I remember the moment, when I fell in love. Here was this amazing place with aisle after aisle of things I could afford. Prices so low that I could fill up a basket and not even come close to overdrawing my checking account.
I remember thinking this was the most amazing place I had ever seen. I remember thinking how much money I could save, I remember falling into their trap.
I had been a small town girl. I remember shopping in small stores where we always found what we needed. I can recall too when things might have not been the cheapest, but my parents taught me how to save up my chore money to buy what I wanted. Sometimes the saving it up and anticipation was even better than the plastic whatever I was wanting to buy. I remember Saturday shoping trips while staying with my grandmother, where store after store not only held the most amazing things, but felt so welcome and impressed that each store staff knew my grandmother by name. I remember too as they would offer help with whatever she might need. Getting service all the the way to the car. I remember it being such a warm and friendly transaction.
My relationship with the monster store had never been as wonderful as shopping with Mamaw, but now it's more like a dreaded trip to (fill in the place you fear or hate the most) hell. That big and magical place where I had first fallen into retail therapy heaven has now become not only a place I hate, but it has become somewhat of an abomination of the American Dream.
They lured us with promises of best deals and falling prices and saving money. They promised that our money would go further and we would be better off financially. They might have been a little less than honest about what their real motive was. I get that business is about business, but does it have to be so ruthless that it harms people in the process?
I will not give you any names here, and I will only give you some hints as to the articles I have read, and I will only tell you about what I regret. You get to make up your own mind where you go from here.
So this great/not so great place has now done an about face from where they once said they were headed. The implications are that they are a profit driven monster that has not only trained us to think of them first, but they have proven over and over again that they think of us last.
While on a recent trip, I was allowed to stand in a line for over 45 minutes while waiting to be checked out. I made a few comments to the others who seemed as disappinted as I that we could get a close parking spot, and wander around this huge collection of things we really don't need, only to not be able to get out. I also thought how strange that customer service consisted of a lady walking by me and saying in a not so customer service type voice...yeah well sorry, I just dont have any more checkers. Really? You fill your shelves with thousands of products that you convinced us that we needed, you demanded those retailers you do business with the sell to you at the price you choose, but you can't find a way to take my money, send me home and keep me happy. I am thinking our relationship days are numbered...in the single digits.
Over the last several years I have heard stories about said business contracting with businesses that were really their shell companies so that they could employ illegals to do the work at sub-minimum wage. I have heard that there were mass numbers of full time employees let go to be replaced with ill-trained and revolving door accessible folks so that you could keep them at minimum wage, and under 30 hours so that your expenses for full time employees would be less. I have heard that a significant number of your employees have to rely on public assistance to feed their families. Not to mention the housing assistance and other subsidies given by local charities. I have watched as small business after small business in our little town has disappeared.
Yep, I have decided that we must be divorced. I am not much better off than I was all those years ago. I made some not so great choices in other love stories and suffered for it. But this one has run its course also. You have made more money than I could ever even imagine. And you have done it using people as pawns in your games on how to save money. You have done things that not only turn my stomach, but make me incredibly sad that I played a part in it. I have seen other big box retailers who are listening to the rumblings and the sit ins on corporate greed, but yet as I see another of your monsters going up in another local town, I don't forsee you going away anytime soon. I think it's going to take longer than it should for me to be free of you. I think you have limited my choices to some degree, but I will tell you that I am planning my exit strategy, and will get it done unless you find a way to redeem your good nature.
I demand that you quit using my neighbors as the machines to run your stores. I demand that you find a way to support the community where you do barter for the cold hard cash you desire, besides donating a tv here or there, or encouraging your employess to donate to support local charities. I further express that you need to do a better job at providing safe american made products and resonable prices.
Now don't get me wrong...I know you will not take any of this seriously. I totally get that I am even more disposable to you than those you call your assosciates. But thats ok, because I am not alone. There are many of us out there, who feel the same way. And the revolution has begun. So take note...or not, because NO, THIS blog is not about you.
This blog is about a company who has found a way to do business that makes me proud to be a customer. They have found a way to keep their products safe, American made and as organic as possible. Each product I try reminds me of when I first fell in love with the other. Each time my box arrives without me having to stand at your disposal to pay, I am reminded of the time I don't have to give you along with my money. Each time I sit down to fill out my order, and I read about the safe products for cleaning my home, I understand so much more that business can be good and just at the same time. I love that the profits are given to those who help to share the good products and the possiblity of seperation from the way we have been brain washed into commerce with the giant monster that now cares so little about me. Each time I have had the reason to call, and ask even a silly question and I am not only given the best customer service I have had since I was a customer service manager...I see myself falling in love with this new way to satisfy my retail needs.
I am also reminded over and over again, should I have a problem, there is a no questions asked money back guarantee. I am also taken back to a recent trip to said customer service counter at monster ville and treated as if I were some kind of theif because I could not locate my receipt. I politely asked the cashier who was sort of helping me if there was any way to look up my debit card purchases? And if she would like to calculate how much business she would be losing because she didn't want to refund my $2.99? I am also taken back to a time when I did have a receipt, but the item that I had purchased was definitely not the product that was in the container....yeah, that day was fun too.
I often wonder why you treat me like the worst customer you might have had while I have kept giving you the best of my shopping hours week after week. I help myself all over the store, get out of the way of your stockers when they come barreling down the aisle at me with those huge stacks of product. Product that they wouldn't even get the opportunity to work their little 30 hours to place on shelves if the customer they were just rude to, stopped shopping there. Yeah, your people don't really matter attitude has transferred over to your associates. They get that I don't matter any more than they do. They get praised for getting all that precious stuff on the shelves...and then getting out in 30 hours or less so they can go apply for food stamps, which then then bring back to your store to help you make a little more money...cuase you are going to give them a discount. Awww...aint that sweet.
No..this blog is definitely not about you...it's about me. It's all about the fact that I am tired of the way it has been for the last 20 or so years. I hate how you are treating people in my community that I care about. I hate more that you care more about profit than you do about anything else. You have learned the game well, you have so many of us believing that you are in it for us...but it's my guess that this small movement of people is going to become larger. Maybe I will start targeting all those you have fired, find out where they are working and how their life is better without you too. Maybe I will write another blog that's not about you...yeah I am pretty sure we are done...talking, shopping or having anything to do with monster ville. Well we are closer anyway. You can leave a comment here, if you want to find out about an exit strategy too!
OK--all you soloprenuers, entreprenuers, small business owners and other folks who have fallen out of love with monster ville too...lets start a revolution. Let's find a way to shop local. To find ways to purchase that are more about made in America, let's support those who make things that are one of a kind and not so much like everyone else. Let's find those small retail contractors like our local Sears hometown store to get our appliances and housewares. Let's find the farmers market, local beef, pork, chicken producers and lets take back our home towns. Let's not rely on brand recognition but human connection to rebuild a way of life that takes us to a new level of getting more connected to our community.
I challenge you to share this, tell me what you think and join me in divorcing this outdated disounts is the only way of retail life.
No comments:
Post a Comment