Wow what a vivid storyteller.
ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz
No wonder she ingnored you.
I can't even figure out what the hell you wrote.

@thirdbase: Wow, what a vivacious asshole.

Worst. Email. Ever.

Wasn't this stolen from the plot of an episode of everybody loves raymond? It's about as funny as that show was.

@thirdbase: I was just thinking the same thing.

The e-mail wasn't bad. He certainly got his point across.

@thirdbase & @CharlieInSeattle: Here's a recap:

1. He went into Kohl's at 6:40
2. Within a few minutes he found some earrings he wanted to buy
3. By 6:55 he still hadn't been helped by anyone even though there were three employees behind the counter
4. So he left.

I'm tempted to read it again as I fear I may have lost the point, but...

I don't get it: there were no other cashiers available in the whole store? Or you just didn't want to wait in line with the rest of the shoppers since the lady at the jewelery counter was leaving for the day?

@Chris Walters: Aaaahhhh... Now it makes sense! Thanks for the clarification.

My eyes! The run-on sentences!

Regardless of whether or not the cashier was busy counting the money or not, when you have 3 customers waiting to be attended to, you can very well call someone else in to help or tell the customers that you will be with them shortly. Customer service really went down the tubes.

I know what the wife can get him for Father's day. A nice big bottle of pills for that ADD.

All that just to tell us/Kohl's that no one would help him and then he left. I'm all for detailed accounts, but that was completely unnecessary. Chris, I think you could have edited it just a bit, but I can understand why you wouldn't want to.

I totally believe the part about the mad-rush for the sale items; every 40+ woman I know (including my own mom) is OBSESSED with Kohl's. I don't get it.

So basically he was too lazy to flag down another employee but not too lazy to google an email address and write a sternly worded letter. The amount of effort he spent on the email would have been more productively spent finding a manager to complain to about the unhelpful associate and to purchase the earrings so that the trip wasn't just an excuse to write an email and a waste a time on top of that.

He also doesn't articulate what efforts he made to get her attention. He just says she didn't hear him. Did he not say anything, or if he did, was he quiet? Why couldn't he have walked around to where she was standing and spoke to her directly. Sure, she should have to come to him, but if she doesn't respond, you have to be more assertive, not just give up and act like you did everything you could. You're still out of a present for your wife and writing the email probably wasn't as satisfying as it could have been.

Must Consumerist print every single story about mediocre -- not even scandalously bad service, but simply mediocre service -- that comes its way on a Sunday afternoon?

If there were three sales people and nobody could help him at the moment one of the should have at least said "we will be with you in a moment". That lets the customer know they are aware he is there and that they are actually intent on helping him. Busy or not just ignoring someone is rude.

@am84: Kohls does their sales in a way to play into the psyche of shopoholics. They put everything on sale at 50% off on a rotating basis if you actually pay attention. They also do these door buster sales that are ok but they build a frenzy with the limited time frame. So really there isn't any huge bargain beyond the odd thing on the clearance rack.

I've WORKED retail so I know the frustration of having a customer come up when you're "counting down" for the day.

But it takes ten seconds to ring someone up if they're waiting there for a big sale. I know this because I've done it- you have to start up again on counting down if you can't do math in your head, but big deal. You help someone, explain the situation to the next person and call over another associate, etc.

SAY something to your customers! I can't think of the number of times I've been in a store where an employee (who probably was tired and stressed out, sure) stood there, counting their till and completely ignoring me. It's rude and the least they can do is communicate with a customer or another employee.

A customer at a jewelry counter shouldn't have to work hard to flag down an employee.

I can't imagine anyone working for the monolithic corporate culture of Kohls has any vested interest in providing service. This would be kind of like expecting the Wal-Mart electronics department to spend time helping you select a DVD player. Perhaps it's better to go to a locally-owned jewelry shop that wants your business.

@timmus: "Perhaps it's better to go to a locally-owned jewelry shop that wants your business."

Exactly! You get much better items at much better prices (not to mention service). I have a loupe and my wife knows how to use it and knows what she's looking at...I would be sleeping with the dog if I went to a BigBox and bought the garbage they sell.

Maybe this is the Consumerist version of a Slow News Day

For everyone who seems to be wondering why he didn't just flag down someone or take his purchase to another cashier...

Jewelry tends to be kept under lock and key in display cases. They treat it like it was made of precious jewels or something. You have to have the key. The three employees with the keys didn't want to help.

Flagging down other employees would have been pointless, because the likelihood is high that even if they were allowed behind the counter, they wouldn't have the keys to unlock the jewelry he wanted.

I do agree that this letter is very hard to understand. I still don't get if he was saying that there were two male employees behind the jewelry counter, or if there were two other men there trying to buy stuff. Proofread, people!

