Retail Hell Underground

RHUer Does Creative Retail Hell Merchandising

From JohnnyBob: Went to two different Borders today.  Snapped a few pics for everyone...Yes, I moved copies of the book here... but the other two titles were already there...

Looks familiar...

#99 applies here... {If you don't understand, rush out to Borders and get a copy.}

Peace  --JohnnyBob

JohnnyBob: The Cuss in Customer Service

Bang your head here.

I've had yet another "great" customer service experience over the phone...

The company I chose for cable and phone is three letters long, ends with an X and sounds like another word for a group of penises.

The name fits them perfectly. I tried to get a problem resolved on the phone today. After pressing ONE for the phone menu to keep speaking English... I navigated through the menus to my specific problem and then had to verify by pushing buttons that I was calling from the same phone number that robo-voice had detected and that the address and account number which they had on file for this number was correct.

Okay... this seemed easy enough.

After that I got stuck on muzak hold for fifteen minutes listening to Spanish songs (that is not a problem, but still made we wonder why I had to choose a language...).

Finally, Chipper Gal answered the call and began with her list of questions... which included repeating all of the information which robo-voice had correctly read to ME only minutes earlier...

A year ago my wife moved before I did. "I" set up all the utilities in the new apartment under her name. "I" set them up. This was because she had to be here to let the serviceman in.

Well, the previously used, dirty, and scratched DVR they delivered to us has finally had a hard drive crash. I called for a repairman. They told me I can have it fixed this week - or I can drive 20 minutes across town and have it replaced today.

How is that again?

They keep breaking into my basketball games to advertise guaranteed SAME DAY service installation, but can't have one of those guys in the vans which are always parked outside my building knock on the door and swap out a DVR today?

I get it... new customers are important, but keeping the old customers isn't.

We have to wait a week or drive across town.

Then they told me that "I" could not do so - my wife has to.

Buh? My name is not on the bill, so I am not a responsible party.

Let me get this straight... I can call and create an account using somebody else's information and name... they will deliver the equipment to this person who was not me... I can rack up pay-for-view charges... I can pay the bill on time every month under my own name...but I can't get the equipment repaired because I am not a responsible party?

I used one of my saves and phoned my wife at work. She called PENISES and tried to add me to the account. They would not allow her to add me because she did not know the PIN for the account which I had set up - but did tell her that is on the monthly statement (she *would* have guessed it correctly if she had even tried).

So... the PIN is included as security verification on the monthly statement for the cable service of a person who was not me to begin with.

Yeah... that is security...

Better: I signed up for PAPERLESS billing and pay electronically... we do not receive a statement. I was forced to sign onto the internet account to find the PIN by clicking on a view of the bill in PDF... Yeah, secure is the word.

They do not even require a PIN to access a document which contains the PIN that the rest of the site keeps asking for...

So, here I am: bored and home alone - unable to even queue up "skin"emax to pass the time. Maybe I'll phone Chipper Gal back and talk dirty to her while the mariachi bands play softly in the background.

Robo-voice might know who I am, but she won't.

Peace --- JohnnyBob 

JohnnyBob's Name Tag Acessory

At a computer use your smartphone and a barcode reader app to scan the red area of the nametag.

{All the rage in Japan and in advertising - make your own codes at http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ or other similar sites.}

 Peace! --- JohnnyBob

 

Grocery Store Blizzard

In case you missed the memo, it has been snowing everywhere lately. Twice in the past month the news curmudgeons have sounded a BMET alert for BLIZZARD 2010!

For those of you not in the know, that stands for Bread, Milk, Eggs, & Toilet Paper. Supposedly these items clear off the shelves of the grocery stores whenever a blizzard approaches.

Could there be any connection between paranoia inducing news reporting and the actual shortages… you decide.

My wife decided that we needed chex mix ingredients to weather out the 2^nd storm, so there I was at the store.

As I was walking in, there were no normal carts to be found. I could have taken one which was shaped like an alligator or racecar – or even rented one that plays music videos for the kids!

Instead, I walked right out of the store and offered to take another customer’s cart back into the store.

After a leprous look I was rewarded with a three wheeled wonder.

I pushed it past a throng of people who were confused as to where I had found one – including a mother who tried to guilt me into giving it up.

