Having fun thinking about what products (chewing gum, nail polish, hair conditioner) I would endorse aside, lately the CONSUMERIST me has been tweaked by too many bad experiences with products and services which translates on the sales floor level to clerks who are jerks and on the corporate level to making hay while the sun continues to set.
At a time when we all need to be stimulating our ever failing economy (We all know those unemployment rates do not reflect those who ran out of unemployment and are now loosing everything they ever earned), the effort of dealing with these businesses (including one increasingly shitty "non-profit" gym) is to the point where it hardly seems worth the time and energy to complain to them (as if someone who earns their living there would care) or even the Consumer Bureau, which also has unpaid volunteers answering the phones these days, taking a guess at what you oughta do.
Instead, since the personal is political, what I have to say about these experiences to anyone who will listen (including strangers I encounter here, there, and everywhere) has become my high art of putting them out of business (or at least making informed and wary customers of the next sucker who goes in to buy.) Yes, my frustration and anger has become that of the bitter complainer so BUYER BEWARE.
I haven't purchased a thing besides underwear from an indoor shopping mall for a few years now! The last time I went to an indoor shopping mall I felt henpecked by fake phony clerks who kept asking me store after store "How are you today?" Never had more people staged a concern over my well being and as a gambit to sell me something.
I felt for all these people desperate to make a living and keep their jobs while on commission, but I left remembering why I mail order.
I also remembered being a clerk myself (back when it was an art in itself) and one never pretended to be overly familiar with a stranger or forgot they there to serve!
After you buy (and spend all that time and money on transportation) to get there, the product falls apart. Surprise! Made in China! So you call the store and someone of the phone says "Can you come in with your receipt?" I did that recently, spending over an hour to get back to the place, and the manager of the store stared at me and denied anyone ever said they would fix the problem, as if it were out of his pocket! It's almost as if they count on you NOT bringing back products because it's too much effort. That means manufacturers are not being held to excellence. Instead they figure how much shabby they can get away with!
Oh, but they want you to take that SURVEY on your receipt so corporate can find out if you were happy with your last visit.
Speaking of shabby, service in the stores seems over unless it's a very expensive store indeed. I think I can speak for you too! Aren't we sick of walking miles of isles trying to find products or someone to ask for help or direction, rude employees at the gym (who aren't even pretending they see the correlation between your membership and their job (Are they talking down to me because I'm not fit?) and products that fall apart (Wore those tennis shoes twice before the insides came unsewn and rubbed blisters into my feet) or that you cannot try on in a store (No dressing rooms? Guess at what bra size you wear?) and are not returnable (Didn't you see the sign?), is at an all time high as our economy continues to fall apart.
Writing this has made me feel (just slightly) better!
C Christine Trzyna 2011 All Rights Reserved including Internet Rights and International Rights
Showing posts with label American Consumers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Consumers. Show all posts
1/18/11
BOOK EXCERPT : SHOPTISM BY LEE EISENBERG
From SHOPTISM by Lee Eisenberg
regarding RUSSELL BELK
page 297
..."Belk makes a compelling case about the inter-dependence of having and being. In fact, he even proposes four stages of human development based on the connection between having and being;
1) as infants we seek to distinguish ourselves from our environment.
2) as children we seek to distinguish ourselves from others .
3) as adolescents and adults, we use our possessions to help "manage" our identities and
4) as old folks we rely on certain possessions to maintain a sense of continuity and prepare for the end. Nearing that end, we cherish not only letters and photographs but also things we purchased over the years, thoughtfully or impulsively: jewelry, china, mementos of various kinds, even, perhaps, an old dressing gown.
"Our accumulation of possessions," says Belk, thus "provides a sense of past and tells us who we are, where we have come from, and perhaps where we are going."
Something to think about the next time you lose a possession that had come to mean something important to you. A break-in, a house fire, your own carelessness, it doesn't matter how it occurred. The response is the same; a part of you has gone missing.
C author Lee Eisenberg published by Freepress
regarding RUSSELL BELK
page 297
..."Belk makes a compelling case about the inter-dependence of having and being. In fact, he even proposes four stages of human development based on the connection between having and being;
1) as infants we seek to distinguish ourselves from our environment.
2) as children we seek to distinguish ourselves from others .
3) as adolescents and adults, we use our possessions to help "manage" our identities and
4) as old folks we rely on certain possessions to maintain a sense of continuity and prepare for the end. Nearing that end, we cherish not only letters and photographs but also things we purchased over the years, thoughtfully or impulsively: jewelry, china, mementos of various kinds, even, perhaps, an old dressing gown.
"Our accumulation of possessions," says Belk, thus "provides a sense of past and tells us who we are, where we have come from, and perhaps where we are going."
Something to think about the next time you lose a possession that had come to mean something important to you. A break-in, a house fire, your own carelessness, it doesn't matter how it occurred. The response is the same; a part of you has gone missing.
C author Lee Eisenberg published by Freepress
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