Dude, buy your wife a pre-paid gasoline card. If you're spending that much on ear rings the wife is probably driving around in an SUV.

Man, that was a boring story.

In other news, I had a coworker who was partially deaf, but she had hearing aids and could hear even better than me when she had them in. However, she even admitted to me, she loved using her hearing as an excuse to not have to do any work. If she ever got caught not doing something she was told, not paying attention, or not answering the phones, she would just play up the old "I couldn't hear it!" card. Funny enough, when I read this story, it made me wonder if she went on to work at Kohls...

Also, if the chick is counting up her drawer, doesn't that signal that she's going off-shift or the store is closing? If so, then give her a frikking break...lots of employers drill it into their employees heads that if they're still on the clock once they're meant to be off it (she had five mins to get off it looks like) that they won't get paid for the extra time or the old scare tactic of telling them they'll be fired if they go over 40 hours that week, even if just by a minute. So calm the hell down. I'd sure as heck say my employment, which includes not pissing off my employer, is alot more important than some earrings for your wife.

I am sure his wife is loving this

"I was going to get you these nice earrings, but the person took to long so I got you nothing. See I even have the cash in my pocket to prove it."

@Mr_Human: No they don't.

Yup- that was 5 minutes I will not be getting back. Please don't post stuff like this. It isn't even a good example of how to get what you want.

I'm glad I don't have to deal with this guy on the other side of a deal.

My advice- be less self-indulgent. He didn't even really ask the recipient for anything.

You could summarize as:

-I'm in sales
-WAAAAHHH!!!!
-GRRRR!!!!!
-HAAARUMPH!!!

The only place I don't get treated like this is at an AT&T store where every employee HAS to approach you in the hopes of their commission sales. Yuck.

@am84: because it appears to have MASSIVE SALE on everything.

This story was simply too much. The guy went into a store to buy his wife something for Mother's Day. When he goes to the jewelry department, he finds the pair of earrings that "look like her" [I'm sure that was the rationale] and tries to flag down the one cashier working in that department.

This is where the story goes south:

She ignores him, and several other customers that were trying to get some assistance.

OK, so he chooses to remain offended and leave the store. The offense taken is so by and large beyond the scope of what the cashier did that he decides using a search engine to find corporate members' e-mail addresses is the only recourse he had at his disposal.

Sir, you are an idiot. Hands down this has to be the biggest waste of time to get any sort of resolution on the matter. Kohl's did not directly cost you any money. For that matter they may have SAVED you money as they enabled you as a consumer to go out and shop elsewhere.

Perhaps you would get a better deal, but perhaps not. Kohl's isn't the only store in the retail landscape and they certainly aren't the # 1 jeweler in the nation. You have options, so take advantage of those. Next time exercise a bit of tact and get a hold of another cashier and notify them of the problem you are having.

Who knows, maybe you will get treated properly next time.

I feel for this guy, I really do.

Except, well, he's kinda weird, isn't he? I mean, he's rather insistent about being a "stereotypical guy". If he really hated shopping that much, why didn't he just buy any random diamond earrings off the internet? Then, instead of shopping at Kohl's after work, he could be on the golf course, or whatever stereotypical guys do.

Holy Shit, I was at that exact store around that time, it's in Colorado Springs! WooHoo!

hmmmm.... i opine that whining about free syrup (worth a quarter) makes us look silly and i get pilloried.

Here, a guy (three guys actually) can't get any service at the jewelry counter for 15 or 20 minutes and he gets serially reamed.

The author and the other guys are likely to be the easiest get-in/get-out sales you can have. At least one was worth $300 bucks. Let's pretend the other two were worth $300 also.

Kohls could have made $900 in about 5 minutes on that register (worst case: $300/15 minutes). Instead they have three pissed off men who won't be back and will make it a point to steer their wives/girlfriends away from Kohls when they're out with said girlfriends/wives.

Let's try it agan: 15/20 minutes at the jewelry counter for a $300 purchase and he couldn't get any help.
Kohls: FAIL.

i'm reminded of the time i went to a local bike shop. Had a nice road bike all picked out. I wanted to look at it. waited 10 minutes for the children running the store to get off the phone and stop counting inner tubes. "I'd like to look at the road bike up here" (pointing). Layed 25 $100 bills on the counter, one at a time, in a row, in front of two employees. "Can i look at the road bike?" counted to sixty. picked them up, one at a time, and walked out.

9 months later they were out of business.

The lesson i take away from this is that when a customer is trying to give you money, it's generally more profitable to TAKE THE MONEY instead of ALIENATING THE CUSTOMER.

I get what he's saying and this problem may be a sign of the economic times. Retail stores are not hiring enough people to work there. Then there is the problem of not hiring reasonably qualified people to work.

