Fry's Food Stores/Krogers Piss Poor Customer Service

This has gone on long enough.
Fry's Food Stores - all of them that I have visited which are more than 2 handfuls - have self-serve checkout.
Fry's does away with having more checkout lanes open by having up to 8 self-serve checkouts at the Fry's I go to - which is at 48th Street and Baseline in Tempe, Arizona.

Fry's obviously assesses they will save hoardes of money by having "fully" 2 full-serve cashiers operating while having anywhere from 4 to 8 - depending on the time of day and estimated amounts of customers coming through the self-serve checkouts.

This means that me, the consumer, is standing there at a computer screen, operating software generated so that even - well anyway, most people can use the software and successfully use the system to ring up their own goods and check themselves out.

Right?

Wrong. Period. End-of-story after being subjected to this S*** for at least a couple of years now.

The software generally will come up with a screen saying that a rep has been notified that you need help - when you didn't ask for help. You were buzzing along, putting the items on the scale, waiting the short period it takes for the computer to identify that the weight the scale shows increased by the item you put on there corresponds with the input that - whoever is responsible in the world of Fry's Food
Stores - has already pre-determined.

It is quite obvious that that software is totally FLAWED. Put an item on the scale and a hold-screen flashes up? Whose fault is that, the consumer's for flawed input?

But this isn't the worst of it. Oh nooooo, not at all. The worst of it is waiting for the one person attempting to help 8 people get to YOU. Oh, wait a minute, that's not always true, is it? In fact, MOST of the time it is not. The person responsible for making sure that hold-screens coming up are taken care of - ISN'T PAYING A DAMNED BIT OF ATTENTION TO THE FREAKING SCREENS - as evidenced yesterday by the fully FOUR Fry's employees standing at those "Command Screens" is what I call them, TOTALLY ignoring the screens, laughing and hoot-lawing it up.

I intend on taking videos of this SHIT from here on out and posting them on YouTube and let the whole world see that what I am saying is not a bunch of bahooey. I am SICK of the bullshit, and that's what it is, PURE, unadultered but totally analfied BULLSHIT.

If you are going to continue to treat your customers that way, I suggest you get RID of the self-checkout and revert back to the "old-fashioned" way of doing things. Oh, that doesn't work out too well, either, does it? I saw fully 8 people in the 2 available full-service checkout lines today. If I had been waiting in that mess, I would have walked straight to the manager's office and demanded more cashiers, even if it meant HIM getting out there and doing it.

I don't see Safeway treating their customer in such a foul manner. They don't HAVE self-checkout, instead, they keep adding more and more personel to open up more cashier lanes as needed - and yes, I have seen the GM of the store on MANY occasions checking out customers. I do MOST of my grocery shopping at Fry's, but I am doing 20% of it elsewhere. That figure has gone up since what I used to do and I will increase it to 50% if the level of "service" at their stores continues.

The real blow, however, will come when I start posting videos of this junk going on on multiple websites.

Oh, and there is the "other" problem that persists: the alarms going off when people walk out the door. Do you people at Fry's think that is some kind of joke? MOSTLY customers that aren't stealing ANYTHING are being "caught". It's offensive and I will not stop at it if it goes off, but I have learned to find those metal with plastic coating strips and just take them off, THROW THEM ON THE FLOOR, before walking out of the store.

I intend on standing in the full-service lanes from now-on. If there are more than 2 of them ahead of me, I am going to complain to management. Or, alternately, if I see 1 person attending more than 4 stations at the self-service checkout, I know for a fact from Fry's corporate that their policy is TWO attendants for both sides of the deal going on. I will post videos of it - however long or short - and post them over and over and over until Fry's - takes action.

Wednesday

I'm basically coughing and hacking away at this point. However, I am still not sure if this is a viral infection or just extremely bad allergies. It could be either. One thing I know, I have no desire whatsoever to pay $100 copay to go see a doc at a urgent clinic. They upped it from $50. Hospital visit up from $100 to $200. Moral to the story - don't get sick, right?

If it is not viral, they can give me a shot that will deal with this stuff quite effectively is the only reason to elaborate on this. I have had one before - whatever it is - it takes the punch right out of whatever is afflicting me and I feel "right as rain" for at least several weeks after that.

I suppose I could try to get in to see my doc - but that's usually a failed attempt. I have thought about getting a new doc just because it's so freakin' hard to get in to see this guy, but I think all of these Cigna docs are just as busy. They presume you go to Urgent Clinics - which are everywhere but give me a huge break here. I go to Urgent Clinics when I need stitches, not for draining in my sinuses going down my throat all night long, into my lungs and causing me to feel - not well at all - the next day. I would consider it at the $50 co-pay, I'll try OTC medicines at $100.

I went to bed last night at 8:00pm - fitful sleep. Kept waking up to cough. I don't feel particularly tired right now, but then again, the work day hasn't started yet and I ain't pullin' orders, loading a semi and driving it all over creation.

Hmm, I just went to mycigna.com and was reviewing my coverages. I know that flyer they sent out said $100 for a copay, but my page shows it still at $50, while the hospital visit definitely went up another $100 to $200. Well, I'll suffer this a few days and see what happens, if it doesn't get better then I'll make the visit.

Changing the subject, hey, why don't we spend a BILLION dollars on a new embassy? Economy? WHAT economy? Oh, and then there's Reid whose string of verbal gaffes are as predictable as the ticking of a clock. Men, if you are unemployed, then you ARE going to get violent against your spouse. This was his statement to the masses that should have jaws dropping everywhere. Where are the demands the this freak should resign? Or the incident talking about Obama as being a "light skinned negro"? There was another one that I can't seem to drum up in memory at this point in time.

Then there's these full-body scanners - do you want some guy or dude looking at your privates at an airport by simply looking at a screen that has a device that basically looks right through your clothing? I didn't think so.

Have a nice day.
ben