Happy Shopping Everybody

Moving to Chicago has been a bit of a mental wrestling match between me and Mark. Since Mark didn't want to move here, all he sees are negative things. Because I wanted to move here and I love living in Chicago, I see all things in a positive light. After a visit to the local Petco store though, I find I have to agree with Mark on one thing. The retail help you encounter at stores in Chicago are apathetic, unfriendly, and useless. I don't know if it's because they're paid minimum wage, or if the jobs are dead end with no chance of advancement, or both. All I know is that nobody cares. Nobody cares if you tell them you are done shopping at their crappy store. Nobody cares if you tell the manager that an employee insulted you. Nobody cares if you need help finding a product. It's like they wish that they could just get fired. They just don't care. Now Petco isn't the first to piss me off around here. Petco was simply the final insult that I needed to agree with Mark.

I stepped up to the Blue Buffalo dog food aisle looking for Blue Buffalo Wilderness. If you buy Blue Buffalo you know that they have around fifty different products. So I asked the man who was stocking the aisle, "Where's the Wilderness Blue Buffalo?" He didn't even look up, but raised his arm and waved it back and forth, up and down the aisle. I stood there looking at the long line of various colored bags of dog food. "Thank you. You were very helpful." I told him with sarcasm dripping out of my mouth, onto the floor. Now he looked up, "What? It's right down there to the left. I pointed down there." Yes he did, sort of, when he waved his hand back and forth. At one point it was in the direction of the product. I picked up a large bag of the dog food and took it up to the front of the store to check out. For some reason I felt compelled to tell the guy checking me out about my experience in the Blue Buffalo aisle. He looked up at me with a dumb look on his face, "Uh.. ahuh.. ". He nodded a little as if he had actually understood what I said, but didn't really give a shit. Which he didn't.

If this was the first time I had encountered lackadaisical, disinterested retail people in Chicago it wouldn't have bothered me. But this happens in just about every store I go to. It's so damn bad that I can't even get pissed and storm out while yelling "I'll never shop in this shit hole again.", because at some point I'll have to come back. I have no choice, they're all the same. Just yesterday I had to sheepishly go back to a supermarket I had stomped out of while yelling that they would never see me in there again. Well goddamnit, there I was, right back there. I'm sure I heard one of the cashiers snickering.