Customer Service with a smile?

Maybe I am the ultimate optimist, but I figure that maybe if I lead by example that other people may catch on. The night before last is an example.

I had some grocery shopping to do, and I knew that I had to buy a lot of stuff and I was going to use rebates and coupons for it. So what did I do? I went late at night because I know that there will be less people in the store during this time. So I trot my way up to my local grocery store and get my buggy and start shopping. I filled that sucker up, I mean over the top full! As I checked over my list to make sure I had gotten everything I was making my way up to the check out register. Since I knew that I had coupons and rebates to use I was looking for a regular check out with a cashier, not a self-check out. I catch the attention of one of the managers and he motions for this kid to open a register and tells me to go to that register. So here I am with this huge buggy full of stuff and I do what I think is the nice thing and I laid my rebates and coupons on top of the items they pertain to. Well the check out dude doesn’t quite get it. So how collects all of the coupons and stacks them up while he proceeds to continue checking me out. Which I knew was the start of a bad thing. Well “Mr. Personality” looks at me and goes, “oh you got coupons!?” Well good morning to you too sunshine, time to wake up and get started with your day huh? So he looks at the rebates and says “I don’t know what to do with these” and he’s talking to me, like I fucking work there. So I told him to run them threw his machine and take that amount off of my bill. It was at this point that I heard the six words that everyone hates to here, “Need a manager on isle 8”. He has to have this manager show him how to do it. The manager guy was pretty cool and said they are going to need the products back that pertain to the coupons because they have to ring them up that way or something like that. I begin to take the items back out of the buggy when he says he thinks he can get around that. He is typing on the cash register like he is writing his memoirs or something. So I ask him if he needs the items or not and he lets me know that he can get around it. So he is talking to me indirectly but acts like he is talking to Gomer the cashier and says “Ideally you should get the coupons before you total everything up”, at this point I interjected that I had laid all of the coupons on the items they go to and had intentionally grouped all of the like items together for that reason and that he just collected them. Don’t be sarcastic in front of the guy who gives new meaning to the word. It was at this point that I considered asking them if they would bag each item separately (oh yes, I have done that and oh yes they will bag them that way). But I reframed. So as clean up on isle three boy is processing all of the coupons he turns to the lady behind me, who had just walked up, and says “It’s going to be a while, he has a lot of these”. You know, I am amazed I didn’t just bitch slap him until he started to speak fluent German. So I kindly (yeah right) say “yep, it will take a while unless you want to give me the value of those in cash”. The lady behind me chuckled but check out boy didn’t find it funny, wonder why. You know, he was acting like this money was coming out of his damn check or something. It’s not my fault that he doesn’t have a skill that someone would pay more than minimum wage for. So anyway, after several minutes we are done, saved $75, damn sure well worth it. So Mr. Go Get the buggies out of the parking lot says “Hey Cindy (manager in the area) what do I do with these?” She walks over and looks at them, says they are checks and he should treat them just like checks. She tells him, which means indirectly telling me, that she knows they are a pain to deal with. At which time I spoke up oh so clearly and let them know that I just saved $75 dollars so it was all worth it which was accompanied with a “I dare you to say something” look.

Here is my gripe, I purposely went in the middle of the night (almost 11:00) so that my rebates would not be a big deal and I still got crap over it. Seriously, when is the store going to be more dead than middle of the night on a Monday night? I am even the guy who puts thing back where they belong when I realize I got to many, the wrong kind or changed my mind. I thought I was doing the courteous thing. Well screw that.

They think it was a pain this time? You have not seen a pain yet. I was sure to let them know when I was leaving that next time I will be back with more coupons on double/triple coupon days. And I think I will need to have every item double bagged individually. And I will be sure to go up there with a shit load of coupons about 1:00 on Saturday afternoons too.