This afternoon, I wandered into the Target at White Oak for the first time in a long after dropping off Alex for his shift at the Chick Fil-A catering office.
I figured I had enough time to duck into the store to take advantage of a lovely deal I’d seen in an advert for household cleaning products where I’d receive a $15 gift card if I bought at least $50 in household essential items.
As we were starting to run low on laundry detergent, this would seem to be a perfect confluence of supply and demand with a happy bonus! 🙂
One red plastic trolley and a load of detergent bottles later, I had a bit of a wander round the grocery section before I started my journey back to the checkout tills.
Along the way, my right foot hit a slippery substance on the linoleum and immediately went backward which didn’t do any favours for my panoramic self which compensated by my right knee smacking the concrete backed flooring *HARD* as I’m holding onto the trolley for dear life.
The right knee is the one that still has functional nerves and I can assure you that not only was I wishing that right knee was more like the left one that lost most of the pain nerves can offer a human being in a car crash whilst at university (and those nerves have *NEVER* been missed!) and the colourful words and phrases I was thinking of in that moment but had the presence not to say in English were very unpleasant indeed.
I really appreciated the nice couple who were walking in the other direction who asked if I was OK more than they’ll know.
But in the moment where I’m wondering if I’m going to be able to stand and walk on that leg I’d just whacked hard into the floor, I really didn’t want to let slip what I was really thinking. For those occasions when I have the presence of mind to at least censor the worst words I’m capable of in a crisis, it’s often the case that the person I’m speaking to will often hear me speaking in Magyar (Hungarian) or in this particular case…Russian.
“спасибо товарищ!” (Spasibo tovarisch — “thank you, comrades!”)
“пожалуйста, продолжайте” (Pozhaluysta, prodolzhayte — “please, continue”)
I manage to stand back up thanks to the trolley being loaded with heavy detergent bottles and even though the journey to the tills was hell, I was at least able to walk on it and figured pain relievers, elevation, and nice long hot baths will help mend what I just put wrong.
I get to the checkout queue and the lovely young lady at the till rings up the purchases but no gift cards seem forthcoming which was a bit of a surprise. Apparently I had to have some sort of membership on the app to receive that deal.
I honestly don’t remember seeing that restriction on any of the signage in the area where I’d wandered through the many varieties of laundry detergent and I’d like to think that I looked extremely carefully at the signs having been burned on similar “deals” in the past in other stores. I pointed out that had there not been the incentive of the gift cards, I’d have never made the purchases in the first instance.
The young lady takes it all in stride and calls over Ms Rebecca to attend and see if we can come to some sort of mutually agreeable resolution to this problem.
I have no idea what Ms Rebecca’s title is but she seemed to be a lead in the checkout till area. I’m always goofing on my daughter who has regaled me with a couple of the employee job titles currently in use at Target with my favourites being “Service Advocate” or “Guest Advocate”. I always get a bit of a laugh whenever she mentions a new title amongst the many…she’s now at the “I’m quite annoyed by your Dad sense of humour but go ahead and get it out of your system” stage but usually I just smile and say nothing which irritates her even more! 🙂
Anywho, Ms Rebecca’s contention was that there was a big notice on the signage that indicated that the deal in question was apparently only available for Target Circle members, of which I wasn’t at the time. I truly don’t remember seeing anything like that on any of the signs (and my memory is usually pretty solid if not eidetic) but I didn’t really think it necessary to have someone fetch a sign to prove it one way or the other and I was prepared to just accept her assertion prima facie.
Instead, she listened carefully and respectfully to my point of view (even with me still being in somewhat in “Russian mode” due to lingering sharp pains from the knee I’d buggered earlier) and took all of ten seconds to decide to go ahead and honour the deal of the gift cards for that particular transaction so that I wouldn’t have to abandon the purchase and look like a complete numpty in the process.
There was no arguing or fussing, no quoting of policies, no “lump it or take a hike” or blaming the customer for being one of any grades of idiot in their view (which may well have been true in this case!)…indeed, none of the usual silliness I’ve come to expect in modern day retail when there’s a bit of controversy at hand.
That’s a refreshing change of pace, to put it mildly!
And I’ll especially commend her for not falling back on that tired old standard reply one often gets when you’re dealing with an employee with an issue like this: “what can I do to make you happy?” That question has always driven me utterly mad because it’s breathtakingly lazy…if you’re in a position of any authority, it’s incumbent upon *YOU* to work out how to resolve the situation and at least make an opening offer and then we can have a reasonable discussion as to whether it’s appropriate!
Sometimes having four stripes on your shoulders sucks.
But this is why not everyone is suited for that role and very few serve in it in exemplary fashion.
Ms Rebecca would be one of those that clearly does! 🙂
She was also kind enough to answer some of my questions about how this situation could be avoided in the future as well as the details of the Target Circle account which she was more than willing to sign me up for on the spot. I tend to be very wary of signing up for additional user accounts on websites with the proliferation of hacker attacks as well as merciless spamming by marketing of which I’m currently under assault enough as it is.
Had I the presence of mind to think it through, one of Ms Rebecca’s suggestions of using a phone number would have actually worked as my daughter does have a Target Circle account which she reminded me of later and I could have used it at the till straightaway.
As it is, I’ve ended up signing up for the requisite Target Circle account and put through an order for a rather sturdy looking turkey roasting pan which will rather come in handy in a few days.
Those decisions were made much easier by Ms Rebecca taking charge of what could have been an uncomfortable situation and investing the time, patience, and most importantly respect with an older and definitely clumsier customer of panoramic width that she didn’t know from a hole in the wall.
If this encounter is anything to go by, I feel it’s safe to say that Ms Rebecca will go far in whatever endeavours her dreams may be!