02.14.06
Fry’s, lazy eyes, and things I despise
My biggest mistake was thinking that it would be alright for me to go shopping on an empty stomach. I can get cranky when I haven’t eaten anything all day, but Fry’s Electronics was on the way to Baja Fresh, so it seemed completely logical to stop there first.
As I walked through the crowded parking lot towards the giant Egyptian pyramid-themed electronics store, something caught my eye. The inclined automatic walkway that leads to the doors had a group of people just standing on it. At that moment, as one of my worst pet peeves was realized, I knew that this was going to be an especially fun shopping trip.
The purpose of an automatic walkway is not to allow you to stand still and be taken where you’re going. The benefit of this Jetsons-like contraption is that it allows you to get where you’re going faster. While I haven’t figured out the exact mathematical formula, I would guess that you can double the speed of your walk by walking up the moving walkway. However, the people entering Fry’s (awfully close to closing time, I might add) would have none of that. This walkway was there to keep their poorly toned calves from having to perform one single unit of extra work.
As I approached the moving walkway, luckily the lazy people had just stepped off. It would have been a shame if I had to walk through their little crowd of sloth at a reasonable human pace.
This was by no means a pleasure trip. I was braving Fry’s on a Sunday night to find a replacement for my LCD monitor which was on its death bed, flashing on and off repeatedly at the most inconvenient times. So, naturally, my heart was full of joy. After browsing around awhile I found a 20″ Samsung LCD that looked great, and the price wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected, so I approached the salesman.
He was a young, acne-ridden gentleman with a lazy eye who seemed to be easily distracted. Perhaps it was because he was always forced to look in two directions and the same time, but he seemed unable to provide me with any assistance in retrieving the monitor I wanted to purchase. He was distracted by a large man who wanted to inquire about purchasing a small monitor that was placed onto a particle board desk as a display prop. The monitor was clearly several years old and only being used to show how conveniently a monitor could be placed on this piece of substandard furniture, and for some reason this translated into a very long exchange between the lazy-eyed salesman and the large man.
While I waited, I noticed two elderly men arguing over the difference between Windows XP SP2 and Windows XP Media Center 2005, another fat man walking around and clapping his hand occasionally as though he was participating in a performance of Hall & Oates’ Private Eyes that no one else could hear, and another thoroughly displeased group of customers who were also waiting to purchase monitors but were being thwarted by the salesman’s inattention.
At that point, I walked out. I couldn’t take waiting anymore, and I had tacos waiting for me only minutes away. As I quickly stormed through the store, all the thoughts that normally cross my mind in bad customer service situations came flooding back: Should I go tell the manager? I’ll tell him that I was going to make a purchase, but now I’m not! That’ll show ‘em! What’s the district manager’s number? Maybe a phone call or a letter is in order!
But then, a feeling of peaceful acceptance washed over me. I simply let out a sigh and decided that I would save my monitor shopping for Monday evening, at a different location. And that’s exactly what I did. I went out to my car, turned on my iPod, and drove away largely unaffected by the irritating ordeal that I had just endured. Perhaps living in Northern California has taught me something about being calmer, more diplomatic, and not wasting energy on unnecessary anger.
Or maybe I was just really craving those tasty tacos.
Tags: anger, baja fresh, customer service, elderly, fry’s, life, retail