Surprise, surprise!!!
It now costs a quarter to rent one of our buggies. We have had a continuing problem of students (mostly foreign) walking off the lot with our buggies. Great but when you come back the next time you can't bring the damn thing back????!!!!
This has gotten a lot worse since we started charging for bags. The won't give you the 5 cents for a bag, but they feel perfectly fine about walking away with a $100.00 - $200.00 buggy ? ?
You can tell who is going to take off with them, though. For the first few years I never really said or did anything, but now that I am confident, or maybe over confident, about keeping my job I will ask them if they are driving. If they say yes I say "that's good, 'cause I'd hate to see you trying to get this stuff home like that." Now this is assuming that they even answer, because they are notoriously rude about making any conversation. I know you are uncomfortable with the language, but why did you come here to study then? I'm not being rude to you.
If they say no, then I ask them if they are aware that they can't take the buggy off the property. They get this 'deer in the headlights' look and tell me that they weren't going to do that.
Yeah??? Then how come if I am watch you out the front window I see you taking the thing across the road and down to the apartments???
Huh?? Tell me the answer to that one, you buggy thief !
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I actually got like this because I really don't like theft. Really, really don't. I stole something as a child because I HAD to have this little, white plastic horse. After I got home, the guilt set in. I didn't enjoy my horse. I couldn't play with him. Whenever I was in that same store I was POSITIVE they were watching me. It scared the bejeebers out of me that they may catch me! ! ! I was sure I would do LIFE ! !
That little horse taught me how bad it is to steal. Probably it was really my conscience, but EVERY single time I looked at my little horse, I felt G U I L T Y.
Anyway, I don't like stealing. It is a horrible thing to do. I once had someone that I thought was a friend, steal a whole collection of miniature collie statues from my house when I wasn't there. It was one of the most impotent moments of my life.
You can't call any one. They're only priceless to me.
You can't confront the thieves, because they have suddenly disappeared from your life.
You can't replace the statues because they were something that is not made any more.
You have lost the enjoyment you had from knowing that you had either bought them all with your own 'little girl' money or your Mom had bought them for you.
And worst of all was the fact that they had all come from an area of my childhood that I hold most dear. It was the spot we went for many summer vacations and stayed in a housekeeping cottage by the Atlantic Ocean.
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Back to the buggy story.
Where I think our store made a huge mistake was in not telling the customers, or at the very least putting up a sign, before hand. It was just one day you're getting a buggy for free, the next day you have to have a quarter. The reason this is a big deal is that most of our customers are either parents or grandparents. Parents almost always use a credit or debit card, and grandparents don't have any change because they have taken it out at home for the grandkids ! ! It would have been so much easier to have put up signs saying 'effective such and such we regret that we will have to charge for buggies'.
SSSSSSOOOOOOOO, we have had a fair number of angry customers. We have asked them to fill out a comment card that will go to head office, rather than to tell us. The powers that be will listen to customers before they will ever listen to employees telling them what the customers say.
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The problem as I see it, is that 25 cents isn't a lot of money to pay for a buggy to get your groceries home.
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