Imagine, if you will, having your fingernails pulled off with pliers, a household drill being forcibly thrust into each of your teeth and red hot needles being slowly driven into your eyes. If you can imagine this, you probably have a good idea what it feels like to shop at this branch of Pets At Home.
I do genuinely love this company. I've visited many of their stores and found the staff knowledgeable, professional and extremely helpful. Even the store in Renfrew where a delightful young woman, a customer, saw fit to spit at me as I left the store, the staff are top notch. This branch in Bishopbriggs, however, is the proverbial "bad apple".
I had cause to visit the store recently to buy some hamster bedding, but after wandering the aisles for a few minutes decided to ask for help. I ignored a couple of particularly gormless looking staff members and found myself what appeared to be an intelligent woman who I believed would be able to help me, but sadly I was wrong.
My request for hamster bedding was immediately met with a frown and I wondered, for a moment, if she even knew what a hamster was, but after a few seconds she began leading me to the left hand front corner of the store. It confused me a little as the area was filled with aquariums and had a big sign that identified it as the part of the shop dedicated to fish, but I assumed she knew what she was doing.
When she reached the corner she paused, scanned the fish food on the shelf, then proceeded up the left hand side of the store, pausing at the end of each aisle, scanning the shelves to her right, frowning and tutting as she walked. We passed the veterinary section, made our way along the top of the store, still looking down every aisle and scanning every shelf, then down the right side, finally finding what I was looking for in the front right corner.
I spotted it, of course. She walked straight past the hamster bedding and announced to me that she would ask her manager if they even stocked it, but I pointed it out to her and as I took the package off the shelf she snatched it from my hands and stared at it.
"You said hamster bedding!" she snapped at me. "This is gerbil bedding."
I was then left to explain to her for nearly five minutes that it is bedding suitable for all small rodents, including mice, rats and hamsters, and is, in fact, identified as hamster bedding on the label, but still she insisted that if I'd asked for gerbil bedding she would have been able to take me right to it. I suggested that if she knew where the gerbil bedding was, and knew what a hamster was, that section of the store might have been a more sensible place to start looking than over with the fish, but reason and logic were unable to penetrate her mind.
In the end I found myself apologising for her stupidity and made my way to the till. Now, there were at least ten staff members on the shop floor, but despite a substantial queue there was only one till open, and the woman on the till was also on the phone. Not her mobile, or I would have ripped it from her hands and fed it to her - I can't stand shop staff chatting on their mobiles when you're trying to be served. No, she was dealing with the main store phone, answering questions from a customer.
Now, I know women are remarkable creatures and more than capable of multi-tasking, but surely it is unnecessary when there are so many other staff members standing around. Of course, the inevitable happened. She was so focussed on her phone call she scanned one item twice and it wasn't until after the customer had paid that she realised the mistake. Result - a five minute wait while she tried to work out how to give the lady a refund.
The straw that broke the camels back came when I was finally served. I put the bag of hamster bedding down on the counter, but rather than scan it the woman frowned at it and then told me, "You know this is for rodents, don't you?" I told her I did and assured her I had hamsters, but she insisted on telling me that some people buy it as a substitute for cat litter. I'm not disputing her assertion, but those people are clearly morons. The bag of hamster bedding cost £19.99 and at any supermarket you can by a bag of cat little of the same size and weight for less than £2. If people are stupid enough to go for a vastly more expensive option, I say let them help the economy and leave them ignorant.
Anyway, a simple visit for hamster bedding took nearly thirty minutes, I walked more within the store than I did in three others I visited that day, and if there had been a pub or bar in the immediate vicinity I would have bought myself a large vodka to settle myself by the time I was done. As with all Pets at Home stores it has a great range of products and reasonable prices, but if you don't know where something is just look for it yourself - spare yourself the pain of a prolonged and unnecessary tour. read more
