Went to my local store in Turlock (who are full of very nice helpful people by the way) - but they were out of what I wanted. They've always carried it and they were out a week or so ago, so I thought SURELY it's back in stock by now several days later, since it has a relatively high and steady turnover rate, and I was told it would be there by the next Thursday I believe, and it was Sunday. Inventory said they had 2 (after fresh restock? That should have been my first clue), but they had none.
Was told by a helpful employee after checking how many were at each store at the moment. It was closing time so the next day I went to the next closest store a few towns away (Ripon), that was also supposed to have some. Nope, none.
When I got to the store a clean cut gentlemen had his eye on me and stepped up to say "Help you find something?", you know, that "I don't trust this guy" style when there's 3 other regular employees standing right there?
I found out later he was the regional manager, "Kevin". Guess what? Also not the electronic inventory claiming 2 - in fact, again, none at all.
At this point I'd learned my lesson about the alleged inventory that the electronic tracker claims, so I was about to have them call the other stores for me, however, Kevin the Regional Manager said he was just at the Oakdale store and he "knew" that they had some.
So I Drive from Ripon to Oakdale (which was awesome due to an emergency road black and detour on HWY 120 that detoured us back to River Rd., causing a 20 minute wait at each overloaded country stop sign from Ripon to Oakdale. lovely ;-) "knowing" at least I'd finally get my product.
I bet you know what's coming next, don't ya? Yep, instead of the 4 inventory claimed, Mmm Hmm, none (thank you TSC's electronic inventory tracker! ;-). Even though Regional Manager Kevin said he was "just there doing inventory and knew that they had some".
The two employees I was talking to there at the Oakdale store looked at each other with "that" look of "Mmm Hmm, here we go again", the one employee said "I'm sorry, I usually handle that area and I was just back there as well, we don't have any, we've been out of that for about 4 weeks."
Wonderful.
Moral to the story? No matter WHAT the electronic "inventory", OR, even the "Regional Manager" says - CALL first, if not, hours and over 100 miles of round trip later, you STILL won't have what every store was supposed to have. At $6 per gallon of gas, that call will save your wallet from some serious thinning and weight loss.
For the record, in my personal experience anyway, all the regular employees at all the stores were of good stock - polite and helpful - zero complaints with any of them, never have, but clearly the system they rely on needs help and makes them look bad. read more
