I Take On the Red Shirts

I go to the RedShirt store the other night with my seven-year-old and my ten-year-old, and it was freezing. The store was crowded, and so was the parking lot, so we parked way off in the North 40. We filled our cart, and just as we were getting ready to leave, my son spots this Instant Substitution item on an end-cap.

The Instant Substitution is this deal where the original thing that was on the end-cap is out of stock, so they substitute something else, and mark it down so that it costs what the out-of-stock thing cost. In this case, some kind of soft, rocking TV chair had been on the end-cap and had been sold out, so this sort of shaped beanbag chair was there instead. Well, the beanbag chair normally cost $20, and my kids knew that. This particular night, it was on sale for $10. So they clamored. I didn't want the silly thing, but I bought it.

It occurred to me for one femtosecond while I was at the register that I should make sure the checker had the right price for that beanbag chair. But the thought came to me and left in an instant, so it wasn't until I was unloading everything from the cart, out in the frozen wasteland of a parking lot, that I thought to check the receipt. Wrong! They'd charged me ten bucks too much. I left the boys in the car and sprinted back to the store, receipt in hand.

When I got to the Customer Service area, a young redshirt said to me, "Oh, I'll take care of that in one minute, it's our Fast Fix-It process" and he grabbed the receipt out of my hand. Okay, sounds good. In a minute, he said, "I've removed that charge from your bill, may I have the credit card you used to pay for it, before, to charge you the correct price?"

"Umm, you have my credit card in the system," I said. "I just used it a minute ago." "No, it takes 24 hours for it to record in our system," said the young redshirt. "I need it again."

"You should have told me that before you started the process," I said. "I don't have it with me. My credit card is in my purse, in my car, out in the North Forty."

"Well, you need to go get it, " said the young person. I stood there. "You're mistaken," I said. "I don't need to do anything in particular. If I go all the way back to my car now, I'm getting in it and driving home."

The young person looked panicky. Up to us strode a supervisor, named Walter. "I can help," he said. "I'll escort you to your car and back."

"Oh wow!" I exclaimed. "How gallant of you. But that won't help me. I've wasted twenty minutes in this store already, because two of your employees made mistakes - the one who mis-priced the bean bag chair, and this young man who started the Fix-It Fast process without asking me whether I had my credit card on my person. I'm out of patience."

"Ma'am," said Walter, "I can't help you if you won't let me. I'm just giving you Options."

HA! Options! The option to go back to my car AGAIN, come back in the store AGAIN, and wait around for twenty minutes, again. "You're not being helpful at all," I said. "I will give you two minutes to produce the store manager, or I'm leaving, and not coming back."

"But you owe us ten dollars!" wailed the original young man.

"Imagine that," I said. "That was me two minutes ago, being owed ten dollars, and no seemed especially distraught about it."

"But you just can't leave," said Walter. "We have to resolve this now."

"OR WHAT," I sort of shouted. "OR WHAT, WALTER? ARE YOU GOING TO TACKLE ME? You guys screwed up, multiple times. I did not. I have spent twenty minutes more in this store than I should have, already. I am not compelled to stay another second. If the store manager is not here at this counter in twenty-five seconds, I will be gone."

The store manager showed up in the nick of time. I told him the situation. A genius, he suggested that, since I had to go back to my car in order to go home anyhow, he could accompany me there and write down my credit card number. On the way out to the North 40, I said, "I shouldn't leave my kids alone in the car for so long - they'll be worried." Just then, the two of them appeared around a minivan, nearly frozen solid.

The manager was contrite. "You need to speak to that Walter," I said. "His conception of customer service is very limited."

Now I have a dilemma. It's two weeks before Christmas, and all other things being equal, I'd be back in that SuperTa– I mean SuperRedShirtStore - at least one or two more times. Can I do it, after receiving awful service and then also being treated like a criminal? What would you do?