eBay getting to be a pain...

[alexpgp]

This one purchase I made recently on eBay has generated three (count 'em) emails with confusing payment instructions: one from the seller, telling me he prefers payments via PayPal; another one from the seller, which directs me to a separate web site to process my order; and the third from eBay, announcing the end of the auction, suggesting I go pay using Billpoint. Yikes!

Then there is another seller who wants me to fill out a form, should I be weasel enough to want to pay non-electronically.

A third seller chides me gently for not including an auction number in my email correspondence, which is a reply to his message, with the original message fully quoted. The original message, BTW, lacks the auction number.

Ye gods.

Segue...(or maybe not)

Getting one's paycheck in Russia can be interesting. Instead of paying with cash, this one hospital has resorted in the past to paying workers with produce, chickens, and similar goods. They may have stepped over the line with their latest payday, which provides workers with quantities of manure. This recalls various expressions from my youth that speak of eagle droppings (I wonder, would they apply if the eagle were two-headed?)

Segue....(or maybe not)

I don't know what it is about me and Wal-Mart stores, but I have experienced nothing but the most phenomenally consistent incompetence in such stores (based on visits in Houston, Dallas, Durango, and Albuquerque). I am beginning to suspect that prospective employees must be screened on the following basis:

• retail experience...disqualifies an applicant;
  
• knowledge of how to operate a cash register...disqualifies an applicant;
  
• remembering how to operate a cash register after being trained to use one...disqualifies an applicant;
  
• understanding why a customer might give you $10 and two pennies for a purchase of $7.02...disqualifies an applicant;
  
• tearing off and redeeming any "instant savings" coupons on merchandise without the express and vehement insistence of the customer...disqualifies an applicant;
  
• allowing yourself to be stopped by a customer who has a question about prices, availability, colors, etc....disqualifies an applicant (unless said applicant walks away from the customer without rendering aid or promising to return)
  

Cheers...

Comments

[fxflynn.livejournal.com]

never been to a wal-mart per se, but i have a fair idea of which you talk about. most of the time i may not want or need assistance but the *one* time I do it is always an exercise in futility. if i may add something to your list.

they look at you funny when you want to pay $10.02 for something that costs $7.77 just because you hate dealing w/ pennies

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

I actually considered this for the list, but concluded that it probably wouldn't weed out enough people to be useful.

Which is a very indirect way of saying that way too many people would look at you funny for doing that, which in itself is an indirect way of saying that schools seem to have been falling down on the job in recent years.

Cheers...

[zartan.livejournal.com]

The retail experience strips away the maximum human dignity at the minimum cost. The people you see working these jobs, and obviously hating them, are making what's laughably called a "living wage" -- more than likely doing the same thing twice over in a week just to make ends meet -- and all the while being reminded, incessantly, by their employer that:

-You are lucky to have your job, so bloody well act like it.
-But don't think for a minute that we care about you or trust you.

I could go on, but just trust me when I say that enthusiasm for one's work is not as common among we customer service drones as, say, thoughts of suicide.