~Saturday~ I woke up at 10:59, and I was happy to turn off my alarm that I thought was going to screech at 11:00, but it was actually set for 11:30. A quiet—less harsh—start to the day at any rate.
I stopped by K-Mart on my way to the gym to either get that discount applied to those two cases of 25 CDs that wasn’t applied when I bought them or to return them if they wouldn’t apply it, and it OMG, I almost blew out an artery there.
When I walked up to the customer service desk, the cashier was helping someone. She finished up his transaction and then said, “May I help you?” And what follows is the multitasking sequence of events, which I’m sure made her feel like super-employee, but annoyed the pure shit out of me:
- She called the electronics department to verify that they were supposed to be $7.99 each instead of $15.99 each.
- While on hold with them, she took a call waiting, and said, “Just a minute.”
- Putting that person on hold, she announced over the intercom, “Manager, long distance on 4, please.”
- Another employee walked up and asked her for a newspaper ad flier, which she proceeded to look around for around and under the counter, not finding, and then pointing the asking employee to one “over by register one.”
- She picked back up on the holding call to electronics, and I thought she still didn’t get the information she needed, as she did not then proceed with my transaction.
- Instead she acknowledged the person standing behind me in line, who turned out to be the customer she’d helped before me and whose order she evidently hadn’t rung up correctly. She proceeded to credit his account and re-charge the correct amount.
- A man stood by the customer service desk displaying an IBM badge, and he interrupted to ask her if the person just coming in (as opposed to going out) was the one who had set off the theft alarm, and she took time to explain that, yes, that was correct as she’d taken some merchandise out there with her that she hadn’t paid for yet to do some sidewalk shopping. He said, “Oh, I didn’t even notice there was merchandise out there.”
Okay, at this point, I was about this close to SHIFTING INTO UPPERCASE on this woman and saying, “With all due respect for the multitasking, I’m going to ask you to please COMPLETE MY TRANSACTION BEFORE YOU DO ONE OTHER THING.”
- Just then, that other co-worker came back and handed her a stack of twenty-dollar bills from one of the other cash registers. “You can’t come back here?” she said to her. “No, I can’t,” the other girl answered as she turned over the stack, which she proceeded to put in the register.
- Then she said to me, “You were right, they are $7.99 each,” which told me that she had this information all the way back to step 5 above. I was seething. She started the cash register sequence to credit my account $15.99 plus tax, and then said, “Shit!”
- She spoke into the phone and over the loud speakers came, “Manager to the front for an over-ring.” He sauntered to the front and turned some key and put in some code twice, once for each set of CDs.
Twenty minutes after stopping in for a five-minute transaction, I left. Not a good customer experience.
At the gym, I did 45 minutes of cardio work on the elliptical machine for an 825-calorie burn. Shosheshez.
At home, Kevin (av8rdude) and I headed downtown, where I worked on my blog at Helios while he worked out at Rapid Fitness.
Kevin met his friend Kurt out for dinner from about 6:00 until 8:00, and I took advantage of the opportunity to nap.
We met Joe at Flex at 9:30, and the three of us walked over to The Borough for a few drinks, after which we made our way to Flex, where it was Miss Hunny Bear Pageant night. Don’t ask. I don’t know. I didn’t even pay attention.
Not being into it, I was ready to head home at a little after midnight, and Kevin dropped me off at my house and headed back downtown to Legends, where he really belongs.