy with their ad and specifying a substitute discount on a similar TV.
That’s what I expect if a store puts out an ad and then doesn’t have the item in stock. It’s only common courtesy to make good (in some way) on an offer your corporate parent expects you to make good on.
No it isn’t. “Sold out” carries with it the implication that you may get more in the future. “We don’t stock it” (coupled with the location of a store that does) is much clearer.
What part of “selection may vary” don’t you understand?
I do think it is funny that the manager’s reward for giving the old farts the deep discount on the not-on-sale items was having more of the Geritol Brigade descend on his store. I despise management who won’t back up their staff.
This will not top bitching about fast food places being too fast, but needs to be said before it goes any further.
Advice to radio talk show callers:
Stop informing us that “I’m a first-time caller”. Do you want a prize? Are you expecting that the host will go easy on you for being a nitwit? We do not care about your virgin caller status.
Do not waste everybody’s time asking the host how he/she is. This might make sense with a chronically ill talk show host like, say, David Brudnoy. But he’s dead and you won’t be calling in to his show anyway. Just get to the point.
What is up with people who start out with “I’ve got a comment and a question.”? Is there some pressing need to classify your appearance in The Big Time according to rules of grammar? If I was the host I’d respond to this with “Good, good. As long as you don’t have any maunderings or ejaculations. This is a family program.”
Thanks, we’ll be sending you a copy of my autobiography “It’s Always Something”. My producer will take down your address, if she isn’t out for coffee.
Yeah Hung Mung, we do have to have mini rants. Sucks your getting bagged on for this one. This is more like a regular one. Just had to share that . Otherwise I got nuthin.
“Selection may vary” is the kind of disclaimer you put on an ad advertising “All DVDs - $5 each!” or something similar. Where the cost/space of listing the 100 or 1000 or 10000 titles the ad would apply to is prohibitive.
In this case, “selection may vary” would apply to different pillow colors or different shades of wicker. It should not mean “We don’t carry this piece of furniture, instead you can buy this similar piece for three times the price.”
Quit pretending that “quantity” is the only word in that sentence.
“Selection” is also a word in that sentence, and it, along with the words “may” and “vary,” means QUITE CLEARLY that the store one is entering may not have the product advertised.
And NO, this does not fall under “bait and switch,” because there were no assurances that the “bait” product would even be there. The old people were not lured into the store on the promise of the “bait” item; in fact, they were specifically told in the ad that the “bait” item might not be there.
People who want a discount (whether monetary or intellectual) for not being able (or worse, too lazy) to fucking read piss me off.
BubbaDog, Are you one of those geriatric fuckers that has nothing better to do than hassle retail folks because you know that you have all day and eventually if you pretend for long enough that you don’t understand what is going on around you you will be given something that you know full fucking well that you don’t have coming to you just to get you to shut up and go away? That is the only thing that I can think that would be behind what seems like willful misunderstanding of a bloody obvious point.
