Thoughts

I was one of those people this morning. I’m hoping you’ll excuse it because I’m 31 weeks pregnant, and I was provoked. But there’s no doubt this scenario pissed me off.

In addition to cooking, community volunteering, web strategy and writing, I like to sew. Off and on, I’ll go on kicks and make the kids some clothes, or make curtains or sofa slipcovers or whatever. The 9yo has been on one of those big growth spurts this year — she’s outgrowing size 8 and moving into size 10. From the looks of it, she won’t be at 10 very long, either. So, she has no shorts that fit, and warm weather is here in Tennessee. I decided to make her a few pair of shorts.

A couple of weeks ago, I hit Joann and picked up some fabric, patterns and notions to make her three pair of shorts, some leggings and some pajama pants. I’ve finished the pajama pants — they turned out really cute, thanks for asking — and I was working on the first pair of shorts last night. I realized halfway through the process I’d bought polyester thread instead of cotton.

I hate when I do things like that.

For the uninitiated, if you go to the store and buy something labeled “all-purpose” thread, more than likely, it’s polyester. Which is fine for sewing on buttons or whatever. For using on polyester clothes, perhaps. But if you are making cotton shorts, and you are going to iron them on the hottest setting of your iron, polyester thread will literally melt. Which is how I discovered my mistake. Fortunately, I realized it soon enough that I don’t think I ruined the shorts, but now I’ll always have to remember they can’t be ironed on high.

I checked my other two new spools of thread, and sure enough, I’d made the same mistake with all of them. So I thought I’d run up to Joann and exchange them for cotton thread.

For reasons that escape me, national chain craft and hobby stores are apparently incapable of checking people out efficiently. Michael’s is particularly notorious for having slow registers and long lines. Joann always seemed better to me until today. Now I am wondering how much of this stuff I could buy online [at some other retailer] and avoid all these people.

I walked in at Joann. Like many stores, it has a customer service desk that sits near the cash registers. As I walked up to it, a woman with many items in her cart dashed in front of me. Sigh, fine. So I wait. The customer service person helps her. Finally, it is my turn. I hand her my two spools of thread, but before I can even explain that I want to exchange them, she pushes them back to me and says in a really loud voice, “The line is over there.” I look. She’s pointing at the checkout line, where everyone waiting to check out waits in one line for an open register, like at a bank.

I said, “Right, but I’m trying to exchange these. Don’t you do returns here?”

Yes. But apparently, despite having a big “Returns here” sign over her head, and no signage indicating that I had to wait in the other line, I was just supposed to know that. I said, “It would have been nice if you’d told me that before I wasted 5 minutes standing behind the other woman.”

At which point, the customer service rep professed not to have seen me before.

Normally, I might have bought that. I am 5′2″. But I’m also 31 weeks pregnant and I’m not easy to miss right now. Especially when I’m standing right in front of you. And the other woman was standing to my side and also short.

So I went to get my new thread, and I came back. I waited in the line, which was mercifully, shorter.

A regular cashier opened up and waved me over. I said, “I have a return. You don’t do those, right?”

“No, but she does,” she said — pointing to another woman at another regular cash register. Since the customer service desk was still busy and this mysteriously powered cashier was also closing out a transaction, I went to stand at her register.

By this time, I was so fed up with everyone that I know I wasn’t nice. I said, “How on earth are you supposed to learn all the rules about making a return here? It’s too confusing.”

The cashier, who as it turned out, was the store manager, tried explaining it all to me again. Rather defensively, I might add.

So I said, “Look, I think I finally get it. Stand in the big line. Eventually, someone will take my return. But my point is, you’re not making this clear or easy for your customers. I know you understand how returns work. But when you have a sign at the returns desk, saying, Returns here, people are going to think they can walk up and return something, just like they do at every other store with a similar sign.”

At which point she tried again to explain to me how returns work.

Joann, some friendly advice. If your customer tells you you’re making it too hard, you are. Stop arguing with them. For heaven’s sake, have someone apologize [which I didn't get this morning, shockingly]. Give them a coupon or something so they don’t leave your store mad. In this economy, you really want to be making your customers mad by defending a returns system that doesn’t make sense?

And if you’d like to keep your wacky returns system, please take down the freaking “Returns here” sign at the customer service desk, and add a sign at the checkout line that indicates all purchases and returns wait in the same line. And then — yes, one last thing — fix it so that returns can be handled at any register, so you aren’t making your returns customers wait longer for a register with the special-powered cashier who can, in fact, take a return.

I don’t see why that’s a lot to ask, but what do I know? I’m just the customer.

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