Fry's Again?!!!

Soooo, I went to Fry's to get the $1.77 chuck roast that is on sale. I won't even bother to go into the ordeal I watched unfold before me with a lady/customer and the clerk behind the desk..........
I went to the meat department, and WHO did I find there? The Tude Dude!!! We saw each other at the same time, he immediately did an about face and walked into the back.
I'm looking for the sale meat: the price marker is there, but there's NO MEAT THERE!!!
At this point, I am finding this to be quite amusing. I'm thinking: NO WAY are they out of ANOTHER advertized special AGAIN!! I may have a strange sense of humor, that that's just me. I would rather laugh at a rather unlaughable situation than start getting angry and upset.

Well, I just figured to come back tomorrow or something and takalookit what they got and not say anything to anyone this time about the lack. I had thoughts of asking the meat department personnel about whether there was any in the back, but it was the Tude Dude, and I wanted nothing to do with him.

While all of these thoughts are cruising through my mind, Tude Dude comes cranking out of the back with a cart full of meat. I'm thinking maybe it's some of the sale meat. Well, while I'm thinking that, Tude Dude is coming straight at me with the cart. JUST before he was going to hit me with that damned thing, I moved out of the way and he bleeped out: "Excuse me".

Tude Dude begins to put the sale meat in it's allocated space. No, I didn't say anything to anyone about this guy, just let it go. If he does it to one person, he's going to do it to another sooner or later, and just as surely, someone else will complain and eventually - well you know the drill. I did find a couple of packages of good meat without too much fat in it. Yeah, limit of 2.

Umm, and there were packages of some great ham slices on manager's markdown as well. And Ravioli's - Michael loves those things - on sale. And whatever else.

I have a refrigerator full of food at this point. Which is a nice thing - full freezer, even fuller chilled side. I totally wish I had an upright freezer, a thing I have been contemplating buying.

Anyway, that was my excursion to Fry's, now I must excurse myself and go outside and - clean up dog dung.

Fun fun.
ben

Wednesday

An exhaustingly slow day at work today, meaning: no deliveries. Not even a transfer, I never drove a company vehicle today. Semi sat there, idle, boss's pickup sat out back, idle. I kept busy - yes - but it just is tough to go through 8 and a half hours trying to invent things to do. A thought jumped into my head when I was "inventing" things and remembered that the evaporative cooler units for the warehouse need to be serviced for the upcoming, hot, summer days. I spent a couple of hours on that.

Well, anyway, today marks the 3rd time in less than a week that the gate has become a situation. For newer readers - I have 4 dogs and I also have 3 tenants living in bedrooms in my house. I keep padlocks on my gates - there are 2 gates for walking through and 2 more huge gates for driving through on the driveway side of the house. Going through the gates is the ONLY way to get into the house, there are no front doors (by design, and I have no regrets and actually love the way my house was built in such a fashion that getting to an entry door to the house means having to go through gates - and dogs - to get there).

I keep them padlocked for 2 reasons, 1: obviously, theft prevention. 2: much more important, to force everyone to actually lock the gate, meaning they have to check it to make sure it's locked. Today? Michael dropped the padlock INTO the block fence! I came home and the gate was not locked. The point is to keep my dogs IN my backyard/house. Anyway, I have definitely decided that I am going to put a new lock on that gate and I will be the only one with a key to it. Everyone else will have to exit on the other side of the house - where the dogs have no access to because of the chain link fence that creates my "dog-free" zone on the east side of the house.

Now onto some other interesting tidbits. A gentleman that works for Fry's left a comment in my last entry. I was quite amazed this person actually put his phone number and email address onto a blog that is viewable by the entire world!! Then again, that's a company email and phone number, so maybe no big threat or fear of - things happening from strange people. I was even more amazed that this man found this blog because of something I had written in the entry. I'm assuming googlebots or something similar does a crawl through these blogs - apparently every day? - so a search for a particular word - such as the word Fry's/Frys could be found if such a person were looking.

And looking he is - he has some sort of thing set up where he gets an alert if there is anything that has the word Fry's (or Frys) written into it - whether a blog or whatever else. So yes, I called the man up, why not? I've already talked to - at least half a dozen people from Fry's about this chicken issue, one more person added to the list isn't going to bother anything. I take that back, it's been more than half a dozen people. Just at the Fry's I normally go to I have talked to more than half a dozen people about the chicken. Add to that the phone calls I made on Sunday attempting to find ANY Fry's that has the chicken, and add to that the phone call I made to corporate plus the message I left for corporate yesterday. I will say here that the corporate official I spoke to on the phone said they would have someone call me back - they did not. There has been no reply to my message left on their site, either, excepting an automated reply.

