Yet Another Tale From the Other Side...

My friend Jack has a doozy of a store for you guys! Here's her crazy story:


So, I was in a big ol' chain home improvement store buying lumber and a few other necessities for making bookshelves, and when I was ready to check out I went to the shortest line. There was one chap in front of me who seemed to be taking a while, but I figured he just had a complicated order or something. Finally, he gets done and it's my turn.

I go up and the first question is what kind of lumber I have. "Poplar" I say.

Clerk looks it up in the list and informs me that they don't have a price for "copper wood".

"It's poplar" I say.

"Coplar?" she asks.

"Poplar" I say. She looks at me weirdly. "With a 'p'" I add, helpfully. She looks through the lumber price list again and says they don't have it. I know they do because I have, like, 50 board feet of it on my cart.

I tell her it was marked at $3.88 per foot. She looks at me blankly, so I ask to look. I find it right away and point it out to her. "Oh, poplar", she says.

Then she goes to the computer to find the price for 1x12 poplar boards. She beeps through tons of screens and can't find it. I tell her it might be under "lumber". When she goes there, I spot the picture on the screen and point it out to her. Ok, fine. $3.88 per foot. Which I mentioned earlier.

She asks me how much I have. I tell her 3 10-foot boards, 5 28-inch boards, and 5 26-inch boards, which I figure is around fifty feet altogether. I assumed she'd have a calculator and would figure the exact amount out during check out.

She stares at me blankly. I ask if she's got a calculator. "Oh, yeah", she says and fishes it out of her drawer. So I tell her 5 28" boards. She stares.

Me: 5 times 28.

Her: 140 feet.

Me: No, 140 inches.

Her: How many feet is that?

Me: Divide by 12.

Her: 11.alotofsixes.

Me: That's 11 and 2/3 feet. So now put in 5 times 26.

Her: 130 feet.

Me: No. 130 inches.

Her: How many feet is that?

Me: Divide by 12.

Her: 10.8.

Me: Almost ll feet. So that's a little over 22 feet, plus the 30 feet, so 52 and a bit feet.

Her: Wait, that's 52 feet?

Me: Yeah, these 30 feet plus those 22 feet is 52 feet.

Her: OK.

She types it in and scans the rest of my stuff (about $16 worth) and gives me my total -- $330.

Me: Wait a minute. That's too much. It should only be about $200.

Her: [blank stare]

I look at the screen and see that she's charged me for 82 feet of lumber. I tell her I only have 52 feet. She squints at the screen, points to the relevant line, and says, "Yeah, 52 feet." I point the line above it that says 30 feet and tell her that I only have 52 feet total. She gets out the calculator again and we replay the above conversation. Finally, she gets it that I have 30 feet of uncut lumber and 22 feet of cut lumber for a grand total of 52 feet.

Then she realizes she has to void the stuff she's typed in already. She calls over her manager to authorize the void. Manager authorizes and leaves. Then she realizes that she already stuck my gift cards in the drawer, despite not having swiped them. She calls the manager to show her how to open the drawer. Manager opens and leaves. We start over. Replay the above right down to her trying to charge me for 82 feet of lumber again and add forgetting to include my other purchases. We void the sale (with manager's help) and start over again. Irate chap in line suggests to the departing manager that she might want to stay and assist her employee with this sale. Manager comes back. We start over. Between manager and I we get her to enter 52 feet and scan all the stuff. I pay. She says, "Maybe I should go back to wearing my trainee badge, huh?" I manage not to say, "Or a straight-jacket."

Now, I realize that anybody can have an off day, and she might've been really new and all, but first off, they're not paying me to do her job or to train her, and second off, when I'm the resident math genius, something is seriously wrong. I'm just sayin'.


[mamurd says: 1) Yikes! 2) See Jack, you're not as bad at math as you think! 3) I hope that manager spends some more time training that girl. Or at least stay in closer range!]