What? The phone was probably malfunctioning.

Weel, the phone WAS lifted....right off the jack!!

Isn't that the blue plastic that is on most new jacks/faceplates that prevent them from being scratched during installs, but is removed before you put the phone on?

Oops, did I accidentally click FailBlog.org?

Isn't orange the color of an aircrafts "black box", which signifies disaster?

Whenever I go into Target, I do kind of feel like I'm in an alternate universe. The lack of real personality and the zombie employees makes me feel like I'm dreaming. And then I step out into glorious sunshine and feel alive again.

What's wrong with the second picture? The TV measurements are off?

Come on! The one on the right is obviously closer to the micro black hole that took the phone as its first victim. The right TV looks distorted in the high-gravity field. If you look real close at the right side of the picture, you can just about feel your eyes being sucked out of their sockets before it takes you too. Say hello to the Star-Children and Target managers on the other side.

I think the TV on the right appears bigger because of the plastic surrounding it. The one on the left looks wider. Did this guy bother measuring the screens??

I noticed the phones missing at my local target, too. Perhaps they're doing away with them and going to strictly use the buttons to notify employees that someone needs help.

Also, TV screens are measured diagonally, from one corner of the screen to the other corner of the screen; not the size of the entire TV itself.

i may be the only one, but i love target.

if it makes me have a mini existential dilemma... eh. i can deal with it for those adorable and cheap housewares and clothes.

@katieoh: You're not alone!

The TV on the right is for the realistic woman.
The TV on the left is for the bragging man.

I think the bigger issue here is that he spells his name "Geoff"

So HDTV's equate to an embellished "fish story" joke at Target now? Riiiiigggghhhhtttt.....

Target is still preferable to Wal-Mart IMO.

@salvatorecondegni: I also noticed that. I have a 37" tv that is wider that pretty much all 42" tvs because of the border. I bet those inches are correct.

@salvatorecondegni:

There was actually a 32" TV to the right of the 26" and it was painfully obvious that the 32" TV to the left was actually just mislabeled.

I didn't take a picture of all three due to a combination of my crappy camera phone and not thinking I'd need justifications for a funny photo.

Anyways, take it for what you will, if you look to the bottom left of the screen you can see where the 32" TV ends and it's not an ultra-wide...

The basket label was there because people yank the bottom one that is connected to the base. If I saw every customer trying to pick up the attached basket, I would have labeled it as a not a basket also.

@katieoh: I love Target too!

@ajlei: I wonder what Target you go to. When I worked at Target, my guests got all points of the emotion spectrum, happy, sad, anger, excitement.

But then again, we must remember the types of questions and comments the Target employees get...

I remember someone complaining to me that it was ridiculous to put the bathroom all the way at the front of the store because now she had to go alllll the way across the store (the amount of the the belittled me took twice as long as the walk over there).

I simply told her in my zombie emotion, "yes ma'am, next time I design our next store I'll keep that in mind" and I walked away.

@katieoh: Me too, (disclaimer: i worked there for six months or so) but I find them cleaner and less trashy then Walmarts, and the lines aren't nearly as long.

@pecan 3.14159265: If by "malfunctioning" you mean "annoying the person in the back who has to answer it".

@pecan 3.14159265: Yep.... simple issues are not becoming nationwide news stories!

woot woot.

I wonder if they'll publish a story about my highway on ramp has had pot holes for the past 2 months and hasn't been fixed, it's really bad now, your car wiggles back and forth when you go over all of them.

Are these squads of people canvassing Targets with cameras? 'cause if this is the best they can do, maybe they ought to lay off, or head over to Menards or something.

@salvatorecondegni: I think they really are both the same size.

I can't tell you how many times people would knock those things off and toss them back on to any tv, or how many immature teenagers would switch them around.

@katieoh: target rocks. But these posts have been pretty funny too

@idip: And for the most part, the staff either knows where things are, or they can readily find out. At Wal-Mart the people have just looked at me with glazed eyes, and went off to find a person to ask. If that person didn't know, they'd move on to find another person. At Target, they get on their touch-screen database and check for you, or they use the computer. And if that fails, they get on their radio and ask someone in the back to find it for them.

@Blueskylaw: Since Target's logo is red, and their associating color is red, the "orange" in this photo is most likely red and merely looks orange.

