DISTRUSTFUL DIRTBAGGERY!
The employees in this CVS, at Paramount and Firestone Boulevards, are collectively the most suspicious, distrustful, and discourteous staff that I have ever encountered in a single store or business.
Many months ago, I entered the store, and I nodded a hello to one of the clerks, Sam, a female, and she dourly and silently looked me up and down, and as soon as I passed the counter, I heard her voice over the intercom: "Security, direct cameras to section three." There were two other people in the store at the time, both elderly persons browsing about. She obviously thought I was there to shoplift...I thought I'd give her a chance to explain, that perhaps what I felt was not quite what I had experienced. I had a handful of goods I was going to buy. I went up to her at the counter. "How come you asked the cameras to focus on section three, as soon as I walked in? Do you think I'm a shoplifter? If you guys have a theft problem here, you shouldn't visit it upon cash paying customers such as myself..." Sam became defensive and sullen: "You're not the only person in the store..." I replied, "Look here, I walk in, and you immediately request the cameras to be moved. Is this your idea of welcoming good customers? Even if I believe your story that your doing so is a coincidence, your announcing it publicly is completely lacking in hospitality, propriety, and respect for your customers." She ignored me, defiantly asking for my CVS card. I just dumped the merchandise in front of her at the counter and walked out.
There is another lady employee in the store, who always wears a white shirt. Her Amazon size, Buster Brown haircut, and her constant stone-faced, grave, and distrustful gazes at my pockets, shoes, and shopping bag (perhaps she sees through canvas?!!) make me think she was once a matron of female prison guards....Today, I desperately needed a six-pack of Coca-Cola, so against my better judgment, l entered the store, knowing one of these people would yet again insult me with their blatant unprofessional job conduct. Sure enough, I encountered the "prison matron" at once, who, in perhaps one of her gayer moods, forced the faintest of grins, while staring inappropriately and suspiciously at my USC shopping bag--my mind's voice was saying, "I carry the bag with me because I prefer to both walk and ride the Downey Link bus line to get about town--is that O-effing-kay with you?" Many Warren High School students were entering the store when I was in line. I noticed the young female clerk kept nervously looking up at each of them. Then she grabbed the microphone: "Security, scan cameras towards sections C and D," or words closely to that effect. That was it. I was done for life. Strike Three for this CVS. There was a Christmas display near the front of the store where I was waiting in line. I tossed the Coke bottles atop it, said to the kid next to me in line, "Man, I'm not comfortable with these people..." And I walked out, never to return.
You decent high school kids waiting in line to overpay for a candy bar or more than $2 for a soda, and all the rest of you good and honest customers, I implore you to take your business elsewhere. These employees do not trust you, me, or anyone else, and they do not mind overtly demonstrating it, to our indignity and embarrassment....All I can say to the store's in-house management and district manager is, if you cannot keep your store secure without inflicting indignity and humiliation upon your customers, then just close your doors. read more