Yeah, right – go rent the Barney cart!

Nothing quite like a frozen beverage to keep you warm when the power goes out and you are nibbling on your uncooked Tombstone.

I watched in awe as one guy actually reached into somebody else’s cart and took out a gallon of milk.

That resulted in an amusing episode when he tried to lie his way out of it claiming he had simply reached into the wrong cart. No fight, no blood, end of floor show.

The kid running the checkout lane I ended up in was likely given a field promotion from cleaning toilets that very morning.

It took 47 minutes for him to help the 5 people ahead of me in line.

One bitchhole was demanding that her shoebox full of coupons be taken off after the sale was tendered.

The poor kid struggled with what to do since she refused to listen to him.

The rest of us would have likely taken up a monetary collection to give her just to shut her up and have her go to customer service like she had been told. 

My groceries were eventually scanned and bagged with the skill I expected.

Oven cleaner packed with bread, cans packed on top of eggs, and every bag packed too tight to get my hand through both handles.

I smiled… paid… and left with my free headache.

Peace --- JohnnyBob

  

Shopping Cart Purgatory

 "Ingenious! A residence challenged tailgater!" -- JohnnyBob

Self Serve Checkout Hell

Self-service checkouts.

This idea was dreamed up in the bowels of some corporate entity who insanely believes that customers actually WANT to be their own cashier. They tell us that it relieves the workload on a cashier as well! Yeah... right... Now one cashier is responsible for 4 to 8 lines rather than one. Who sees the problem here? Raise your hand... don't be shy... anyone? anyone?

This afternoon I stopped by a local grocery store to pick up the absolutely necessary 12pk of Diet Coke that my lovely wife had texted me to pick up. I had already left work, but was apparently not free of retail hell for the day. After parking 2.5 miles from the store's entrance, I dodged soccer moms in oversized suvs and made my way through the maze of free-range shopping carts to the front door.

I was in luck! There, right by the door, was a giant display of Coke 12pks. I picked up two and made a beeline for the checkout. There were 20 lanes, but only two cashiers open. No problem... I easily fit into the category of  "12 items or less".

Unfortunately, so did a line of about 20 other people. That is when I eyed the self-service checkouts and switched lines. Mistake. Mistake. Mistake.

Of the six self-serve lines, only two were working. One lane had a man buying a cartload of green vegetables... slowly searching through the multiple screens and trying to figure out if he had muskmellon or honeydew. That looked hopeless, so I thanked the retail gods that I was in the other line.

That is when I noticed the problems that the she-demon ahead of me was having with her checkstand. Along with swearing and slamming of merchandise she kept locking up the machine... or should I say that her demon spawn was doing so.

You see, these devices require you to put your items into the bagging area so they can be weighed... they are not meant to weigh kids. A poor clerk had to keep running over to key in override codes. THEN the coupons came out... and the clerk had to run back over for each one. Meanwhile, veggie man was trying to figure out if he had baby carrots or petite carrots...

Finally, I got to the checkout. I scanned my soft drinks and tendered my sale. In and out of the checkstand in under 30 seconds. In and out of the store... in 30 minutes.

Hopefully Jiffy Lube won't start asking me to change the oil myself and still pay full price. 

Peace - JohnnyBob.

Stacked Shopping Cart

Sent in from JohnnyBob who added: "Second runner up in the annual "Residence Challenged Individual" personal possession stacking contest."

How To Annoy the Technical Support Center

Some of us deal with customers as well as idiots from our own companies.

Here is list from Lisa of her coworker's main gripes:

Enjoy -- JohnnyBob

Don't write anything down. Ever. We can play back the error messages from here.

When the support person says he's going to fix the problem and will have to call you back, go for coffee. That way you won't be there when he calls you back and then call back angry that the resolution left on the answering machine did not fix the problem.

When you call, state what you want, not what's keeping you from getting it. We don't need to know that you can't get into your software because your computer won't power on at all.

When support sends you an E-Mail with high importance, delete it at once. We're just testing.

Send urgent email all in uppercase. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.

When the photocopier doesn't work, call support. There's electronics in it.

When a support person tells you that the return was never sent, argue. We love a good argument.

When the printer won't print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes. Be sure to tell us how easily you could do this last year with your old printer.

