MY RANT: WTH ever happened to customer service?

if you have to ask what does "WTH" mean, well, nevermind...

and if you know what it means, read on!

i am 41 yrs old (gasp!) and i think that after living on earth for that

long i deserve the smallest amount of respect, right?

today i was running one QUICK (well it was supposed to be QUICK)

errand while the kids were at school. it is SHORT DAY and so i only have

until 10:30 and then bompie returns from K. (as in kindergarten, initials

on blogs confuse me--)

anyway, i ran up to Smiths Marketplace for my "big purchase".

as i was waiting in line with my item, some kind holiday soul turned

and said "you KNOW that there is a coupon in today's paper for "X" amount off

of your purchase. there are some more coupons up front!"

i told her THANK YOU, and i was thrilled to know it, because if you know

ANYTHING about me, it is #1: i LOVE to shop. BUT #2. ONLY if it's a really

good deal! all deals make everything better. this is my philosophy on shopping. (pretty much i REFUSE to pay full price)

anyway i dashed up front to try and find the coupon. i looked and looked but to

no avail! There were PILES of papers, but none of them from today.

so i turned to the CUSTOMER SERVICE line and waited. there were THREE (yup THREE) ladies working the lines...however INSTEAD OF serving CUSTOMERS,

they were balancing the tills or some darn thing.

so i continued to wait.

after 10 MINUTES of waiting (i was 2nd in line) i was pretty ticked. NOT ONE TIME in that 10 minutes did ONE of the ladies say "i will be right with you" OR
"just give us a minute to finish up please"

i was starting to feel like one of the THREE PIGS and was ready to break out

into a song and dance routine with LOTS of "HUFFING AND PUFFING!"

the lady in front of me had a small baby who was getting crankier by the minute

and she and i were taking turns rolling our eyes at each other.

FINALLY, they looked at us (AHA! we were still there, someone COULD see us!)

and proceeded to help the lady in front of me....she left.

it was MY TURN! oh glory day! oh happy times! someone would FINALLY help me! to my UTTER surprise, they turned BACK TO EACH OTHER and started chatting amongst themselves....FOR REAL?? for real!

by now, i was pretty ticked! "EXCUSE ME" i said and i explained what i needed.

and much to my (NOT) surprise NOT ONE OF THEM had a clue WHAT ad i was talking about or where it was.

now it was THEIR turn to "huff and puff" and stomp around, they could NOT find the ad anywhere. finally after consulting a help line, a manager and google they located the AD!

the customer service rep THRUST it at me and rolled her eyes.

OH THE HORROR!

i politely (well SORT OF POLITELY) said "you know, i hate to point this out, but

I AM the customer, and you DO work in customer service--you may try being a little more pleasant about it!"

there is my RANT, SMITHS almost lost my sale today....i worked in "customer service from my first job at age 16 til NOW (running my own ebay store still i deal w/serving customors...some crabby, some nice...and MY PHILOSOPHY is that THEY are the customer, and i should SERVE THEM!)

so my rant is ...WTH ever happened to GOOD customer service. it seems to be harder and harder to find! i actually find myself complimenting people at stores when they do a great job at helping me.

and if you think SMITHS is bad....let me tell you about WALMART....