"I'm never shopping THERE again!" Share your story!

[Amanita]

Not to get into legal territory, but as far as I know, a store manager does not have the authority to make you undress, or look in your bags. They can call the cops, but that is it.

If somebody tried that on me, my response would be something like "hell no. Just Hell no."
Certainly not without the cops and a lawyer present!

[MrsJWine]

jais, I normally agree about the not tipping the waitress thing.  So often servers take the punishment for things they have no control over.  But I just don't see how this wasn't her fault.  In order for it to show up on the bill as a regular entree, she would have had to bill it as such, I'd think.  And that's her mistake.  Even if she wasn't the one to make that mistake, it's still her job to notice discrepancies between what she knows the restaurant serves and what she sees on the plate in front of her.  Maybe owning up to it in front of the manager would have meant she would get fired.  In which case, no tip is entirely appropriate; it's not as severe a punishment as getting fired, but it is a natural consequence to not doing her job right.

I had another horrible experience in another book store. I had been browsing the shelves without finding anything interesting and walked out without purchasing anything. The only problem was that the alarm went off when I walked out. The lovely store manager forced me to strip down into my undies in the middle of the store to make certain that I wasn't stealing anything. He didn't even bother to apologize when he realized that I hadn't stolen anything. I get that shoplifting is a problem but to force a barely 20 year old woman to undress in the middle of a store really felt like a violation.

I am pretty sure that's not even legal.

[PeasNCues]

Best Buy - Pretty much the same experiences as other females - being ignored, talked down to, not being able to buy anything because no one will give me the time of day. I wonder why this is a universal problem at Best Buy when it is not a universal problem in all electronic stores? Other stores seemed to have picked up on the fact that you don't need dangly bits to want to buy an xbox or computer!

I have never had this particular problem at Best Buy - in fact, last time I went in to buy a laptop, I couldn't get various salespeople to stop bugging me and let me be!

It's good to know it's not all stores! Shame that the stores with good employees are judged poorly because of other employee's behavior.

[Brentwood]

I have *never* had Novocaine work for a root canal (I'll not reveal how many I've had, suffice to say, more than one). If you have, please let me know how much was required. I *always* know when the nerve is being touched.

I've had five root canals, and only once did I need additional Novocaine after the first dose because a tooth just wouldn't go to sleep. The other times were fine, no problems. I don't know how much Novocaine is initially given.

[MrsJWine]

My very first dentist.  I have one freak tooth that has given me trouble since about 4th or 5th grade.  I had to have a root canal around then, so I was about... 9.  My first real experience with a dentist was a root canal.  A dentist who didn't believe me when I said I could feel everything.  A dentist who had bad breath and didn't wear a mask.

I was 26 years old before I worked up the nerve to go back to a dentist again.  And he is Teh Awesome (if you live near Milwaukee and are looking for a good dentist, ask me, and I will tell you, and you will be happy!).  And now we're moving.  *sob*

[smidget23]

I'm not sure why sending a fax to someone is considered a hassle.

Not everyone has immediate access to a fax machine. When I want to fax something, I have to drive at least 15 minutes and then pay a usage fee.

[Giggity]

For some particular people, it may be an inconvenience, but it's a perfectly normal business request, as is e-mail. It's not a hassle to 99.9% of the population, at least where I am.

I guess the mortgage company asking for a fax doesn't strike me as a huge hassle.

[Brentwood]

For some particular people, it may be an inconvenience, but it's a perfectly normal business request, as is e-mail. It's not a hassle to 99.9% of the population, at least where I am.

I guess the mortgage company asking for a fax doesn't strike me as a huge hassle.

And I'm assuming there are perfectly legitimate business reasons why they would need a request of this type in writing. Sending a fax means the request can be processed faster than sending it via the mail system.

[sparksals]

It is a hassle for us. We don't have a fax at home.  If we need something faxed, I have to make a copy and send it to work with dh for him to fax from there .

[Brentwood]

It is a hassle for us. We don't have a fax at home.  If we need something faxed, I have to make a copy and send it to work with dh for him to fax from there .

I'd have to fax from work (or a Kinko's or something) too, but in the particular case cited, I don't think that requiring the request be in writing is an example of bad customer service. I'll assume it could have been mailed, but if the customer needed the request processed faster, it would need to be faxed.

[baglady]

I will never shop at the Macy's in my town after an experience I had there about a year ago.  

I picked out two bras, one that was on clearance.  The clearance bra did not have a price tag.

I brought the bras up to the "customer service" counter and tried to pay for them.  The cashier said that she couldn't ring up the bra because it didn't have a tag and I was going to have to find another similar one so that she could ring it up.

I was probably somewhat of a SS, but I told her that really wasn't my job to start pawing through the entire stock of bras to find the one that might have the price.  If there would have been one on the same rack that had the price, I certainly would have brought it up to the counter.  She basically said that it wasn't her job to do that either.  Not only did she lose that sale, I've never been back to that store since.

This makes me grateful for my local Kmart.

I was in there today and found the perfect pair of exercise pants. The only one in my size on the rack, the only one in that style, and it had no tag. When I brought it to the register, I explained that ... no tag, and no comparable item.

The cashier cheerfully said, "No problem, I can find out the price." She keyed in some numbers from the inside tag and bada-bing! There it was!

