Customer Service, Madison Market Style
What is it about the organic foods co-op that they so often invite the socially challenged to helm their cash registers? The following experience may not make it on the "most annoying sales clerks quotes" list, but only because the annoyance was too prolonged and crazy to sum up with a single quote.
Follow along at home: the customer steps into Madison Market on Capitol Hill for some groceries, and is checking out when she's startled to hear the cashier tell her he isn't going to check her items. "Excuse me?" she asks. "You were very rude to me the last time you were in here," the checker responds. "I'm not going to help you. You'll have to switch lines."
Her boyfriend looks at her quizzically. So does the person behind her in line. "Me?" she asks. "You must be thinking of someone else." The cashier shakes his head. "No, I recognize you." Befuddled, the customer says, "But...but I've been on the East Coast the last four months. I just got back. When was this?"
Now the checker either has to admit that he's mistaken, or prove that he's got a fantastic memory for rudeness by detailing the long-ago incident. He refuses to apologize or describe the event, though, and the crimson-faced customer has to change lines. And, naturally, stores.
Seattlest can commiserate: we've been treated shabbily by clerks under the misapprehension that a) any polite behavior is corporate, b) our hemp-less attire signifies there's no reason to interrupt their conversation with friends, and c) their over-charging us $25 is a hassle we should apologize to them for. But this new foray into the theater of public humiliation sets a new standard.
Nordstrom may have claimed the heights of good customer service, but Madison Market may be able to angle their way to the bottom. It's not an open field, of course. In the organic food store market, the field is crowded with exotically tattooed challengers.
