When I was a teenager, Armageddon arrived three times yearly, when my mother took me clothes shopping. This entailed bloody screaming matches over midriff-revealing tops, rugbys advertising their own makers on the front and bathing suits sporting apertures in the most unlikely of locations.
Chief among these war crimes of atrocity was the "Crotch Check." Mother kneels before Child and makes a sort of slicing motion through the crotchal area to check for space. Mother then asks Child, "Is there enough room in the crotch?" at a decibel level rivaling that of a dozen cannons firing at a pack of stampeding elephants with short-circuiting boom boxes strapped to their backs.
Eventually, Heaven took pity on me: I got my driver's license and Crotch Checks blessedly became a thing of the past. But shopping these days is just as frustrating and almost as insulting as those moments of utter dread in the dressing rooms.
Perhaps some confused marketing whiz in the upper echelons of corporate America thinks that laissez-faire economics means that those in the trenches of retail need only be lazy, fair workers.Whatever the Talmudic thinking behind this obvious conspiracy, we consumers must no longer tolerate the state of customer service in our service-oriented nation.We must reclaim our intelligence and sanity as educated and savvy shoppers. It is bad enough that such storefront signs as "Fresh Egg's" and "Please Retain You're Ticket Stub" slide by with only a defeated sigh. No longer can acne-pocked kids dressed like wimps in chambray shirts and tan pants determine the quality of our daily lives.
To add some credence to my manifesto, I documented my purchasing experiences for the period of exactly one month. Here I offer you my findings:
Citibank: I mistakenly allowed hip commercials determine my choice of bank when I moved to New York City this past fall. While I jokingly referred to my financial institution as "Shittybank," the rhyme proved applicable when I attempted to close my account at the end of my stay there. After waiting an interminable 45 minutes in line, I reached a teller and explained that I needed to pay for my last month's account service charge and then close the account. She nodded, accepted my payment, stroked a few keys on her computer, then looked at me expectantly. I repeated that I wanted the account closed-"as in, dead," I told her. She assured me it was.
On the street the next day, I thought to call Citibank's toll-free customer service line and check that the account was indeed terminated. But one must dial the local service number, not the toll-free number, if calling from within Manhattan. I philosophically disagreed with such a condition and didn't have any coins on me. A few weeks later when I was back at school, my mother called to inform me that I had received a statement from Citibank, which was expecting another three dollars for another month's service charge.
"I would take care of it for you, Rosie, but I can't go into the city and request to close your account because I'm not you."
"Well apparently that isn't a factor in Citibank's scheme, Mom."
Old Navy: The arrival of this store in Manhattan was touted as the "Second Coming of The Gap," and it was lent the proper amount of reverence, awe and worship. I decided to case the joint myself. The employees wore these neat wireless headphone thingies like Garth Brooks and Janet Jackson don at concerts. They must have the ultimate system of merchandise management, as intricate as a Statue of Liberty pass, if they needed gizmos that could detect a flea's footsteps on shag carpeting.
After selecting two dresses and a shirt I searched for a fitting room. Sheer mayhem ensued. I unknowingly went into the men's area and, because someone was on break just then, no one alerted me to my mistake, and I was funneled into the next dressing room, and some cocky kid who had seen "Cops" too many times tried to finger me for shoplifting. I ended up making a beeline for the register just so I could get the hell out of there.
UPS: Searching for solace in catalogs, I called one place, which only shipped UPS, to order a pair of patent-leathers and gave them my P.O. box. I thought maybe UPS can't deliver to boxes, but if that was so, they'd tell me. Two weeks later, UPS phoned me and told me UPS can't deliver to P.O. boxes. I gave my dorm address. The next day another UPS person called, someone who had no idea who the first UPS person was, and the same thing happened the next day-and for three more days. If the Nazis ever wanted to break the spirits of a few more European countries, they should just hire on some UPS schmucks.
Burger King: Here I witnessed the ultimate low in employee morale. A customer asked for honey with her chicken nuggets. The lady behind the counter stared blankly into a box of condiments and said, "They don't got honey." They? Do you wear that ridiculous aquamarine polo shirt and visor because pastels work best with your skin tone? I've held my share of crappy jobs, but never have I referred to my employer as a separate entity in front of patrons. We're not captives of the enemy here, people, we're just minimum-wage part-timers.
This same lady registered the same look of wonder whenever anything was requested of her. I toyed with the idea of drawing my food on a napkin.
"I want a hamburger. See the two buns? Not a pie, put the pie down. For the love of God, I just want a hamburger to go. I'll even draw little feet on my hamburger. See?"
I feel lost and impotent. I cringe when my toothpaste is running out or my underwear is starting to fray, because soon I will have to enter the realm of monkey behavior and cling pathetically to my own intellect as I take on the people stocking the shelves and ringing up the purchases.In our society of K-Mart, Wal-Mart, and Qwik-Mart, what we're really lacking is an "S-Mart," because the tolls we pay for the convenience of those stores are simply no longer worth it.
Rose Martelli is a Trinity senior and senior editor of The Chronicle.
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