A Shopper's Annoyance

There have been occasions when I have had to purchase a book at Barnes and Noble and when I directed myself to the area where the book should have been located I found it wasn’t there. But the remedy was easy. I simply went to one of the in house computers and it directed me to either the correct area of the store to find the book myself or a way to purchase it online.

Department stores do not have computers for customer’s access in that way. Many have nothing more than a price scanner. Price scanners know nothing about inventory.

I found myself in Lord and Taylor today in the vortex of their Friends and Family sale. There were people everywhere. And despite the added holiday employees the stock could not be replenished quickly enough nor could the piles of clothing be folded at a rate equal to the rate at which the shoppers messed it up.

All I needed was one final ensemble gift for my mother to give to my husband. It should have taken no time at all. All that was needed was a casual pair of pants, a sweater and a shirt. Shopping for men is typically easy. Unfortunately it took me over an hour.

I kept picking out a style of pants that did not have my husband’s size but the only way to see if the store did have his size somewhere in stock was to have the cashier look it up the computer. The problem was there were a zillion people in the cashier’s line and those in line customers did not consume any rum-laced eggnog before they shopped. Everyone was cranky—and it appeared—coupon less or coupon-phrenic.

So I waited in line with no less than 5 different styles of men’s pants for 15 minutes while the exceptionally rude oriental woman in front of me who spoke little to no English argued with the cashier why Ralph Lauren apparel was excluded from the 20% off. And after mentally choking the woman with a Joseph Abboud tie I learned from the cashier that all the pants I wanted to purchase were out of stock and she had no way to check if they were available online—all she could do was check every other Lord and Taylor store in the tri-state area in case I wanted to drive there and purchase the items.

That wasn’t happening.

So in frustration I searched again and found a pair of pants in his size just like a pair he already owned and then spent way too much money on a silk and cotton blend sweater because I had no more patience and picked out a shirt to match the pants and the sweater which while it matched was never going to be versatile enough and called it a day.

Sometimes at Christmastime I do not feel all that merry. And even my black card which allows me 20% off on Ralph Lauren attire despite the exclusion cannot make me happy.