Since I recently found out that Kohls does give a small commission to the cashiers on jewelry sales - I don't understand why they wouldn't jump for a sale. I had great service at Kohls for this reason.

I understand his frustration and wanting to publicize to Kohls to get better people. I hope other stores can too. As said above - We want You To Take Our Money!

@Chris Walters: I'm not going to re-read the story, but I'm pretty sure your summary was partially incorrect. There was one employee and three customers, including the OP.

Anyway, I'm impressed by the length the OP is willing to go to convince his wife he didn't forget Mother's Day. Consumerist makes a good accomplice.

Joking!! Or am I? :P

Until about six months ago, Kohl's was one of the best retailers around. Good prices, friendly, helpful salespeople, well-organized, clean stores.

Not any more.

With the possible exception of the cashiers, Kohl's employees are hardly a step above those who work at Kmart. They run when they see a customer, many can't speak English, and most know little about the products that Kohl's sells.

The one redeeming factor is that Kohl's is willing to compensate customers for inconvenience. Whenever I get crappy service there, I go to the customer service counter, tell them that I'm a dedicated customer but very unhappy today because of the lousy service, and tell them that they should give me 10% today's purchases. Without fail, they knock 10% off.

His story sounds typical of my experiences in all those kind of stores; Sears, Kohls, Macy's, Carsons...

They all have stores full of products and customers, but never any staff that feel the need to sell anything.

I didn't get the story why the sales woman didn't hear him (if he even approached her). I got bored after reading his story.

Kohl's is a crappy store. So in a way I figured out that the clerk was lazy, most of the cashiers at my local Kohl's seem upset at something when a customer approach them to check out.

Did he get a pair of earrings? Why he doesn't give the money to his wife?

Why would employees give a damn if they lost their store a sale? Unless they get a commission.

Man, I remember in my first & only retail job I had.... I could care less about the store. They paid me jack shit & there was no way in hell would I go above & beyond for a company that seemingly didnt care enough to pay a decent wage. Fuck em!

*note: working retail is just about one of the worst jobs there is. I'd rather shovel horse manure all day.

@MoCo: I've tries the 10% off and never worked for me. Even the people @ customer service are a bunch of lazy women.

Oops!. I've tried.

Granted this may be just an isolated instance, but it's poor form for an activism/reporting blog to NOT indicate where the incident was. Powers Boulevard. For all we know, this could have been in Sao Paulo or Johannesburg.

I used to read the "Bad Service" blog on LiveJournal until its regulars pretty much stopped citing any details, thus turning into a group of whiners. I came to Consumerist because it was similar but had rich detail, and have been here ever since. Let's not go down the Bad Service blog road.

"Now I am all for hiring people w/ handicaps but I do not believe this counter person was deaf, however I am unable to prove that due to her not flinching as the gentleman next to me was surely heard by someone 50 ft away."

What??? It seems to me that you more or less DID prove it. Or rather the guy beside you did. What a huge contradiction that statement was.

What if she was deaf? Did you try and make eye contact? Did wave your hands or perhaps tap her shoulder?

Oh but wait...maybe Kohl's doesn't have the same excellent equal opportunity philosophy as you do for hiring HANDICAPS.

I know you were probably trying to make a joke but I am deaf and I found that comment offensive. Deaf people don't see their deafness as a handicap but that's a whole other issue and debate.

I also realize that you may have very well come in contact with a deaf person and you handled it very poorly.

I would laugh my ass off if she really was deaf because then you got all huffy and pissed off for nothing but your own ignorance.

@buzzair: If the salesperson were deaf, s/he would compensate by using sight to take stock of the surrounding customers, thus looking up at some point. Especially if there were 2 or 3 people there.

What this looks like to me was that the cashier was counting money and couldn't be interrupted.

well everyone's crabby today

who buys jewelry at Kohl's?

I don't get this story. Customer is surprised minimum wage employees didn't care about a sale?

Customer is surprised that minimum wage employees... that don't care about customers... additionally don't care about stereotype of male customers that supposedly want to get in and out of store quickly?

Customer is surprised that minimum wage employees... that don't care about customers... that additionally don't care about stereotype of male customers that supposedly want to get in and out of store quickly... also don't care that someone might want to part with some cash on a pricey item?

Well... let's just say I'm surprised he's surprised.

@ryanv1978: Guys that "have ran" dollar stores and worked at "Lord and Taylors" buy jewelry at Kohl's. I can't believe that anybody who has ever set foot in a dollar store would complain about the merchandising anywhere else.

This post really is a sort of anthropology piece, providing insight into the habits of homo sapiens suburbis.

I hope "the wife" got some good stripmall bling, and maybe dinner at Mimi's.

To anyone who thinks flagging down an employee with a key is important, you're missing a connection.