Yesterday's tale of Hick getting an $80 surprise discount on drywall has prompted a question of morality. We Thevictorians are generally honest to a fault.
Like when I found $10 left in the lottery machine at Country Mart, and informed the cashier, and she looked at me like I had two heads, and said she couldn't do anything. And the time I found a ticket stuck up against the front of the dispensing tray at the lottery machine, and chased after the old man who'd been ahead of me. Or when I saw a dollar on the floor at Casey's, and left it! Or the $5 bill on the ramp of the Gas Station Chicken Store, and picked it up and gave it to the clerk. And let's not forget The Pony, who found a $10 ticket laying in the lottery machine at a truckstop on the way home from the casino, and left it, because it wasn't his.
No, Thevictorians are not grifters. We don't take things that don't belong to us. Many times, I had to remind the Walmart checkers that they'd forgotten to scan my cases of soda left in the cart. Or give back change at the fast-food drive-thru window when given too much. And that one time I drove two miles back to Casey's because they had given me $15 too much back after my scratcher transaction.
Hick's situation is a bit different. He'd already left the store with his stack of drywall before he noticed their error in billing. I suppose he COULD drive the 20 miles back to the store, wait in line at the service desk, present his receipt and tell his tale of being charged too little for a specific number of blueboard pieces rather than drywall pieces, and suggest that they investigate and re-charge our credit card.
I'm not sure how that would work. If they have to go through register tapes or logs, and maybe void that transaction. I don't see how they could charge Hick for phantom merchandise, with only his word for it. Obviously, the register would show what they THOUGHT was on Hick's cart, thus the price they actually charged him. I'm thinking that whoever was in charge of handling this matter would NOT be pleased that Hick had returned to be honest. You know how people are these days about doing anything EXTRA for their job.
Besides, at what point do we as customers draw the line at doing the employee's job for them? Surely they have training in how to ring up merchandise. Like Walmart checkers have to look under the cart (my sodas were IN the cart!) so they don't miss anything. If I catch a mistake right there while I'm making the transaction, I always tell them. But I'm really not required to.
Anyhoo... it's not like Hick was out throwing bricks through the window and loading up $1999 worth of merchandise to steal. An employee rang up his order wrong, and he didn't notice until he unloaded the merchandise at Pony House.
Is there a monetary amount at which The High Horse Brigade begins to look down their out-of-joint noses at whether an employee's mistake should be corrected by the customer? A time limit? A geographic distance?
Like Tammy Wynette, I stand by my man. I am right now imagining Hick doing the Nixon "I am not a crook!"
We could have walked out of Home Depot with free kitchen cabinets and a dishwasher once when the cashier had only rung up the smaller purchase order that was included with a few purchase orders that were stapled together. We had to tell her that she had to ring them up too. She thought that we had already paid for them and were just picking them up!!
ReplyDeleteWow! That would have been an "even-better-than-Hick" bargain! She must not have been paying attention during training!
DeleteIt's easy to correct them before the whole thing is done, when you're RIGHT THERE. Once you've left, it seems to be an inconvenience for them. Or they might not want the attention of getting a manager involved to sort it out, since they might be worried about such an oversight affecting their job.
When I drove two miles back to Casey's to give them the extra $15 they had given me for scratchers, a manager guy had to do it, and it took a while to get it explained. Then he went back through the register tape to find the transaction.
I worked at a Casey's once, and I didn't want that gal to have to pay if her drawer came up short. I think it's not fair that (at my store, anyway) the cashiers had to pay for gas drive-offs! Like they could run down a car and stop it from leaving! Or see the license number, and get it written down to call police. Now you have to pay at the pump there, or pre-pay. Of course, there's a lot more than 4 pumps now, too.