@Corporate_guy: I've seen people drag it around.

yes! I know.

I've had to go find a basket and bring it to them and tell them, "excuse me, that's not a basket, I'll trade you."

They just didn't know... o.O or didn't care.

I can't judge anything because the picture is at a angle, the heights of the TV are different than each other. They in a sense appear the same size if you take those out of the picture. A question I also wonder is what do the "real" labels say under the screens. In general the stated screen size is always smaller than what is shown since some is masked out. 6" inches is out of the question on actual stated screen size, I think in general it is probably 1/2 to 1 inch less. So the picture means little to me without real measurements. No disrespect to the poster of the picture.

@celticgina: lift is a synonym for steal, they were just doing what they were told!

I don't care about all these little glitches.

Since I've stopped recreational shopping, I miss that place like crazy. "Tarzhayyyyyy... my true love..."

@umbriago: Aren't Menards a midwest thing, and even then localized to a few areas? I think i may start carrying a camera everywhere i go for this reason. I am off to Target to search seemingly out of place signs.

Don't worry, Target. The men in the white coats are friendly.

@katieoh:

I like it too. I wish they'd put one on my end of town, but they don't. I have to drive all the way to the south side. :P

@pecan 3.14159265: I had worked at Walmart part time for a number of years and assisted with finding out where an item is located in a store. Usually, most workers are assigned to a particular department and don't take the time to even think about anything outside their world. What I always hated was having fellow associates page out for customer assistance in a department that they did not work in, just to get an item down off the top shelf. I had a customer flag me down to help her get some plastic 88-cent bowls off the top shelf, after two or three other employees paged out for the "proper" dept. associate. I couldn't believe that she waited 15 minutes before I passed by.

@pecan 3.14159265: I was in a Target where the guest service kiosk had the same signs, and a phone, but no phone line. When I mentioned this to Customer Service I got an 'Oh yeah, we'll fix that', which a week later they hadn't. People would pick up the phone, try talking, look puzzled, then eventually realize that there was nothing connecting the phone to anything else. My guess was that the employees didn't want to be bothered.

@pecan 3.14159265: More messing with reality. OH GOD TARGET MAKE IT STOP

I SAW THIS TODAY TOO! At a target in Chicago! *SHOCK*

All this seems trivial. They haven't really done anything out of the ordinary. A basket that is used to hold basket, which, essentially, is not a MERCHANDISE basket, a sign that some one didn't put up right, and a phone that obviously hasn't been hooked up correctly, or has been moved. Big whoop. I'm sorry to report, but this really isn't big news compared to some of the things I've seen at other stores. You don't see a news story everytime the Consumerist messes up. I've seen glitches left and right from time to time. No big deal. Shit happens, ect.

The only issue I really have with Target is the fact they follow me around since my daughter uses a wheelchair. I guess they figure I can stuff it full of "bargins" right off their shelves. It kind of gets annoying to turn around a find a sales associate asking you if they can help you with anything every 2 minutes. It does feel like an alternative reality. I'm actually in a large corperation that seems to "care".

But hey, it's closer than Walmart.

At least your Target doesn't have gender role confusion:

@dharma261: Well, the sticker on the 26 inch TV has a 2 and a 6, and I'm thinking that might be the measurement? I can't imagine why a company would use a 2 and a 6 in their advertising unless it was to show the measurement.

I just wrote up a blog post on my local Targets (we have 2) "marketing."

Seriously crazy.
They marked up printer ink and called it an "As Advertised" price (stick it to the impulse or ink desperate shoppers!), and made a faux "clearance" tag on my hubby's shampoo.

[www.thecentsiblelife.com]

OK, I admit, I took that phone with me so I can get help from them anywhere I go.

@chrisjames: +1

So I guess I'm the only one that messes with in store displays?

They are either a sticker or something Velcro'd

Don't get me wrong, I love target. They beat the hell out of Wally-World and K-Mart. But when you see stuff like this, you can't help but laugh. @ooolam:

granted its not scientific or anything, but the tv on the left looks wider than the tv on the right. if you just look at the picture at least. a 26" 4:3 tv is pretty much the same height as a 32" 16:9 tv. I am not saying that is the case here, i'm just saying that it doesn't look like the tvs are the same size in the picture...

You have entered the "Target Zone!"

That's not a phone jack, that's a card skimmer. Go ahead, stick it in.