Another reason to admire store “savings” cards
Call them whatever: club cards, preferred shopper cards, loyalty cards. They are the newest bane to our shopping experience. To get the sale price on goods nowdays, you have to be a “member” of the company’s “club”. I’d rather not, but I also want the sale price. It seems just a tad unfair that there are now 2 classes of shoppers: club members and the great unwashed. For the most part, I am a part of the latter when it comes to these cards. I have been coerced into getting the ones for the places I shop the most, but I don’t like them. Now I have reason to dislike them even more.
My neighbor works for a grocery store…let me rephrase that. My neighbor WORKED for a grocery store. She now works for somebody else. This happened a while ago and I only recently learned about it. I don’t make a habit of tracking the employment history of my acquaintances. As many others have, my neighbor’s (I’ll call her Stella) company initiated their own savings card. For a while it was a fiasco because in my town, respecting one’s privacy is a big deal. Every one pretty much minds their own business and most don’t appreciate intrusions. Therefore it was a hard sell to get people to put their name, address, phone, etc on an “application” for a card that now was required to get the sale prices that they got for “free” before.
It took a while but most people eventually signed up. Occasionally however a shopper would wander thru buying stuff who didn’t have this savings card. The checker was supposed to enroll the shopper at that time, and hand them their new shiny card. Stella was working one day and such an occasion arose. The shopper was traveling thru the area. He didn’t need a card. He didn’t want a card. He just had a few items which happened to be on sale. It was also very busy and she wanted to move the line thru. Stella grabbed a savings card from a nearby pile and scanned it to provide the sale price for the customer. He paid for his purchase and she put the card back in the pile. Unfortunately for Stella the customer behind her was a corporate employee with an axe to grind.
Get this: it was a violation of company policy to give a customer the sale price using a “generic” or “unassigned” savings card. He called her on the carpet for this and she lost her job that very day. I couldn’t believe what Stella was telling me. I shop at both this company and a competitor because one is close to work and the other is close to home. When I forget my card at the competitor, they have ONE HANGING FROM A CHAIN FOR THE CHECKER TO USE. But if I shop at Stella’s former store, the checker will get fired for doing that same thing.
I asked Stella if she knew she could get fired for that. She said “They told us we weren’t supposed to use generic cards for purchases. I didn’t know I could get fired for it”
In my company, there are lots of things we are “supposed to and NOT supposed to” do. We are supposed to wear black pants and shoes. Sometimes I wear a flowered skirt and sandals. We are not supposed to have any overtime, but sometimes we have to. I am supposed to file certain reports in a certain drawer, but I dont have room in that drawer so I keep them someplace else. I don’t think I will get canned for doing or not doing any of these things so this whole thing confuses me. I fail to see how one company can have a savings card hanging from a chain so nobody goes without their sales price, and another fires a checker for giving one traveler a break by giving him the sale price without an official savings card.
Personally I find it amazing that a company holds this infraction on the same level as, say… stuffing hundred dollar bills from the till down your pants, or coming to work drunk, or assaulting a customer. Yessiree, give somebody an undeserved sale price and hand over your apron and name tag please.
Stella still hurts by this dismissal. Its been over 3 years and she doesn’t like to discuss it. To her, its an embarassment to be fired. She found a new job and loves it. No longer does she pull groceries over a scanner. Her feet don’t hurt at the end of the day and she doesn’t live and die by the fickle whim of a corporate giant.
We should all be so lucky. Everytime I have to use my savings card, I think of Stella, and wonder how many Stellas they thew away.
Tags: personal life, ranting | |