A summary, for those of you too shiftless, witless or debased to click the link.
Contractor goes into Home Despot.
Contractor’s customer picks up a pencil. A Home Despot Property pencil.
He hands it to contractor, who absent-mindedly pockets it.
He is stopped, accused of being a shoplifter, & handed a letter banning him from Home Despot store worldwide. Forever. For “stealing” a pencil. :rolleyes: Peachy…
DOG HUMPERS! TOAD FUCKERS! PONY FANCIERS!
The KGB has gotten into the home decor industry.
Floggings for all Home Despot personnel. Immediately.
Good thing I wasn’t too shiftless, witless, or debased to click the link, or I might not have noticed that Home Depot eventually issued a written apology for thee gross stupidity of their employees in this incident. Granted, they should never have let things get to that point anyway, but still.
I used to work as a cashier, and deeply resented the fact that we had to bring our own pens for the customers to use at the cash register. I could count on losing two or three each night, no matter how careful I tried to watch to see that it was returned. When you’re earning only a little above minimum wage, buying a pack of pens per week to basically give away is irksome.
I bet the cashier just blew a gasket, having had one too many pens snatched that day, and sicced the dogs on him. Doesn’t make it right, of course.
Why in the world do you care if there are pens for the customer? If management thinks providing pens is good for business, then they will supply them. Not your problem.
It was my problem. We were required to bring pens. Every shift, we were supposed to bring two pens, but, in practice, two was never enough, and if your last pen was pinched, you’d have to borrow one from one of the managers who would bitch at you, “Didn’t you bring any pens?” Then when you protested that you had, they’d look at you like you were a liar.
I once tried tying a string to my pen so no one could walk away with it, and actually got yelled at for it. The manager said it looked bad, like I couldn’t trust the customers not to steal my pen-- well, I couldn’t!
I’m sure the company saved loads of cash with that rule. But it was the kind of company that would try to shave a nickle wherever they could, whether it pissed off the customers or not-- the employees weren’t even a remote consideration.
Why should he go back to Home Depot? I assume there’s a Lowe’s in Methuen, Massachusetts where they don’t treat their customers like criminals. Laugh and move on, certainly, but I don’t see any reason to return to that store.
Home Depot Corporate got this right. Home Depot Methuen didn’t. Whether it was some stressed out cashier, or some rules-nazi manager, their stupidity was overwhelming. I don’t blame the carpenter for never shopping at that location again. However, this should not be taken as a reflection of Home Depot, the organization, or even of other locations. (Granted, stupidity is universal and it is possible to encounter this ignorance wherever one goes; the carpenter should be careful with pencils wherever he goes in the future.)
That’s a ridiculous policy. And everyone put up with it? I worked at a freaking Wal-Mart for a time, and even the Evil Empire provided pens for the cashiers.