I’d like to help you but, frankly, I really couldn’t care less about
you and your piddly little problems…..
Been to Sears lately? It’s turning into quite an adventure. It’s
starting to feel like one of those escape room games that you play with a group
of your friends except that there’s no object to this game and there are no clues
to help you find the exit. In fact, there are people who are actively hiding the clues while you’re searching.
For those who don’t know, Sears Canada is going bankrupt and is about
to close…. forever. It’s true. The store that brought you the most brilliant ad
campaign ever conceived, “The Sears One
Day Sale. This Friday And Saturday Only”, is soon to be just a memory. Their
web site has already shut down and been replaced with an open letter explaining
why it really wasn’t their fault and how they hope we can all still be friends. And in a few more weeks, the doors will be shuttered permanently. It's too bad. There was a time when it was a great place to shop.
One might think that this means there are bargains to be had. One
might be wrong. I headed over to see if there were any deals on snowblowers.
Craftsman makes a good snowblower and if I could pick one up at a good price I
could hand my cantankerous, persnickety old one down to my son. (That’s what
parents do) My wife and I walked into the store and there were banners
everywhere proclaiming “25%-50% OFF THE ENTIRE STORE!” Excellent. I got up to where the snowblowers were on display and….
10% off….. Ummmm, which part of “entire store” didn’t you understand? And I
should point out that that is 10% off a price that started out 40-50% higher
than comparable machines at Rona, Home Depot and Canadian Tire. Oh well. Our
basement fridge is dying after 40+ years of faithful service, first in my parent’s
home and now in ours. Maybe we can snag a deal on an inexpensive fridge for the
basement….. 15% off.... (heavy sigh). Never mind. Well, at least the discount
is headed in the right direction but, again, even with the discount, Costco is
still cheaper. And, again, which part of “entire store” didn’t you understand?
So there is (apparently) stuff that is marked down by 50%. It’s just that,
based on empirical evidence, it’s not on display or available for sale.
However, IF you do manage to
find a bargain on something you actually want to buy, it doesn’t mean that you
actually can. That’s because you still
have find someone willing to sell it
to you. You see, part of the bankruptcy is that every employee is losing their
job AND (and this is the biggie)….. their pension. Even people who are already retired
will soon find that their monthly pension cheques have stopped arriving. There
are people in their 80s who put in 40 years of gainful employment at Sears and
have been enjoying their well-deserved, pension-funded retirement for decades.
Not anymore. I tried to count the number of ways that this is wrong, but I ran
out of fingers and toes. And as these stories go, while the staff gets fleeced,
you can rest assured that the high mucky-mucks, whose incompetence caused the bankruptcy
in the first place, will certainly be driving away in dump trucks full of cash.
That’s the way it works.
What this means for you the consumer is that the people who are still
working in the stores are really
happy with the hand that’s been dealt to them. NOT! And I don’t blame them. I
don’t blame them one little bit. However, this means that your interactions
with the remaining store staff are going to be, well, let’s call them “interesting.”
You see, the staff really couldn’t care less if you buy anything or not and
they’re not particularly interested in helping you achieve the status of
“Customer who successfully made a purchase.” They’re getting screwed. They’re
really ticked off. Don’t expect them to smile about it.
Now Sears has always played an excellent game of “hide the cash
register.” How many people have spent hours wandering helplessly around the
store looking for a checkout station that wasn’t covered in cobwebs and adorned
with a sign saying This station closed.
Please locate another station. I once bought a set of Craftsman sockets from the woman working at the perfume
counter (there’s always someone at
the perfume counter). And it was on a different floor! But she was the only
person I could find in the entire store who was capable putting a charge on my
credit card. So I walked sheepishly to her counter, feeling more like a
13-year-old boy asking a girl for a first date, and said, with cracking voice,
“Will you sell these to me?” For a minute I thought she was going to send me
back upstairs to continue my quest but she must have felt sorry for me so she
said okay. Is that what they call a “pity sale”?
But now they’ve taken “hide the cash register” to epic proportions. Last
week, I found something I wanted and asked a salesman if I could pay him for it. He said no. So I asked where
I should go to pay because I had been wandering the floor for about 20 minutes
and couldn’t find an open till anywhere. I was starting to understand how Moses
must have felt. The directions he gave me had me thinking that all of the cash
registers were now located somewhere in the parking lot. That or the food
court. They were both in the same general direction. He eventually just pointed
to the other side of the floor and said, “Just look over there” and walked
away. Happy happy happy…..!
However, in my travels through the store I did stumble upon a dining room
table that would have looked great in my son’s cavernous, albeit mostly empty,
dining room. It was marked down a whopping 70%! I FOUND THE BARGAIN!! I FOUND THE
BARGAIN!! One deal in the entire store, and I found it! (I was so proud) And it
was a steal! So I brought my wife up to see it and she agreed. So we texted our
son and he went and saw it on his way home from work and, wonder of wonders, found
someone willing to sell it to him (muffled gasp).
They didn’t have any in stock but said they could bring one in in a
few days. He didn’t want to pay for delivery (he owns a truck) so he was instructed
to call the loading dock the day before the promise date to make sure it had
come in. Because my son spends a good part of his workday inside a $60,000
environment suit, phone calls can be problematic. So my wife offered to make
the call for him.
(This is where it gets “interesting”)
The day before the promise date, at the duly appointed hour, my wife
called the loading dock. No answer. She waited a few minutes and called again.
Still no answer. She called a third time and this time decided to just let it
ring. And it worked!….. well, sort of…… Auto transfer kicked in and rerouted
her call to….. footwear….. because, you know, when you combine loading dock and
dining room table, the first thing that always comes to mind is……. footwear. Right?
She then found herself explaining to a shoe salesperson why she had called
them about a dining room table that was supposed to be in the loading dock.
Apparently, the shoe lady didn’t make the logical, not to mention obvious,
connection between loading dock, dining room furniture and shoes (go figure) so
the reason for the call had to be explained several
times.
Thirty minutes into the call I stuck my head into her office and
asked, “Are you having fun yet?” I sometimes take pleasure in listening to one
side of a telephone conversation and trying to figure out what’s happening at
the other end. And I have to confess that this was one of those times. I know.
I’m a bad husband. But it really was
funny! The look on her face was worth it all by itself. You know that things
aren’t going well when you start hearing the explanation for the call being
repeated for the 3rd (4th…. 5th…. 9th….)
time. Periodically, the person on your end of the phone will look over at you
and make a face that really makes you wish you had a camera handy (“Oh, this
one’s going on Facebook……”).
When the call finally ended, Debbie was just shaking her head. “What
happened?” I asked (perhaps a little too gleefully). After dancing on the phone
for more than half an hour, the Sears person had finally offered to take our
number and get someone to call us back. She then asked the most remarkable
question. She said, “What name would you like me to put down or would you
rather I just say ‘random mysterious lady’.” (I am NOT making this up!) Debbie
has always been a little mysterious. I like that. But Random is new. So, from
now on, I’m calling her Random. (“Good night, Random! Sleep tight.” “Feel like
going out for lunch, Random?”). Ah, marital bliss! And in case you’re wondering,
the callback never came but the table, did. And Random and I and our son all think it
looks great!
So, just to sum up, if you’re looking to kill an afternoon with some “interesting”
conversation and maybe a quest or two, I highly recommend heading down to
Sears. And always remember,
“THERE’S MORE FOR YOUR
LIFE AT SEARS” *
*
(but only for another six weeks)
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