The K-Mart Rant

I went to K-Mart on Reynolds last night to get some weed spray. Since Frank's went belly up, the big K is where I buy just about all of my lawn/garden stuff. I found what I wanted, went up to the checkout line...and waited. And waited. And....

Seems like the checkout girl was trying to do something with a discount coupon and it wasn't taking. She kept calling the woman over from the information/return stand to ask her questions. Meanwhile, the line kept growing. And of course-as is commonly the case with most stores these days-they only had the one line open. Now, that's understandable, since they weren't that crowded-but-you'd think they would've called someone else up, or enabled people to check out at the information desk-which is FINALLY what happened-about 20 minutes after my getting to the line.

Also, while I was in the store and while standing in line, I kept hearing them on the intercom calling someone to help at the fitting rooms and at layaway. Over and over. At least 10-12 times each. I don't fault the people who work there-I feel sorry for them. It's still more of the 'new workplace' shit-total insanity on how it's run and operated. I ranted before on TT about Kroger and the 'serve yourself' checkouts, which were invented for no other reason than to eliminate more jobs. K-Mart has even more of them than Kroger does-about half their lines now. Most older people(including myself here) don't want to deal with a machine-they want a real person. Besides which, if the machine screws up, you have to call for a person anyway.

Just before Christmas two years ago, I was in line there almost to the back of the store. Christmas shopping-and they had two lines open. I was talking with a few older women in front of me, and we agreed that this-cusomer service-was what was going to do them in. I still maintain that theory. The store on Central is now been gone for a year. I don't think the others are far behind. My Mother worked for them for quite a few years, and it used to be ran a lot different. I personally don't think you can beat some of their sales-I've gotten toys for the Grandkids there at clearance for a hell of a savings (got a few that were originally 70-80 dollars for 10-15 bucks!), and I'll miss them greatly, just like I do Hill's and Frank's and Media Play-but I give them about 2-5 more years in this town before they're gone, as they seem hell-bent on operating with as few workers as possible. I used to recognize most of the people who worked there, and knew them by name-they'd been there for years. No longer. The faces seem to change every time I go there, and most haven't been there long enough to have a clue as to what they're doing. Great idea-trying to operate your stores on as little overhead/investment as possible-but, what good is it if it puts you out of business in the long run? End of rant.