I remember the blueboards were under the drywall boards, so the checker just didn't see them, and while I'm happy Hick got away with $80, I do think he should have said to the checker I've got this many blueboards and that many drywall boards, which is what I would have done, like I do at the supermarket when I have similar items but one set is more expensive.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know Hick DIDN'T tell the checker his numbers? That's something I didn't think to ask him. I just assumed he did. It's been a long time since I was in such a store with Hick. Back when we were building our MANSION.
DeleteI don't recall being there when Hick bought drywall, but when he bought lumber, he'd say, "I have X many 2x4s, and X many 2x6s, and X many 4x4s," etc. Then the checker would come around to CHECK them anyway. Because you can't just take somebody's word, they could be lying while acting like they're "helping."
Surely a checker who counted could see that there were two different colors in that stack. I can't be Hick-blaming when he paid for his merchandise, and drove it to the job site. If he hadn't been meticulous about checking his inventory before he started nailing, he wouldn't have known he was undercharged. And what if he wasn't ready to hang it until next month? Or a year from now? What is the time limit before Hick is decriminalized, heh, heh.
That's true, the checker should have checked.
ReplyDeleteI asked Hick if he told her how many he had. He said no, that she came around to his cart to scan them, and count them. So I guess she only scanned the top one, and then counted them all to multiply it. She had to see the different colors! Maybe she didn't understand that they are different products, with different prices. Hick thought she knew what she was doing, since she was there scanning. He said he stacked them that way because of balance, because the blueboard is heavier.
DeleteHick told his buddies at his Friday afternoon bullshooting session. This Guy, who sold us the $5,000 house, and was Hick's industrial arts teacher in school, said that even if Hick went back, they'd have to void out the original credit card sale, and they wouldn't have the barcode of the products to calculate the correct prices and amounts to re-charge him. Though I would think that might be on the original receipt in a product code. But only the one that got scanned.
Hick said he might go to the other store Monday, to get the rest of his drywall. That they make you take your truck to the back to load it, and another person has to come to your truck and compare the receipt with your load, before they let you leave the loading area.
Having worked many jobs in retail, there are many factors to consider. The check out clerk could have been new, or could have been excessively careless ..... in that it was the quickest way to get the customer out the door and she could have cared less about being careful. She may have had to move the top sheets to scan the correct barcode and was simply too lazy to do so. Who knows? She could have had a beef with management and this was her way of showing them! The only way the shortage will show up is in the reordering of merchandise. The barcode is not only there to price the merchandise to be paid for at the check-out counter, it also serves to control the reordering of the merchandise. In other words, when you go to Walmart and are trying to buy paint pens in the craft department three weeks running and they are completely out and continue to be, the problem may not be that the warehouse is out, as they will tell you. It could be that the paintpens are small and easy to steal and since the barcodes were never scanned, the item was never reordered. If you then try to exlain this to the floor person in that particular area they will wonder aloud how you would know such a thing. Better to hunt down management to share your theory with. All they need do is use their handheld computer to check the item and when it shows that the item is in stock, then you will know it probably walked out the door. Then the person doing this checking should overide the control numbers to show the merchandise as a loss and reorder the item. All floor clerks are supposed to routinely check on items that seem to be constantly "out". But, in the real world very few workers making little more that minimum wage actually do this. Some of the problem is poor training and/or poor management. So, don't go blaming the customer! I have run in the same situation and when I tried to pay back the $50 I owed, it was a tremendous hassle just explaining what happened. I eneded up having to speak to the general manager who had to get past the shock of me wanting to give the store it's money, he was prepared to give me a gift card. Now that I think of it, maybe I do deserve a reward!!
ReplyDeleteYes, you deserve a reward! Thanks for the VALidation concerning our HICKup! I'm pretty sure Hick is not going to stand around for an hour trying to pay that money back now. But he would have told her RIGHT THEN if he'd noticed it. Just because he wouldn't like being cheated if it was HIS business.
DeleteI tell because I believe in the Even-Stevening of the Universe! NOT TODAY, EVEN STEVEN! You're not tricking me into negative karma!