What's driving me crazy

Only have a few minutes to get something down, because I am knee deep in the final cleaning for the next rewrite of Seeing the Light, and must get back to it. However, there is something I have to vent about. And it's driving me crazy!

Now I understand as well as the next person that it is difficult for businesses in and around Edmonton to get good help -- a boom will do that -- however, when they actually convince someone to work for them, you would think they'd train them. Wouldn't you? I ran into bad training/bad manners/stupidity three times in a row this weekend -- and am almost ready to give up shopping and going out for brunch. Yes. Me. The one who hates cooking, is actually thinking about letting restaurants go. Here's what happened.

First, went out shopping with our daughter. This has always been difficult, because she's 6 feet tall, and apparently there is NO ONE else in this town that grew to 6 feet who wants to wear nice clothes and shoes. None the less, I found a shoe shop that I thought might be able to accomodate her -- because (surprise, surprise) she has feet larger than size 7, and has difficulty finding nice shoes that fit. We walked into the store, had a look around, and my daughter found a couple of pairs she thought might look nice. She asked the young woman working there if she'd check to see if they had that style in her size. No luck. Another pair, no luck. Then the girl looked at my daughter and said
"I don't have anything in your size in the sale items," and walked away.

Now, if the young lady had bothered to check, she would have found out that my daughter was willing to pay FULL PRICE for a pair of shoes, if they fit her and looked good. But the young woman didn't. She didn't ask anything at all. Just went and stood behind the cash register and glowered until we left the store. Which we did, promptly.

I was ready to go back and rip a strip off the young lady, but my husband and my daughter both said leave it alone, so I did.
We went to the next place, and found a couple of nice pairs, in her size, not on sale, and she bought them. I, however, was still fuming about how we'd been treated in the last place.

Later that day I went to one of the big office supply stores to pick up a daytimer, to replace the completely useless daytime I had purchased at the beginning of this year. I found the one I wanted, and took it up to the front. The cashier rang it through and it was $3 more than I thought. Now remember, I was still dealing with anger issues over the shoe thing, so I bitched. He went and checked, came back with the one I'd picked up, said "Nope, this one is $11.00" and rang it through. I actually paid for it, before I got my poop together enough to go and check -- for myself -- how I had made the mistake I'd made. It was because there were two (mostly) identical daytimers, side by side. If the little tit who had served me had bothered to bring the other one up to the cash, so that I could see my mistake, there is a very good chance he would not have had to void the purchase I made, and do another transaction. But he hadn't bothered, and had to deal with a pile more paperwork, and a pissed off customer.

I went home thinking that maybe I needed to up my Vitamin B or something, because I was being such a bitch. But then, today, we went out for brunch. We ordered our meals, and when they came, they were wrong. There were items missing. So we asked about it and the waitress tittered a laugh and said "Oh, we don't have any of that left!" Then she walked away, leaving our half filled order in front of us.

We should have complained, we should have yelled, we should have done something, but we didn't. We were hungry, and we were monumentally tired of dealing with incompetence, so we ate what we were served, and we paid, and we left. And I can guarantee, we won't go back.

The same issue persisted through all those interactions I had with people in the service sector this weekend. They didn't bother asking me ANY questions, and left before I was satisfied at all. And I put this squarely on management. Start training your people, people! I'll be hard pressed to go back to any of those places. I won't write a letter. I won't try to find you and complain. I just won't go back. And you'll lose a customer -- one who is actually willing to pay full price for something she wants!!! And my guess would be that I'm not the only one.

Rant over. Thank you for listening.