When the printer still won't print after 20 tries, send the job to all 68 printers in the company. One of them is bound to work.

Don't learn the proper term for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by "My thingy blew up".

Don't use on-line help. On-line help is for wimps.

When calling to check a return be sure to tell us just the name and do not have the SSN readily available because we only have 26,000 customers with millions of returns that pass through our servers.

Please email us your return so that we may complete it for you. We have nothing better to do on April 10th.

If the email does not work DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT check to see if you are connected to the internet. Because email has no affiliation with the internet connections.

When transmitting your returns to us be sure to send them from every computer in your office to facilitate speed and accuracy.

We understand that once you touch the computer keyboard you are instantaneously awarded Summa Cum Laude for networking.

When you place a CD into the cup holder don’t bother checking to see if there’s coffee already there.

Please, scream into the phone. We are testing our ability to withstand multi-decibel ranges in sound.

Don’t forget to call us every nasty name you can think of. Part of our evaluation includes counting the number of animal names our clients are able to utilize. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE....

Swine Flu and Retail Hell

More on the piggies from JohnnyBob:

I have discovered that swine flu is a management problem.

Yes, it was caused by upper management kissing pigs in all of those quota contests and charity drives!

There was such a similarity in hosts that the virus had NO PROBLEM making the transition.

Unfortunately, it was the poor pigs who were the victims in the early cross-infections and they, much like hourly staff, receive all of the blame.

Yes, you CAN put lipstick on a pig... but stockings with garters is taking it a bit too far!

Yes, evolution is taking a dangerous path... here is what is happening to management and it is happening at a pace where we can easily track it! 

From there it passes on through the secondary transmission method of ass-kissing the customers.

This creates the piggy-hybrids which we are all so familiar with from straightening our departments!

They are cute at first, but eventually they get larger and scarier... Just ask Cosmo Kramer:

Yes, it is an evil path we are all on! 

Run for the hills, folks unless you want to wind up looking like this:

 

 

SHEESH! EVERYBODY GET A GRIP! Act in a responsible manner if you get sick!

Stay home for a day or two, throw your kleenex into a trashcan (not a shopping cart) and stop your paranoid delusional hoarding of hand sanitizer!

When pigs get sick we don't give them kleenex and a remote control to tune in CNN. They get an injection and stay in their own filth.

As the condom commercial says: EVOLVE!

Stay away from the rest of us for a day or two and practice hygiene!

Peace (and Health) -- JohnnyBob

Piggy Flu Lament

Our friend JohnnyBob is fed up with the swine:

I've used up all of my sickdays. I'm calling in "dead".

What? I have to bring a note in for that too? Can I at least wear a mask like Michael Jackson does?

 

Ah, the smell of spring is in the air. Birds are singing... mosquitos are buzzing...but the news of the day is piggies.

Yes, swine flu! All of the piggies are buying our stores out of hand sanitizer and face masks. These same people who will eventually call off from work, got bored at home, and resort to retail therapy because they don't have enough sense to stay home!

 

You see... west nile virus got them to spray with DEET.

Avian flu got them to slaughter millions of chickens and burn the carcasses.

Lyme disease got them to leave the parks and visit stores instead.

Mad cow? I won't discuss that one.

The very second sniffles start, the piggies will bombard our stores for OTC remedies half a dozen times before they think about visiting their doctors.

 

We are now left with a disease that proves a link between the 4 legged piggies and the 2 legged variety. This has resulted in the WHO trying desperately to get us to start calling it something else. They want to avoid slaughter!

"Sorry boss, that piggy coughed at me... it was necessary to dispose of it."

 

Below is a photo of a scene that shows that we need to take action NOW! Kleenex? NO... Filthynex! Take full advantage of those "complimentary" wipe stations that a lot of stores now have by their shopping carts.

 

Peace --- JohnnyBob

Drinking the Windshield Wiper Fluid

As some unlucky children were being served Windshield Wiper Fluid for their afternoon Kool Aid cocktail (CLICK HERE FOR STORY), JohnnyBob was taken down Retail Hell memory lane. He recalled this tale of customer stupidity:

Around 20 years ago an old lady loaded up her shopping cart with 2 for $1 gallons of washer fluid and brought it up to the register where I was working.

