Entirely Adequate

You’re the manager of a big-box home improvement store and the economy’s hit bottom. Do you cut employee hours across the board, so much so that potential customers can find no one to take their money?

It looks like you do.

I spent 20 minutes in the appliances section of a huge home improvement store yesterday, waiting with another lady who kept pressing the “please come sell me something” button to no avail. I had the exact make and model of the appliance I wanted in hand, on a printout given to me a few weeks earlier by one of the store’s employees. All I needed was for someone to order the appliance and charge a large amount of money to my credit card.

But no. The section of the store in which NOTHING is priced UNDER $500 and most everything is priced OVER $1200 was completely unstaffed on a Sunday afternoon.

What’s funny is that the OTHER big-box home improvement store had already pulled a similar stunt with me and my remodeling dollars several weeks before.

I’m not begging anybody to take my money. If showing up is half the battle, you guys LOSE.

What a boon for the local mom-and-pop stores that have survived the competition. I bet bad customer service experiences get more people through their doors than anything else.

Every appliance in my kitchen is going to have to be replaced in the next couple of years. It’s very handy to have a list of the stores that don’t really want to sell me anything.