Some Days You Just Wanna...

...Gut some people with a rusty butter knife.

Went out to one of my favorite lunch spots for a bite. It is a pretty good chinese restuarant with a decent menu. I had some time to kill before returning to work and decided to walk off some of my Gen. Tso's Chicken. Every couple of months I go to the local snooty book warehouse in the same strip center and peruse the gun mags. I may pick up one or two that strike my fancy, and if there is a hottie on the cover, I may grab a Maxim mag to drool over as well.

I picked up the latest American Handgunner and G&A mags, and since Brittany Murphy was on the cover, grabbed the last Maxim on the shelf. When I approached the counter with my selections, the clerk, an officious looking she-beard, asked me for my name and address. It took me a moment to overcome the absolute incredulity and balls on this woman. How dare she ask for this info from me?! Just because I am purchasing a gun magazine, I have to submit to Gestapo tactics from some liberal HAG. Right before I told her to perform a specific, not for the kiddies, sex act on her self and leave, she starts to guffaw and cackle and says she was joking and wanted to see the look on my face.

I thought better of tearing into her about the finer details of the USA PATRIOT Act right then and there. For one thing, I was in my bank logo shirt, and a client of mine was standing in line behind me. Not the ideal situation for an ass-chewing! What gives this anti-gun sow the right to even joke about that? My personal reading habits are no business of hers. I would try to reason with her, but what's the point? It would be like trying to speak to a brick wall. Write a scathing letter to her supervisor? Maybe. I am sure that my point would be made and someone would discuss the matter with her. Naw, I have a better way to go about it. I will just boycott that particular store. I don't have anything against the entire franchise of stores, but the quality of customer service in a particular store will have me taking my business elsewhere.

To give you a couple of examples, I most always go to the same camera shop near the bank to have my photos developed. They always greet me by name, and actually commend me for some of my photographic talent. A prime example, I took a series of photos of a sunset on a Swedish lake (I'll try and post if I can find it!). As a courtesy, they took what they thought was the best shot and blew it up to an 8x10 as a gift. For that, they will have a customer for life.

I had a bad experience buying a lottery ticket from a gas station about a year ago. This station runs cheaper gas, and is right down the street from the house. I questioned a mistake that was made when the sale was made. They griped and became brusque with me when I asked if that particular sale could be voided. No matter that I was uninformed about state lottery laws regarding mistakes on lottery tickets, those morons did nothing to diffuse the situation and try to explain their position. Instead, they got loud and very disrespectful. Not a way to run a business. I left without paying for the tickets. To this day, I have not been back there. I don't care if they are giving away free gas, I will go across the street and pay the higher price simply because the people working over there are customer service oriented.

Where I work, bad situations like that will get me fired real quick. Our bank prides itself on top-notch customer service, for the account holder and non-account holder alike. I do my best to abide by the core values and customer service guidelines in the employee handbook, but there are times, too, that I want to be the badguy and ruin someone's day. I do my best to provide good customer service for the customers. I want their business and I want them to enjoy coming to the bank. If I act like some of these minimum wage slaves and just don't give a damn, then pretty soon I am going to be out of a job.

This gives me an idea. I have to think out the particulars on this and get back to you. I will work on creating a sidebar area for my list of boycotted businesses. If you are ever in the Houston area, just check the list and "buyer beware" when it comes to shopping at these particular places.

Check back to see if I go through with this.

Shooter out!