This is the same store where I waited forever in vain a couple of years ago for someone to come and unlock the fitting rooms, and ended up going to a different Kmart for what I needed. In the case of that particular store, I think it's just a crapshoot. Some days you get good service, some days you don't. More often than not, I've gotten good service there.

To the PPs who are having issues with faxing ... there are e-mail programs that you can use to send faxes without going somewhere with a physical fax machine. I have a fax at work so have never used them, but I know some folks who swear by them. Try Googling "e-mail fax" or something similar.

[Kaora]

Baglady, our local K-Mart is awesome.  Never a bad shopping trip, everyone's so helpful, it's a joy to be there.

[Micah]

Our local pizza place. I'll never go there again and I make sure to tell people how bad they are.

First experience: I rang them and the conversation went exactly like this.

Them: "Small town pizza place."
Me: "Hi, could I please order a pizza to be delivered?"
Them: "No, we're busy." And he hung up! The person who answered the phone was the owner.

Second experience: DP and I were at a friends house roughly fifteen minutes out of town. While we were there several other families turned up, so we decided to all pitch in and order pizza. Adults and children combined there were a lot of us and the order was over a hundred dollars, before the exorbitant out of town delivery fee was added.
The order went through fine and we were told it would get it in just under an hour. Which we thought was a little long, but agreed to.

An hour and a half later and no pizzas. We rang and were told they were on their way. Half an hour later, a total of two hours since we first rang, the driver turned up. It was the owner again. When my friend handed him our combined money she commented that it had been quite a bit longer than an hour. The owner's reply? "Well you're lucky you got them at all, aren't you?"

Never again.

[Piratelvr1121]

That reminds me of a pizza place I ordered pizza from one night when I was in college.    Now the apartment I rented with 2 other girls was on the 2nd floor of a Victorian house.   There were two entrances to get up to our apartment, a staircase from the front door of the house and a staircase up the back to a mudroom off the kitchen.   Oh and our house # was 208 W. Streetname.  There was also a 208 E. Streetname, which I knew about so when we ordered delivery we always made sure to clarify we were on 208 WEST Streetname. 

It was a night in winter, my roomates were out of the house and I didn't feel like driving anywhere, thus my reason for ordering.   It had snowed in the last week and there was still snow on the grass and on the porch steps (which no one used, we usually all used the back entrances since the driveway for the house ended in a small parking lot for the two apartments)

Well I call them, place the order and wait the 30 minutes...no pizza.  Okay, I tend to be pretty forgiving, especially on nights that are probably busy for them.   I call them back after about 45 minutes and ask what the status is.  "We came to the house and no one answered the door." Well I could hear people knocking on both front and back door but hadn't heard anything.  Also, my bedroom window was at the front of the house looking down at the street and the entrance to the driveway and I hadn't seen any cars pull up and stop in the driveway.  I ask for clarification which door they came too.  "We came to the front door."  "And it was 208 West Streetname, right?"  They sighed huffily and said yes, of COURSE they came to the front door!   I went downstairs and checked to see if I could see footprints in the snow leading up to the porch steps and in the bit of snow on the porch.   No footsteps.  None.   

They said "Well we could run it back out there, but it would be cold."  I figure well that's why microwaves were invented and I'm starving by now so I say "Sure, just bring it by."  And this time I watched the street and driveway like a hawk for the 10 minutes it should have taken them to arrive.  Nothing, no one, no knocking at either front or back door.   I call them back.  "We showed up and no one answered so we just cancelled the order."    Thankfully I was going to pay cash so I hadn't charged it and wasn't out anything but time.   Groaning at the irony, I got in the car and drove to the nearest Wendy's for some dinner.   So I ended up going out somewhere after all. 

[SkyTalon]

Adam - Adam has a baby girl. And, as many babies do, she's growing. Ergo, said baby needs new clothes. Adam decided on his way back from work, he might as well pick some stuff up at some Baby Place he passes every day. He knew what size to try and was looking through the girl's section when a well to do associate marched up to him. "Sir! You are to leave the store immediately, or I will call security!" she barked at him. When he asked what the problem was, she did not respond to him, just turning and yelling, "Jane! Call security right away!" So, Adam made a hasty exit, stage left. As near as anyone can tell, the Associate thought he was a certain kind of child abuser because he was shopping without child or wife.

That is wrong on more levels than I can probably count.  I hope he sent off letters to the company about this.    Apparently the Associate lives in a world where men don't pay attention to their kids' needs, aren't primary (and sometimes the only) caregiver, aren't half of a G*a*y couple raising a child, aren't doting uncles who can't wait to give Baby Nephew/Niece new clothes, etc.

Apparently. Kari, his wife went into the store, after scouting out which woman it was. Turns out, not the manager. Associate tried to give Kari the run around about getting the manager. When the manager DID come in, she basically said, "Well... what do you want me to do about it?" Which... took Kari off guard and flabbergasted her pretty badly. A bit of an argument ensued as Kari asked if the manager was insinuating that it was alright for her employee to profile customers and the manager acting like the incident was no big deal. Yeah, contact with corporate is in the future. Not expecting anything from it but... *shrug*.



ETA Re Pizza Deliveries: It's really fun when they give you that run-around and you were waiting at the door, then they call you a liar.