She kept referring to it as "blue juice". I rang her up and was ready to tender the sale when she asked me if I knew what flavor it was.

I gave her my best "you gotta be shitting me!" look and told her... "SOAP."

 

She gave me a blank stare. I told her  "SOAP. It is for cleaning windshields."

"Why is it in the freezer then?"

She still bought it.

I went back and looked.

Some enterprising young assistant manager had made a display next to the ice in the freezer:

DON'T LET OLD MAN WINTER CATCH YOU COLD!

It was an interesting display with ice scrapers and bags of salt. We wondered for months if the lady actually drank any of it...

Now we know she is alive and well and running a daycare from her house.

 

Peace -- JohnnyBob

Chad Vadar - Day Shift Manager

Some classic YouTube retail humor sent to us from Johnny Bob. Surprisingly, we never posted this before. It's most awesome.

Circuit City RIP

From RHU Contributor Johnny Bob:
"Here are two pics I took at the local store. Sign, sign, everywhere a sign - but what do they REALLY mean?"

Retail maybe hell sometimes, but damn, these store closings are scary. We hope people get out and buy shit soon!

Johnny Bob's Shopping Cart Rant

I have spent many years driving around after work on my personal time picking up all of the

shopping carts which people have liberated from our parking lot.  It is not a task I enjoy, but at around $100 each new - I have to keep doing it in order to earn a bonus from not having expenses climb.  It doesn't matter if the style is the same - if the cart has the markings of the chain I work for... it is MINE for having found it.  Old, new, plastic, metal --- as long as the wheels still turn I grab 'em and bring them back to the store.

 

One time I actually liberated six of my carts from a 99cent store! There were about 30 carts in the store and NONE of them matched that business. As I pushed them out of the store I was threatened with police action for theft.

"BRING IT ON!" was my response, knowing perfectly well which one of us would really be facing a ride downtown. They grabbed the carts, I flashed my nametag and opened up my cellphone. They backed down. BITCHES! Oddly enough the next time I went into that store, all of the carts had been stripped of any identifying markings and had their store's name painted on the bare metal handles with nail polish.

Another place that carts tend to vanish to is construction sites. The workers tend to steal 'em and use them to transport their tools around. Afterwards, the carts are loaded with trash and tossed into dumpsters.

I actually had security called on me once as I performed a dive to grab one of my carts. I was trespassed by the guard. Fine. Ten minutes later I had the police there since I could see two more of my carts inside of the building. I got my $300 worth of carts back, but the cops refused to write any tickets. They were probably all members of the same donut fraternity at Dunkin's.

 

Driving home the other day I saw a flock of ignoramus maximus redneckicus pushing a cart down the road, across a street, and past a police officer. WTF? Theft in progress there, Five-O! Grab a taser and send a few thousand volts into their nutsacks! How about I just jump into a squadcar and drive it home the next time I don't feel like walking! How would you like explaining to your Sarge why you are placing a third order for a police car this year? How would you like having to drive all over town AFTER your shift looking for squadcars to tow back to the station - and do it with your own car? IF THEY ARE OUT OF THE PARKING LOT, IT IS THEFT!

 

Yes, there are locking wheels on some carts. No, it is not free and actually can double the price of the cart itself! Then there are repairs to the system itself. If they don't like having wheels lock up as you leave the lot? SIMPLE! They drive a nail into the wire! Making the store have to replace that wire! There are also the morons who "think" they are doing you a favor by pushing carts to the median strips around the lot rather than taking the carts to the corrals like good little monkeys. THANKS BRAINIAC! You just locked the wheel as you crossed that yellow line. THANKS! THANKS!

 

With all that being said, I would like to extend a big FUCK YOU! to the writers and actors of the show Jackass who have inspired a new generation of cocksuckers like this one:

You KNOW he just leaves that cart at the bottom of that hill rather than push it back to his truck!

I hope that he eventually hits his head and has to spend his remaining years in a nursing home being sodomized by a nursing home attendant who has genital warts and a lisp.

THIS IS WAR! You are all drafted and encouraged to yell "HEY DUMBASS! FUCK OFF!"

every time you see a misappropriated cart. It is them against us until the cops wise up!

 

Peace --- Johnny Bob