Feb 2, 2010

Where Customer Service Is Off the Radar...

The Cat Daddy called on his way home and said, "Would you rather eat and then go to Sam's Club, or go to Sam's Club and then come home and eat?"

That is what he said, but I suspect what he meant was, "I want to go to Sam's Club tonight--wanna eat there?"

I replied, "Definitely eat first, unless you want to just eat there." So then it was settled; we ate there.

For all my anti-WalMart sentiment, I have mostly positive feelings about Sam's Club. I'd prefer Costco, but Cheyenne hasn't gotten one of those yet, so Sam's it is. We do pretty good about getting stuff we use, and staying away from the giant cartons of (delicious) junk food. We look at it, and then sigh just a little bit as we walk past without grabbing 10 lbs of creme puffs or the vat o' cookie dough.

His Highness adores Sam's Club. He will pick out every Sam's Club truck on the road, and says "Hello, Sam's a-Cwub! Good-bye Sam's a-Cwub!" anytime we drive by. If you suggest going to Sam's to have a hot dog and soda, he gets giddy talking about the ketchup and mustard.

As with WalMart you get all types of folks at Sam's--entertainment central--but without the big crowds. Not sure if it's the size of our city (or lack thereof), or if we are just really fortunate about picking calmer times to go, but somehow we always seem to go when no one's there. This is good, because we feel better about giving His Highness some license to run ahead of us a little bit and burn off steam.

Our membership was due, so tonight the Cat Daddy went over to order dinner while I took care of the renewal. By the time I joined him we were all sitting down to our gourmet Nathan's hot dogs. Well, they guys were. Call me crazy, but I don't care much for Nathan's (this is one reason I would prefer Costco--they serve Hebrew National). So I got pizza instead.

After dinner we decided that a little ice cream was in order. In the course of deciding who would go order, and who would stay at the table and wrangle kiddos, the Cat Daddy was describing to me how the guy serving the food had been a little grumbly. I'm not sure exactly how it went down, but it involved eye-rolling, and audible sighs and such. It sounded kind of entertaining to me, but I didn't have the gumption to try to provoke what the Cat Daddy was talking about, so in the end he decided to go up & get the ice cream. He did share about the experience when he got back.

Now, we'd never gotten ice cream from there before, so we weren't sure what everything was. Like, how big is the ice cream "cup," and such? So the Cat Daddy asked the guy what was in the "Four Berry Sundae." The guy very sullenly replied, "It's four different kinds of berries with ice cream. The picture's right above you." The Cat Daddy said, "Sorry, I didin't know that," and went with the sundae.

I was greatly amused by this story. The Cat Daddy hadn't noticed the picture, but it was, in fact, directly above where he had been standing. And it's about 20 feet tall, I'm guessing. OK maybe not 20, but definitely 8-10'. And the guy cut him no slack whatsoever. In fact I'm pretty sure he was shooting daggers at us with his eyes when he walked by as he was wiping tables.

So, sorry Sam's Club hotdog guy. Whether we annoyed you directly or just happened to catch you on an off-night. I'd be grumpy if they made me wear a hair net too...

4 comments:

  1. I think you must time it right because I've been there plenty of times when it is really busy. Not Los Angeles or Honolulu busy, mind you, but busy. lol.

    My girls feel the same way about eating there. We actually prefer the Woody's stand over at Lowes, but we do like to get food at Sam's from time to time.

    BTW - The ice cream cups are huge, arent they?

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  2. I wish I had the courage to say to someone like that-
    "Do you not like your job? Cuz you really should consider quitting cuz your pathetic people skills are bumming me out!"

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  3. FYI---Costco doesn't have Hebrew National anymore :( They sell their own kind of all-beef hot dogs now :(

    Our Sam's is always DEAD, too. We have a Costco 1/2 mi away and it's wall-to-wall people every minute of the day. Hmmmmm.

    (Yes, we have memberships to both!)

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  4. Anonymous2/16/2010

    In the guy's defense (yes, yes, I know- bad me!) Perhaps it was not you personally? Perhaps it was just having to repeat the same answers to the same questions? Or maybe he was having a bad day- maybe he's been over worked lately (it Happens, I just worked 6 consecutive days in a row and 2 of those days were doubles)

    There are plenty of reasons why he couldva acted like this ( and no- deep down, none of them are acceptable). Maybe he thought the Cat Daddy had an attitude to start with?

    Maybe it was time to go, and he wanted to leave... Maybe he was sick/ in pain...

    I don't know. But it's not always a case of "if you hate your job this much- get out cause your customer service sucks"

    We're human too. And like all humans, we have good days and bad days. Like all humans- it's generally obvious which is which. We're not a secretive species... :)

    Give him another chance Skerrib, and if he's still in a foul mood- then he probably does hate his job.

    But on behalf of him, and servers everywhere- thank you for being nice to him anyway... most people would'va gotten an attitude back.

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