that guy and emergency soup

Sometimes your retail experience has nothing to do with the store, the staff, their policies or anything other than another patron. 

 

Earlier this week a coworker - who graciously gives me rides home with her and, even better, sometimes takes me to the grocery store on that trip - and I were doing such an errand.  Like all mass merchandisers during the after-work hour the place was busy and so were the lines.  And that’s where we met ‘that guy’.  A suburbanite.  Vaguely European.  Was once what he considered attractive, with, now, slightly too long and slightly too greasy hair, a wardrobe make primarily of fabric ending in ‘lon’ and whatever replaced tear-away pants, and the worst of it – a cell phone stuck to his ear in the on position. 

While he did offer my 10 year-or-so younger acquaintance a jump in the line, he wasn’t willing to do so for both of us.

 

I also have to admit I was totally fascinated by what was in his buggy.  Namely about 204 assorted sized diapers, enough formula mix to feed an orphanage, two tins of beans and several freeze dried meals.   So now I’m both amused and curious.  Other than the fact that he lost control of a box of about 128 diapers at one point which careened our way – is careened the correct word to describe a large, lightweight box covered in pictures of baby asses in motion?  But I digress.  He managed to get all these goods up on the belt one handed and check out and never once stop his phone conversation!  

Now I haven’t had a husband for awhile and I do notice that with the cell phone revolution all husbands, on their own, at the  market are doing their wives shopping by proxy, but they are usually trusted to pay the bill on their own.

And what does this have to do with emergency soup?  Nothing.  I keep a can of so called emergency soup in my cupboards for those nights when life has taken up too much your day and your evening and by the time you get home and are ready to collapse and have zero interest in making or even ordering food, I break out the ‘emergency soup’ which is almost exclusively Campbell Cream of Mushroom or Tomato.  And tonight is one of those nights.

we are never getting together

In my head I’m humming Taylor Swift’s ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ while I write this.

I hate telemarketers… I say hate because abhor doesn’t not cover it.  In fact I pay $8 a month to avoid speaking to them, which, the more I think about it, the angrier I get.

So in my real life I do inside sales, which is to say a large part of my job is to talk on the phone.  The other large part of it is to convince people to part with large sums of money - although not their own - but perhaps of their own budget.  So this should make me empathetic to the plight of the average telemarketer, but I’m not. 

Business to business solicitation is one thing.  Bugging me at home, during the precious time of a day that I’m not at work or asleep, is another thing.  Especially since I’ve signed up for the Do Not Call list for this exact reason.  And routinely do not answer your calls.  And now I’m upset again.

I’m not the only one.  Marketplace ran a segment on this subject recently.  In answer to the pleas of ‘leave me alone’ in this segment, it turns out that some companies use cheaper off shore companies to solicit for them and they fail to abide by the Do Not Call list.  In fact they are a large part of the problem.  Since we can’t complain to the mostly useless Better Business Bureau, we’re stuck with the ring, ring, ring every night.

Recently I purchased a mattress at Sears, as part of the transaction I agree to be phoned the day before and shortly prior to the delivery.  Sears called twice, both times from a blocked number.  The delivery service called just before they arrived, their business name and number showed up on my call display.  A prize to who can guess which call I took in person.  But it begged the question of why Sears, a huge North American general retailer, did not identify themselves when calling a customer, particularly when consent was given.

In my mind it comes down to this one simple issue.  Clearly this works, companies would not continue to spend advertising and marketing dollars on methods that don’t work, so who goes for it?  And why?

I strongly believe in voting with your dollars, and so now I’m in a pickle about a company that I just received decent service from, in large part because of a blocked number.

As an aside, as I was writing this evening, The Carrie Diaries was on, which, set in the 80’s, had a scene dealing with white lies using telemarketers as an example of when it might be OK to tell as LWL.  It reminded me of the days before call display.  How DID we manage?!

So since I only know the chorus to this pop song, I will end with a little ditty to all telemarketers who persist.  After calling me 20 or more times take the hint… we are never, ever, ever, getting together.

boxing day not spar-ing day

American’s have Black Friday and Canadians have Boxing Day.  The day everyone escapes the forced confinement, of 1 single day with family and flees to the mall to shop for bargains… after spending furiously just a few days before for Christmas.  Not that I’m judging.

For those who work retail, it’s the day before the day you have a breakdown from working too many long hours, too many days in a row to make enough money to get a decent sized commission cheque in January.

As a kid I never experience Boxing Day as the family budget was beyond stretched by Christmas to participate.  As a working teen most of my jobs, mercifully, chose to avoid the sales and it wasn’t until I started working as a young adult that I discovered Boxing Day.  From that first experience I came to a very firm decision to save several of my very hard earned vacation days to be able to avoid these days.  And it was a high cost.

Now that I work in an office I sometimes get a thought in my head that I might want to venture out for a few post holiday deals, and then I get to the mall, turn around and leave.

Full disclosure – mostly because I really wanted to write ‘full disclosure’ – I still get retail related panic attacks when the mall is full and I know I have to do my holiday shopping.

And further disclosure, it really sticks in my craw that I don’t get to participate in the great deals.  But losing limb, life and possibly even sanity for discounts really seems over the top and so I stay home.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love shopping.  I’m fond of the mall, and department stores – I like that ‘everything-under-one-roof’ concept.  And I love a sale. In fact I miss the days when as a store clerk I could peruse the sales racks before the store opened and, with the benefit of befriending my fellow colleagues, could stash a few choices behind the counter for later retrieval   So this year I braved it.  And made it to one store and then went home and had a stiff drink.

What I hate, is the people.  More specifically the mentality of people when they gather in a large group - seemingly to stand collectively in my way while I try to walk between stores.

My yield?  3 pairs of Second Yoga jeans - which really should be tried on by all.  The cost?  A few more liver cells as I enjoyed that stiff drink.

And some confidence restored.  So much so that I might brave the discount bra event at my favourite ‘secret’ place tomorrow.