The day the Earth stood still-- and Walmart had great customer service!

Last weekend we decided to scope out some of that super nasty nail polish stuff for Miss Ellie's nails. This decision was reached after I discovered she had bitten them down to the HALFWAY point, and made them bleed.
 
I went to walgreens first, and they had it in the baby area (not with the other nail stuff) but it was 6.99. I thought that was expensive so I called Ricardo to inquire about that brand... 

He said the amazon reviews for that brand were not the best, and that there was another one at Walmart for 2.99 that had good reviews.

But I was hoping to avoid Walmart.
 
So I went to Target. it was like 9:20pm or something like that, and they close at 10. So they had like a billion employees doing restocks and organizing the store for closing time. They were in a frenzy, pretty much.

I went up to one lady and asked if they had what I was looking for. She gave me the answer I hate more than any other answer in the world----- "If we had it, it would be over with the other nail polishes."

I have worked in customer service -related jobs since I was 15 years old-- and NEVER ONCE have I given that poor excuse for an answer when someone needed help finding something.

Why, I even assisted a wheelchair-bound man in deciding on a lava lamp for close to 2 hours once when I worked at Big Lots. I was 17. The lava lamps were up on a top shelf. I climbed up and down one of those scary wobbly metal ladder-on-wheels thingies, opening up lava lamp boxes until we found him the color combo that he wanted! (That is a true story. I am not making it up to prove a point.)

But the point is-- Why is it that I provide excellent customer service, but it can't be provided to me??
 
Seriously-- "IF we had it, IT WOULD BE....." ???????? (Hunker down now, 'cause I'm climbing up on my soap box and I'm not coming down for a while.)

This is not a hypothetical question, people! 

IF you had wings, where would you fly first? IF you won a million dollars, what would you spend it on? IF you could be any animal, which one would you be? IF you could meet any famous person dead or alive, who would it be?

See? Those are hypothetical questions. When I walk into a store and inquire about a product, I am not asking, hypothetically, IF they had that product, where would it be?

I actually NEED the product! That's why I'm asking! It's a real question! Where is the item? 

Just tell me!

All I want to hear is a YES or a NO-- Do you have it?

And then-- WHERE IS IT? Surely you, who work at the store, must know this.

Is it really that difficult? What happened to the days of employees knowing the store? Knowing what they stock, and where it would be? Are those days history? Now the customer has to do all the work, wandering the store aimlessly, without a clue whether the item in question is even in the store??

Gah. I'm done ranting. But seriously. That is a bit ridiculous.

Continuing my story.... I went over to the nail stuff and checked, and it was not there. I found another person to ask-- and he went straight to the first woman who I originally asked! She answered him an infuriating: "I TOLD  her to look over in the nail polish aisle!"

Ugh. I left and went to Walmart. And get this-- they WALKED ME TO THE ITEM that I was searching for.

Amazing.