Today's Great Blag Entry By Jeremy

That store makes some fairly sweeping generalizations about their customer service  

Jeremy, your Sametime Status today is a little light on details.  What the crap are you talking about?

So, I got a receipt yesterday from a fairly common retail store which, for strictly Blag purposes, we'll call, "KDNickel's."  I got a pair of shoes from them in a transaction that was entirely unremarkable.  The cashier scanned the barcode, did not check to make sure both shoes were the same size (which is a nice touch that a lot of stores use when selling shoes), asked me if I wanted to open a store credit account for a modest discount, placed my shoes and receipt in a bag and said, "Have a nice day."  Pretty standard fare, really.  It was neither a positive nor negative experience, which really is what I hope for in this type of transaction.  

I get home, and I realize that my receipt has a register-programmed bit of information at the top.  It said, and I quote, "You Were Given Great Service By ________."  A lot of places do this type of thing now, where they print the name of the cashier at the top of your receipt.  It gives you a little sense of ownership of the transaction, thinking you can trace any issues back to a single cashier quickly.  Of course, this assumes that each individual cashier is required to log into the register, which by itself is not a valid assumption, and also that each cashier provides their real name.  I was once given a restaurant receipt from my waitress, "Lady Gaga."  I have reason to suspect that Stefani Germanotta was not actually serving me a burger in a random restaurant in New Hampshire that day.  

It was somewhat new, of course, that the receipt simply categorically stated that I was given great service.  That takes our assumptions at least one step further, that not only was my service provided, but that I would categorize it as "Great."  I believe I established earlier that it was not great.  It was un-noteworthy.  Great service would involve something more along the lines of giving me a massage and a refreshing beverage while I shopped, and polishing the fingerprints off of my credit card after I swiped it.  The service I got was perfectly adequate, but certainly not Great.  

Also, I should mention that the underline thing at the end of the sentence there...that was NOT me self-censoring his name for Blag purposes.  That is entirely literally what the receipt said.  It did not include the cashier's name or any sort of identification number.  It was a blank underlined space.  

So maybe that's the point.  I wasn't given great service, so the receipt it telling me that I got Great service from nobody.  Which is fine.  But at that point, I would still kinda like to know the name of the cashier in case there are any problems.  

By the way, it's almost Thanksgiving, which means it's time to go on vacation!  Jeremy Is In The Office will be Out Of The Office starting tomorrow, returning next monday, November 30th with all new Sametime goodness.  Happy Turkey Day, everybody!