But, I'll take the conversation with Chad - the man who replied in my blog yesterday - as more than good-enough reply and response from Fry's and leave it at that. Chad apologized for the series of events that took place, offered a gift card (which I most certainly will NOT turn down and did not turn down, thank you very much - but - I will also add that I did not ask or intone that I wanted a freebie) and was very amenable over the phone. I have found Fry's, overall, to be an excellent place to do my shopping over the years - albeit I have had some bad experiences, almost always, management has made up for it. The very few times that management did not make up for it (example: the incident at the Fry's at Mill and Southern in Tempe) - well - I just pretty much stay away from those particular stores. Though, I have to admit, I went to THAT store on Sunday to actually get the chicken that was on sale.

Ummmm, anyway. Well, speaking of Fry's, on Wednesdays, the circulars come in the mail for Fry's, Safeway and Bashas - none of them were in there! I ALWAYS look forward to scrutinizing all 3 ads to see what kinds of deals are to be had.

I have nothing else, and I'm tired. I have not slept well this week - last night I got 6 and a half hours of sleep, the 3 nights before that I might have gotten 5 at most. Meaning - I'm going to go take a nice nap.

Hope you all had a great day!
ben

Tuesday

I promise I'm not giving up on blogging, again, just going through some sort of phase. I know I missed Sunday and yesterday - which is totally out-of-character for me - dunno what to say about it, really.

Sunday was rather uneventful. I had a couple people over for BBQ chicken - but as far as getting anything done around here, not much. Just the normal cleaning and watering of plants. I have a couple of projects going that I would like to finish. The last couple of weekends have been total wastes for me - I usually work on some kind of project and at least get something done on them. I ain't promising anything for the coming weekend, either.

The rather large size of the casino winnings helped me get ahead on some bills and get some things I needed, such as several more bags of dog food; tic treatment for the dogs; new socks, stuff like that.

Today, I went into a McDonald's in Casa Grande. I had no time to stop anywhere but for a few seconds to run in and out. It really shouldn't have been that long of a day, but it turned into one with driving all over the place. I wanted a cup of coffee to wake myself up. I was driving the boss's pickup, so I went through the drive-thru window. Got the coffee, drove off from the window, took a sip - and about spit it all back out. COLD coffee.

Some of the things these fast-food places do nowadays are quite amazing. Amazingly BAD. I parked the truck, walked back in, set the cup down on the counter, asked for my money back. What's wrong? Cold coffee. I can get you another cup. Don't want another cup, just give me my money back. I don't take kindly to a place of business serving something that is just plain wrong. I didn't give them an attitude per se, I just decided that if that was the way they were going to treat their customers, I would rather have nothing to do with that particular store/location again. The manager comes up - I tell her again, please give me my money back, thanks.

She gave me my money back, I said thank you and started to walk off. She did the unexpected, as the thought hadn't even crossed my mind, honestly: she offered me a free cup of hot coffee. Before this lady walked up, 3 employees were arguing amongst themselves about whose fault it was: turns out someone had turned off the warmer on the coffee brewer and that's why the coffee was cold. It seems nowadays it takes management to do the right thing at most places when a blunder is made. Perhaps the employees don't have the power to be able to make something right, I don't really know. However, in this case, I didn't ask for a free cup of coffee, neither did I expect one. I just dismissed the whole thing and was going to leave. At least her end of the deal reaffirmed my faith that there are still people working in places - that count - out there that are doing the right thing.

Now, take my visit to Fry's. Take that back, take my FOUR visits to Fry's in 3 days, looking for a sale item the didn't have: 77 cents per pound chicken. I went in Friday - no 77 cent chicken out. When will the next shipment come in? It was meat department personnel who informed me: "Anytime, we are expecting a truck anytime now". Well, will there be some tomorrow morning? Ohhhhh yes, there will. So, no big deal, I go into Fry's frequently, I would just come back in the morning.

Saturday, I go back to Fry's. Look for the 77cents per pound chicken. No such baby exists. I ask meat department personnel again: how's come no chicken? Ohhh, we're sorry, we don't have any. Sir, that's what YOU told me yesterday and you adamently informed me that today there would be chicken. I let it go with that guy, instead, I saw Kim, the store's manager, and asked him (yes, it's a man named Kim, haven't ever figured that one out, and he's not oriental or anything) about it. He went back - came back to me, apologized and that was the end of it. Will you have any tomorrow? Oh yes, we will have a truck come in today.

