into the lyons den: A (Bitter) Holiday Carol

10 December 2011

A (Bitter) Holiday Carol

Today's task - buy stamps, Christmas-themed, for this year's Christmas cards. Rather than driving all the way down to our main post office and endure that nightmare, I opted to go to our local grocery store, Jewel. This would prove to be unfortunate.

Normally, stamps are sold from the cashier but before getting into one of the lines, I thought let me ask the Customer Service Desk person if they are, in fact, selling Christmas stamps. At first, no one was manning the Desk, so I went to see if there was some heinous flavor of Pop-Tart to tempt me. There was not and when I returned to the Desk, there was a young lady there, with her back to the store and to any and all customers. She must have sensed I was standing there, so she turned/sulked around and before word one came out of my mouth, the following spewed forth from her mouth: "I can't help you, sir." What? Was I so hideous to look at that there was no hope? Was I bleeding so profusely that she'd already declared me dead? What? It took me about .5 seconds to absorb her snottiness when I fired back, "You mean you can't even answer a question?" She gave me a blank-eyed, slack-jawed stare. Fortunately, a manager who is clearly not being paid enough to work with dolts like this, walked by and was able to answer my question. I bought the stamps and left. This whole exchange which lasted about one minute reminds me why we do the bulk of grocery shopping at Target. Say what you will about the Crazy Red Target Lady, those people do a good job.

So in honor of my encounter with Our Lady of Crappy Customer Service, I give you this holiday carol which bitter employees can embrace, as if they haven't already (apologies to the writer of 'Deck the Halls' because that's the tune to which this new carol is sung):

Deck The Stores

Deck the stores with crowds of people