Electronic technology was supposed to make life easier. I’m sure employers who invested in that technology thought it would simplify sales and record-keeping in their stores.
But after the experience we had last weekend, I’m thinking that modern technology is making things too hard to buy.
My husband and I left Magee last Saturday with a list of things to pick up in Jackson. He needed things for a landscaping project that he couldn’t find in Magee, and I needed a hair product that is only sold in one store in Flowood.
He bought his items, then drove me on to the beauty supply store for my hair goo. I went to the right section, but my product wasn’t there. A similar product was on the shelf at double the price. But it wasn’t what I use.
Seeing me crawling around on the floor, looking for my product on the bottom shelf, a clerk came by. She asked if she could help me. “I can’t find my hair goo!” I said, telling her the name of it.
She went to look it up on the computer. “The computer says we don’t have it anymore,” she said.
Gee, that must be why I can’t see it here, I thought, wondering why she needed a computer to tell her they didn’t have it.
I did need fingernail polish, so I picked that up and went to the counter to pay for it. Another clerk was on duty there. “What’s your phone number?” she asked. I gave it to her, wondering why she might need to call me about nail polish.
She clicked around on the computer. “Donna McLean?” she asked, finding me on her screen. “That’s me,” I said.
“Please check the information on your screen and click ‘yes’ if it’s correct,” she directed, looking past me at something more interesting on the blank wall behind me.
But it wasn’t correct. It had my name, but it said that I lived in Meridian.
I clicked “no.”
“What did you do?” she asked, startled.
“It had the wrong address,” I told her.
She said, “Well, sometimes it just comes up with an address to fill in the space.” I thought I heard her mumble “stupid” under her breath.
“Do it again,” she commanded, returning the address screen. Again, I clicked “no” to the correctness of the information.
“You did it again!” she said. “Right,” I responded. “I do not now nor have I ever lived in Meridian.”
“What IS your address?” she demanded. I gave it to her. Four times. I spelled Magee. It wouldn’t go in.
She sighed with irritation. “I’ll just have to override it.”
I did not care that she had to override it, and I was beginning to wonder why a beauty supply store needed my address unless they were going to deliver my products, which they don’t.
Then I inserted my debit card while she cleaned out her fingernails. Then I pulled it out again, too soon, it seems. She redid the transaction, glaring at me the whole time.
I left the store, never to return. They don’t have my hair goo, and I can buy nail polish anywhere, preferably where I can avoid being grilled about my personal information.
Relieved to be out, I moved on to the pet store with my husband to get dog treats. I put them on the counter, and the chirpy clerk asked, “Do you have an account with us?” I wondered why I would have to have an account to buy Doggy Doodles.
“I don’t know,” I replied lamely.
“Let’s just check our System,” she said. Then “What’s that phone number?” Here we go again, I thought. I gave her our home phone. “No, it’s not there. Do you have another number?” she asked. I gave her my husband’s cell number.
“Could it be another number?” she asked, frantic now that she was dealing with someone who was not in The System.
“No,” I said. At this point, I did not care whether I was in The System or not. What I wanted to say was, “Lady, I did not come here to get in your System. I came to get Doggy Doodles, and I want you to take my money and give me my Doodles! You do not need to know my phone number, my age or my current weight to sell me Doggy Doodles!”
At that point, my husband stepped in and finished the transaction before I embarrassed us both. But even he turned away when it was over.
“That woman was WAY too gung-ho about her ‘System’!” he said.
We finished the day with supper at a drive-in, where, after my husband had given specific instructions for his hamburger several times, the clerk put the order on the screen — without the hamburger.
When my husband asked about the hamburger, she asked, “What hamburger?” I had to grab his shirt to keep him from climbing out the window and punching in the screen.
Then another voice came on: “Sir, would you mind pulling out and driving back around to the drive-thru to give your order?”
I may have to start cooking at home with no goo to make my hair stand up, and with my dogs wondering where their Doodles went.