Yes, I went in Sunday morning. No chicken, and yes, I asked.
I went again later - I had forgotten a few things that I wanted for a meal. This time, a different man was working out in the meat aisle. I asked this guy how's come no chicken? He gets and attitude with me - note: I did NOT get an attitude with him, I asked him politely about the sale chicken that they don't seem to ever have. Not worth going into, the attitude was very sour.

Now, this is the FOURTH time in THREE days I've been there to get the sale chicken. I have NEVER experienced anything this bad from Fry's. So, after this guy getting a tudinoidinal with me, I go to find Kim, the general manager. He's not in today, I am informed, but Tim is. Okay, I have seen Tim before - never knew he was even in management. I told him 2 things, 1: I have been here 4 times for chicken that you don't have and 2: the dude with the tude.

Tim says follow me, we'll do a substitute for you. Okay. We go back there - dude with tude is out there. Tim asks Tude Dude something, Tude Dude starts with his act. Tude Dude looks at me, makes a comment - I cut him off. YOU are a REAL piece of work. Tude Dude immediately goes into extreme tudinaoidinal flurry of - s***. In fact, he put the meat down he had been holding and pulled his hands and arms back as if he were going to hit me! Lol. Fortunately, I had no fear of the man, at all, and said it again: YOU are a REAL piece of work. Tim intervenes, tells the man to stop, picks up 4 packages of chicken drumsticks of a different brand at a MUCH higher price, tells me to just tell the cashier that he said it was a substitute.

I walk off. Tim starts in on the man. Again, as I have said countless times on this journal, if I were to treat a customer the way Tude Dude spoke to me, I am quite sure that I would either be fired or definitely reprimanded and threatened with termination if it happened again. I doubt Tude Dude got fired - and really, it takes a lot for me to want to see a person lose their position and though this is getting up there, I still wouldn't have wished it upon him. BUT - he definitely received and earful from Tim, the second-in-command of that particular store.

I did an experiment when I got home. I called a LOT of Fry's stores - NONE of them had the chicken until I got to the last one. I asked the guy to put 6 packages of it aside for me, I would be right in. Yup, I got in my car and drove over there - only 4 miles away, it was definitely worth the trip.

Okay, that's just a blurp for history's sake on my part for my blog. Note that I did not ask for any freebies in this situation, either. The chicken I received from Tim may have cost more - but to me - chicken is chicken. I mean, if you are getting chicken breast, THEN you are getting a freebie, but a chicken drumstick is a chicken drumstick, at least to me it is.

More? Oh - there's another thing that happened that got my ire on Sunday as well. I put $120 of that casino winnings on my power card for electricity. At least, I tried to. The machine ate my money, did NOT put the money on my card, and then pumped out a receipt saying that the money wasn't on the card, please call this number. LOOOOOOOOONG story short: they did not have ANY record of my having done what I said I did (so thank God Almighty the receipt actually stated it), I had to go in yesterday to an SRP office and have them put that money onto a new card.

So, on the good note side: I don't really have any. I mean, when I got home today, Mimi- the newest tenant -said when she went out there this morning to open the gate, the latch was not latched. The lock was in it's hold, but the latch was above the lock, not below it where the lock can keep it from opening. All the dogs would have need done was push against the gate and it would have opened for them. This is twice now in 3 days this has happened. Ken did it on Sunday - he apparently thought he had closed the get - he did not. I went out there to see the gate WIDE OPEN. Mary did it this morning - it was clearly obvious through looking at the video surveillance camera that I have trained on that particular gate. Yup - I'm going to eliminate the use of that gate for tenants. The gate on the other side of the house is in the dog-free zone. If they pull that s*** over there, at least I have some peace of mind that the dogs can't get out by virtue of the fence in the back of the house that keeps them from getting back there.

Okay - a bright spot. I was at Walmart on Sunday. I wanted to get flea/tic stuff for the dogs and several packages of new socks. As normal for me, I couldn't resist walking through the nursery department to see what they might have. My new trellises need some vines crawling up them and - whatever else. An employee was out watering the plants. He quipped: "There are trees that we are getting rid of behind those palms back there, they're greatly discounted". Well, I most certainly couldn't resist THAT invitation, so I thanked him for the info and walked back there. Sure enough, they had 8 foot tall trees for ELEVEN bucks!! R U Serious? Dang!!!! Okay, I only bought one. All I could get into my car. I have totally forgotten about those trees - of which they don't have many left back there - I would have gotten another one today or yesterday on the way home from work.

Oh, there's even more stuff, but this entry has gotten lengthy.
Hope you all had a great (and swine-flu-free) day!
ben