Wow! What a trip it has been!

I know, I know, this diary entry is far too long in coming, but, suck up and deal. This is my diary. (This is my Winnebago! You can't handle my Winnebago!)

I hate bad customer service. I know, it all depends on what store you go to. If I go to CC, I know I'll be hasseled to death by pushy salesmen on commission. If I go to BB across the street, I have the satisfaction of knowing that my salesman isn't on commission (though they do get bonuses for making group quotas. Same difference.)

I was at Dick's Sporting Goods today. I wanted to buy myself a couple of pairs of bicycle shorts for me to wear out on the road. (Damn, I'm a sexy bitch in those, by the way!) They remodeled the store in the past few months, so it took me a while to find what I was looking for. Surprisingly, Dick's carries a LOT less sporting goods, and a lot more clothes than it did before.

So I look for bike pants. And I look. And I look some more. And I don't find them. Nor do I find an "associate" (aka Employee) who can tell me where I can find bicycle pants.

So, I stumble around a bit more until I finally decide to look into the section with the bicycles in it. *surprise!* there they are. So, I start to peruse the racks of the lycra-spandex-speedo lined pants. Always having a number for my size instead of the overly generic S, M, L, XL, I am confused by which of the pants would be right for me.

Problem #2: No apparent dressing rooms. I'm scanning the walls of the store fora "dressing room" sign or a "fitting room sign". So, I decide to hunt down an employee for assistance. I finally find one in the golf department, a good 50 feet away from the rack of shorts I had been looking at.

"Excuse me, is there any place I can go try some clothes on here?" "Yup. Thereare locker rooms all over the store." "Where?" "There's one over there. *pointing* On the side of the rack with the jeans." "Oh." "I can page a customer service manager to unlock the door for you." "Uh, okay."

So, as I start to make the long walk back to the shorts rack, I hear over the intercom "Customer service assistance to Locker Room 5." Great, now everybody knows where I'm chainging. Before I make it back to the rack with the clothes, I see a person who must be the customer service manager (because she has a nice engraved nametag) come up to the door and look around perplexed because there is nobody waiting by the door. So, I quickly grab a couple of pairs of shorts and try them on. Too small.

Back to the rack I go. I leave the door ajar so I don't have to bother getting someone to unlock it. Back at the bike shorts rack, I see the customer disservice manager walk by and close the door. D'oh!

I grab a couple more pairs, and try to track down another person to page the manager. Nobody is in the bike department, so I walk back to the golf department. Nobody there. I see the Customer No-service manager walk by and try to stop her, but she just ignores me. So, instead, I walk up front to the customer service desk. Unfortunatley, the person working there had become a cashier.

I finally find an employee working in the farthest quadrant of the store. So, he pages the customer no-service manager who opens up locker room 4 for me.

A trip to a store that should have taken a half an hour takes an hour and 15 minutes. I'm glad I still got my bike ride in.

But now I'm exhausted, and I'm going to bed!

g'night! *pewf*