a man walks into a ...

[treehugger]

A man walks into a store ,bar ,gas station ,grocery store ,local piza shop pretty much anywhere that sells things .
You find your item you proceed to the check out and the man behind the counter bags you item.
you give him the money expecting change maybe and you item .
the man holding onto the bag in a kind of im not done with you look , then proceeds to ask you a series of i will say personal Questions . And i only say personal even though the Q,s seems mundane ,i just want to outline i dont want to tell you shi@ when im out shopping .
this seems maybe strange and maybe even surreal but im starting to get annoyed every time i go to pay for something i HAVE TO PUNCH IN SOME CRAP or answer a series of offensive Qs ,
no i dont want a f ing car wash !have you seen my car!!!?
no i dont want to donate to charity,, worrying if im a dime over the budget at safeways .....
Oh and while im foaming at the mouth zip codes is it me being a little over cautious.
But after using my card to buy something . i really dont want to or feel anyway inclined to verbally give you my zip code ,phone number ,shoe size ,
after waiting in one of three open checkout,s of a possible forty behind fiffteen people WTF, this is my personal information
Annnnnnnnyway my point and then i will shut my mouth
] i heard a pod cast on the world service about this guy in the UK that want,s to get paid for the time wasted His argument and i concur is that im being held without permission and therefore need payment .It could be a nice little cash cow just imagine
Now i smiling
teller " please sir can you push the button

Paul " im sorry but im not at liberty to divulge that info at this time ,but if you say or press pound i will return you to the main menu

teller "please sir there are people waiting to pay "

Paul "if you need to speak to customer care please press nine the current wait time is 52 mins "so i have been standing at the counter know for 15 mins crappy music playing from a boom box with all the speakers popped apart from one tweeter playing the theme from top gun on cassette .
i preempted this situation and packed some cucumber sandwiches, some lemon T (as i dont have the milk yet!) and smutty mags , like you might find in a back street chop shop waiting room all oily and sticky ...LOL .....
i digress ok so there is my pitch do you think he / we have a valid point ?should we get cash for our time

Paul

[Charlie don't surf]

I don't think that anyone deserves cash for the info- but I think that people can stop giving the info- every business reply mail envlope that I get I seal the self addy envlope and send an empty back to to sender- when asked for my phone # it's 555-1212 every time-

[klavy69]

I don't think that anyone deserves cash for the info- but I think that people can stop giving the info- every business reply mail envlope that I get I seal the self addy envlope and send an empty back to to sender- when asked for my phone # it's 555-1212 every time-

Yeah, cash would be nice but it would make your stay at the line even longer I, like Reggie stated send back every business reply envelope but I stuff all I can inside that they send to me minus any of my info...let them throw it out . I'm going to have to use that 555-1212 phone number idea...very good idea.

Next time someone asks you your info Paul try the reverse on them..."I'll tell you mine but you tell me yours first". I've done this and it usually puts quite the stammer to their mundaneness
Todd

[treehugger]

yes klavy i like it i think that im just suffering from a bit of post culture shock ,as for the sending stuff back it does seem like a com-pleat waste of resources for all party's and even though the small smug feeling you get sticking it to the man .wouldn't it be better to stop the mail or dumb ass Questions
i know this, i do ! Winning an unfair fight and dare i use the R word feels alot better AND you get a daily smug fix when you get junk free mail box or the girl behind the cash desk DOES NOT have a " hi and welcome to McDonald" blurb to run through for the eleven billionth time because really why do i need to be asked to try our NEW DELICIOUS smoothies ever time i pull up at the window "ITS 2 *UC&ING DEGREES OUTSIDE .AND THEY HAVE BEEN NEW FOR FOR A YEAR .

i here what your saying but i think you fail to see that i am loosing all my privacy
the questions, before it will let me complete my transaction is holding me there
And i have used the phone number thing to i had a few boss,s that forgot it was pay day and coincidence forgot where i lived and who i was depending on how much they stiffed me for, governed what degree prank i would take an add in craigslist personals pretty strange calls from from i assume well buffed gay men looking for a bottom to go with there top .And i agree its fun and i love long con style of practical joke but how many time,s before its not funny .
I tell you Reg what would be funny is that every piece of unsolicited crap that pollutes my mail box using peoples resorse,and time got me a buck .
i would make myself learn how to do cartwheels so to make my trip to the mail box knowing i would be making a $ off every single piece of junk mail.
in fact why not charge the credit card company's $10 bucks for every unsolicited credit card application in my name i would give them thirty days credit then bill them i would charge them 29.9%apr and charge them FOR EVERY THING
we have a small one time scratch my ass fee ,we have the share holders meeting coming up fee .

so i think my argument stands not only the holding me with out notice, losing the right to chose and the slam dunk guys is if it make me money from these greedy SOBS then i think that's the Trifecta.

Paul

[lpddpd]

I've been on both sides of the counter with this type of thing. It has always bothered me as a consumer and I just hated to have to ask a zillion questions as an employee. I remember early on someone asked for my zip and I told them no. They claimed they couldn't sell to me with out it, discrimination lawsuit brought the manager in very quickly with many apologies and of course they sold me the items without the info.

The last company I worked for (video rentals, not Blockbuster) had the lame brain idea that we needed to up sell our customers everything we offered every time they came in no matter what. It didn't matter that they were on a plan that had them coming in every other day or so. They were forced to listen to a sales pitch about candy, drinks, popcorn, pre-ordering movies, pre-ordering games, upgrading their plan, gift cards and I don't remember what all else every single time. We were told that even if they just got something walked out and then came in again, we had to go through the pitch again. I remember that at one time it was up to nine different things we had to mention. It drove them nuts because even if they just heard it before from the person in front of them we were required to do the pitch because they were constantly sending in secret shoppers and good employees were being fired for showing some common sense. The company would say that they were not following company directives for driving sales so that they could get out of paying unemployment. When sales went down, they blamed their experienced managers and fired them. They went bankrupt last year and it was their own fault. Well that and Netflix and Redbox. But, can you imagine the line at Redbox if you had to answer yes or no to a bunch of questions before getting your movie out of the machine? They would lose business too if they did that.

The new thing I'm now noticing with companies, especially with those that have bad customer service to begin with, are the employee abuse clauses. My interpretation is essentially if the way we do business and our levels of incompetence with our customer service makes you angry, don't yell at us because we have feelings too and we don't want you as a customer that much after all and would rather send you to our competition than work that much harder to make you happy.