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April 22nd, 2008 |
What the Hell?I don't make a habit of ranting about people who work in Retail. I did it myself for over 3 years, and I know how thankless and unrewarding it can be. Still, this just put me over the top...
Trish and I were out running errands tonight, which happened to bring us near a Canadian Tire store. Given that I need to get new tires for my car soon, I decided to check on pricing. I need 205/50R16s, which aren't incredibly common.
I headed to the Automotive Department, where a single employee was standing behind the Customer Service counter. The conversation that followed, though brief, pretty much floored me.
"I'd like to get a price on some tires." I asked.
The 'Cashier' (since she clearly was not 'Customer Service') took a deep breath and paused. "I don't really know anything about tires. I mean, I can look them up on the computer, but I'd rather you talk to somebody else."
WHAT THE HELL? You work in the Automotive section, of Canadian Tire. Shouldn't knowing -something- about tires be more or less a prerequisite? And aside from that, "I'd rather you talk to somebody else"? I'm sorry, that's just downright unacceptable - especially when she was the only employee in the department. Every now and then when I was working at Radio Shack, I'd come across a question I couldn't answer. It happens to everyone. But the answer was always "that's not really my area of expertise, but if you'd like to wait a moment I can get someone else to help you out with that." It takes maybe a whole minute to do, and the customer actually feels, oh, important?
Long story short, I left the store quite promptly afterwards. Ok, I'm done ranting now.