I've done a lot of business here. After today, not anymore. These jerks have lost my business from now on. I even have a rewards card that I will burn in protest.
What happened: I went there midday on a Saturday - their busiest time, I know.
But all I wanted was a replacement turn signal bulb and some belt dressing for a squeaky minivan. I expected it to be busy, I expected to wait in line, but the store is the closest to my house.
Got the parts, stood in line to checkout (About five minutes). Asked the guy to verify the bulb pack I'd picked out. Turns out, I had 93, needed 1156. He didn't offer to go grab it, nor was he willing to let me go grab it and check out while he waited. Therefore, I gave up my spot in line and got exactly the right bulb.
Got back in line.
WTF!!!???
All the clerks have disappeared. There's about six people in front of me in the line, people at the check registers, and about four people at the check-out register (for checking out only). We customers are literally looking at each other in disbelief at what appears to be an abandoned store. Finally, a guy walks up from the back, looks at all the people, gets a weird look on his face, and walks out the front door (and didn't come back while I was there).
Really?!
A girl walks up from the back, carrying boxes of brake discs, sees the (growing) crowd, and yells for staff to "Jump in front". Does she help us? No....she stocks the discs and goes back to the back. Two guys come up front, and start helping, then one disappears again.
Girl comes back after five minutes or so, and this time yells "MIKE", and one guy comes up front. The guy that came up to help and stayed moves from the "Assist and checkout" register to the checkout-only register by the front door. I'm okay with that - that line now has more than a dozen people waiting.
It's about this time I got my phone out of my pocket and started the timer to see how long this tragedy was going to play out.
I'm a 'checkout only' customer, but I wait in the 'help and checkout' line because the checkout-only had no help until that guy finally took over, and I'm much closer to the front in the help line. Plus, at my previous visits to this store (the prior weekend), they were checking people out in the 'help and assist' line in addition to the 'checkout only' line. (see where this is going....)
After fifteen minutes or more of standing there like an idiot, thinking I really should just walk out and go to O'Reilly's (down the street), two more guys come up from the back, clearly having gone on break, and start taking customers. One guy is the guy who (kinda) helped me by identifying the correct bulb, but refusing to go get the right pack and refusing to wait for my return (The main source of why I ended up spending half an hour waiting in line a second time).
As luck has it, I get the 'guy' again (phone timer at 21:36 when I walk to the counter).
He looks at my stuff, asks if I need assistance, then says 'you need to go to the checkout line' which still has ten or more people waiting.
I pause, I say, 'I've checked out here before'. He says 'not today'. I reply, you just checked out the guy two spots in front of me and didn't make him go to another line. He says, that guy had lots of heavy items'.
Now I'm pretty pissed. I step back and - in a very loud voice say - 'Why don't you keep this stuff, I'll go to O'Reilly's.' The crowd of customers starts snickering, and I hear some underhanded comments about Autozone start to fly.
The girl happens to be walking past right at this time, steps up, tells the guy to process my purchase.
I pay
I leave
I don't think I'll go back there again. read more