crabby

[rant]

so it's official, school's out and summer's here. you know how i could tell? i did a few errands on my lunch break today and all the local retail establishments have their summer teen workers crews out. you know, the ones that have NO IDEA WHAT CUSTOMER SERVICE IS.

okay, so i'm a little picky about the customer service thing. i have had many, many retail jobs and in all of them, there were high expectations in the customer service department, thank god. i became a conscientious 'salesman', even if i sucked at the sales part of the job title. it also gave me an expectation of a basic level of how i want to be treated when i am the customer. for example, if you have a shop that is about the size of my living room, and i come in and look around for about 15 minutes without being greeted or asked if i need help or even having my presence acknowledge in any way, chances are i won't come back because you don't deserve my hard earned money.

so back to today. i went to the gap because they were having a sale. yes, when i'm paying $15 for a pair of pants on sale, maybe attention from sale people is too much to expect. but i would like it if you spoke more than three word sentences to me. i would also like it if i didn't have to hunt you down to get a little help.

i then went to the local pharmacy to get a problem with an rx of brian's straightened out. this was the highlight of my day. even tho the problem was complicated and involved many phone calls to the insurance company, the employees there followed through and even called me to tell me everything was taken care of and the prescription was ready. guess who is going to get some cookies delivered to them as a thank you on monday?

i forgot to pack a lunch, so i went to a local eatery to get a sandwich and chips. i asked the guy behind the counter (when he actually acknowledged that i was waiting for help) for the sandwich of my choice. by the stare i got you would have thought i had asked him to make me a nuclear submarine to go. sandwich guy then went to the sandwich preparing area to get the bread, and then turned to me to ask me again what i wanted with that? yeah, um, mayo and lettuce only dude. do you want me to write it down?

i could cite a few more examples, but i think you get the picture. maybe everyone in the universe was having a bad day yesterday and i should just let it go. it was some kind of customer service black hole harmonic convergence thing. what ev.

[/rant]