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| Pass Pets, Cool Springs Galleria Mall, Franklin, TN
Recently I was shopping with my 8yr old son, who is Autistic, and thus has communication and social integration difficulties. I am a very astute and protective parent, and ALWAYS hold onto my son; otherwise he would be gone in a flash. I bought some pet supplies, (crickets for my lizards) which were advertised as $1.49/dozen. I asked for 50 crickets. Distracted by my curious & active child, I slipped my credit card to the cashier without looking at the register total. A moment later, as I was trying to gather up my things, I noticed the total on the receipt was 8 something... almost $9. I asked the store manager if this seemed right to her. She just looked at me quizzically like she didn't understand English. I said "Now, math isn't my strongest point; but your associate just charged me over $8 for 50 crickets; which he quoted to me for $1.49/dozen." (Now I know why we did story-problems in middle school.) She still didn't get it, so I pulled out my pen and receipt and started to do the math. Now, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that 48 crickets would be $3. I helped her along a little. She said, "Well, do you just want some more crickets because I can't give you a refund. By now, aggravated by another issue that was running concurrent to this one, (which I will get to), I just said "Yeah, whatever." So she disappeared into the back room and emerged about 5 minutes later (I think she went outside to catch them) with about a dozen crickets (which would bring the bill to $4.49, not the $8 I paid), and she said "I put a few extra in there for you." Crazy people. I was too baffled at her reasoning to try to go any further with the cricket issue. Something worse had been brewing.
I had inquired whether they would be interested in 4 kittens I was trying to find a home for. They gave me a sheet to fill out so I could take them to the vet and then give them to the pet store. Still holding tightly to my son's hand with my left hand and wrapping my left leg around his legs while I stood like a multi-tasking contortionist flamingo on my right leg, filling out their form with my right hand. A teen-aged employee was stocking decorative Christmas cookie dog biscuits into a small plexi-glass display cabinet on the check-out counter. My son was very interested in these treats that looked irresistibly like human snacks. I told him no and explained that they were for puppies, but he did not relent. "Cookie please" he kept asking. At one point, the associate placed a stack on the counter within his reach, and he thought she was giving him one, so he grabbed it. She promptly slapped his hand, causing him to drop the cookie on the floor, and chided "Would you QUIT doing that!" I turned to the manager and said "She just hit my child!" Then I turned to the employee and said "He is Autistic and he didn't understand that wasn't for him. You can't just hit someone else's child!" She looked disgusted and said "I didn't HIT him!" I said "You slapped his hand and I saw you do it." She just rolled her eyes at me and continued on doing what she was doing. I was flabbergasted. I beckoned the manager into an aisle and said "Are you going to have a talk with her?" She said "Well, my voice is really horse and I'm not really good at talking right now." (I felt like I had stepped into an alternate universe.) I probably gasped a few times and then asked the teen-aged employee's name, then walked out of the pet store from hell. I was fuming. I would understand if I were one of those mothers who just lets her child run wild and unsupervised throughout the store, they would definitely have the grounds to ask me to either control my child or leave. But That wasn't the case. I would also expect to have to pay the purchase price of any merchandise my child might've broken. But that was not the case. I could think of no circumstance where it would be appropriate or socially acceptable for a store employee to hit a customer's child. This outrages me; but I have been unable to find contact information for this company's corporate headquarters or supervising entities ranked above the store manager I spoke to at the time of the incident.
Yes. This is infact about me. We all know that I have a very acute case of the hating children syndrome. Who here thinks that I would be stupid enough to smack someone else's kid, especially a customer's (with her standing right there!)? I adore my job. That kid isn't worth losing it. And since we all know that I'm no mathematician let me see if I got this right: 50/12= 4.2, (4.2)(1.49) = 6.26 + tax would come out to $8 something, would it not...? That's not my issue though- I wasn't checking her out. Like the asinine women said, I was stocking DOG COOKIES. So, while this lady was trying to get us to take her bastard kittens off of her hands her little angel was taking cookies and pushing them off of the counter (effectively smashing our stock). The second time that he did this I reached down to catch some of the cookies. His autistic little hands were still in the way and mine bumped into his. Let's imagine for a second the agonizing pain that my hand must have caused his when it pushed his through the air. Poor kid. He will need therapy because of this. So, the lady looks over in time to see my hand "smack" his and then watch me bend down and pick up our shattered cookies. And in reference to her chat with the "manager" (she is referring to peggers)- anyone who has ever worked in customer service knows that a manager will tell the customer what ever they want to hear even if they aren't going to follow through. So, had this conversation actually taken place Peggy would have had a chat with me, but even if she didn't want to she would have at least SAID she was going to. However, this conversation never did take place. The women stormed out of the store after telling me he was autistic. I probably did look disgusted by this time. We all know how good I am at concealing my feelings with my facial expressions.  So, she stormed out (without paying for the broken merchandise). And by the way- I did not say "Would you QUIT doing that!?". I said something more along the lines of ARGRAHH!! as I reached for the cookies. Your thoughts? | | |
| "But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of these loveable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. You will remember having conversations with this person that never actually happened. You will recall sexual trysts with this person that never technically occured. This is because the individual who embodies your personal definition of love does not really exist. The person is real, and the feelings are real- but you create the context. And context is everything. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they're often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really, want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else."
-Chuck Klosterman | | |
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