I was looking at a bookcase and it had no price on it and there were only two clerks in the whole store, which covers at least 550,000 acres. I looked at a garden trellis, but it had no price and there was one girl in that department dealing with a lady who wanted money back because the manager told her at the other branch that something was on sale. There was this usual “popular” music playing but just as I would get into that swinging, finger-snapping mood and start humming the tune, it would stop and a voice would say something unintelligible. As I looked at a small garden fence with no price tag on it, loud beeping sounds came along and it was an indoor vehicle moving boxes. These were all over the place. Two aisles full of merchandise also unmarked were closed off with orange nets. I was interested in how a model fence outside was priced and whether it was put together or not, but there was no information and nobody around. I finally left and complained within myself that again somehow I had parked by the In door but you can only go out the Out door which is on the other side, which is five miles from the entrance. Once when admiring how nice the African violets always looked in this store, I asked how do they do so well without any light? And the lady said they keep getting new ones! This means they just throw the waning ones away when they could be lighting them and taking care of them.
My main questions are 1) Why don’t any stores, not just the lumber ones, put any pricetags on anything? 2) Why don’t any stores have anybody to ask about anything anymore?
3) Why don’t any stores have anybody to check people out?
(The store I was in had 18 checkout aisles and only one was open). 4) Why bother with music playing away when you’re just going to interrupt it every few seconds? 5) Why isn’t there a Society Against Cruelty to Plants?
I assume the answer to my first 3 questions and the fifth is that they think they are saving money. This store I was in was kind of a mess with places where the merchandise was in need of being piled back up or something, so I guess they save money on not taking care of what they have as well as on not knowing what they have. But my real question is this situation never changes, so I must be the only person who cares, So I must be asking why am I the only one who cares? Why am I the only one who if there is a line when I want to check out I just leave things and go?
Well I’d like to say I do and I have, but most of the time I just wait with the other sheep. 6) Why are we called a service economy when there was more service in the 40’s?
7) Why were there no real bargains in this store when they had signs all over saying how reasonable everything was, when nothing was? Signed, In A Bad Mood Today Maybe It Wouldn’t Have Mattered Yesterday And What Mood Improving Vitamin Do I Need?
Um, Don, now you know how we feel after marching through this incredibly long OP. (grin, sort of)
Actually, I imagine service was pretty crappy in the 40’s. There was a war going on for half the decade.
All I want is a price scanner (many of the big-box retailers do have them, often in obscure places), as nothing is individually price labeled (and rarely shelf labeled). That said, our ‘Depots’ around here are usually decently staffed with floor personnel (who are suprisingly helpful, even though they are constantly harried by customers).
K-marts around here are pushing their self-checkout system - anyone try it?
And just to be a pain, Service economy refers to the fact that most of us US workers don’t manufacturer/mine/timber/harvest [tangible goods], but instead handle information (FIRE - Finance, Insurance, Real Estate), intangible goods (Software, News, Entertainment), and customer-based transactions (uh… service).
Doesn’t mean the quality of customer service has gone up at all.
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It’s easier and less error-prone to put bar codes on everything. That also helps the store when they want to raise…err, change…prices: they just reprogram the cash registers with the new price, saving the time and materials it would take to re-tag everything.
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Because it’s hard for stores to find prospective employees who actually know anything. One of the big disadvantages to a good economy and low unemployment is that even incompetent people can find jobs
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I think stores put in a bunch of checkout aisle that they never intend to staff, simply to have space to display all the impulse items
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One of life’s mysteries, indeed.
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I don’t know, but it’s a good idea to me. Why should we be eating noble artichokes and cauliflower when there are plenty of perfectly stupid cows and turkeys to eat? (Put your flame-thrower away, I’m not serious here.)
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See the answer to #2.
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They’re only bargains compared to what the store COULD have charged, I guess. I’m not sure a vitamin would help, but I find that a couple of shots of scotch or a margarita (or two) are good post-frustration medicines.