Why I will never join Costco or Sam's Club

I don't believe I should have to pay to shop somewhere. Period.

Solr books

I admire companies that strive for excellent customer service. I worked at Dayton's in college and learned good customer service there. Verona, the Boss at the time, didn't like that I hid cherry sours by the cash register and popped one in my mouth now and again when no one was around. But my customer service scores were high, so after a while, instead of telling me to knock it off again and again, the cherry sours simply disappeared. Dang.

So, when Solr books wrote me an e-mail asking me to take down negative feedback about a geometry book I had purchased amazon.com, I wanted to.

They told me how the customer was everything, how they continually strive for customer service, etc. But striving for good customer service and actually delivering it are two different things.

The book wasn't what was described - it was only the first 1/4th of the book. It took weeks to get an e-mail answered. It took longer to get the item returned. I had to ask four times that shipping be refunded both ways. And this is good service? I am supposed to say, "Well, OK, you tried." when in fact, they don't seem to have tried at all, just given it a lot of lip service after the fact.

So, I didn't take the feedback down. I did, however, pay a compliment to another business who was, in fact, delivering good service, which was Macy's. Without question, they took items back I had been meaning to return for months. I believe in Karma, even in retail.

Only 112 of the over 400 pages was in the book!

A bit about Canon

I am thinking of getting a wireless printer. It's Cyber Monday and Wal-Mart has a Canon for $49 with a $10 gift card. But that would require two things that I am against: Wal-Mart, and then having to shop at Wal-Mart again.

When I do get a printer, it will be a Canon. I currently have two Canon cameras and a Canon Pixma printer. I am loyal to Canon because, back in the day I owned a camcorder (remember those?), it broke. I sent it back to Canon and they have a 1x fix it free policy. They fixed it and sent it back to me.

I tried the same thing with two (pre Canon cameras) Fuji cameras. They were my first forays into the digital world. I asked them why both cameras were broken, and did they stand behind them? Fuji wouldn't help in any way. So, they're on my list of companies I won't do business with.

In a blog posting in the Harvard Business Review, Rosabeth Moss Kanter talks about how too many companies are looking at short-term profits, not long-term success. She's right! Those companies that pretend to provide good customer service, but don't, are forever on my grudge list.

Here is the posting, which is especially interesting given the recent demise of Twinkies. Five Self-Defeating Behaviors that Ruin Companies and Careers.

And for eye candy, a picture I took with my Canon point and shoot:

Taken with my Canon point and shoot. Canon is a brand I am loyal to.

First date

A store I had never walked into before is jcpenney. But its CEO, Ron Johnson, came to deliver a great keynote address to the Citizen's League of MN. I had worked with Ron at Target, where he rolled out the Michael Graves line. He then joined Apple and rolled out the Apple stores. (Remember life before iPods? Before Apple stores? No? Best not to.)

Now, he's taken on jcpenney and has already upped the ante. The Liz Claiborne shop is great. The jcp brand seems solid, somewhat like the Gap - clothes that will last 20 years. That's the kind of purchase I am looking to make. I gave away clothes about four years ago simply because I had had them for 15 years. I'll never make that mistake again. Their style and structure was timeless and I miss them.

In preparation for Ron's keynote, I felt I needed to visit a store.

Why hadn't I gone to jcp sooner? Well, the foreboding entrance. It seems I will be swallowed up into a cave. (I am married to an Architect, whose running commentary about the sorry state of design has become embedded in my psyche. Even my teenage daughter casts off the "That's bad design" aspersion to everything from building facades to can openers. A future Jony Ive?)

To get around the icky entrance, I entered through the mall entrance.

What hit me was that jcp is transforming from the inside out. It wasn't perfect, yet, inside, but I can see where it's going.

I love that the price is the price. No 99 cents at the end. I love that each time I turned a tag over to look at the price, it was more fair than I had expected. Most of the fabrics were not made of modal or ramie or acrylic, crappy fabric that is sewn into shoddy products. A recent Macy's internet purchase of a sweater described as 100% cotton came and was 100% acrylic. I will be returning that item, 100% sure of that.

So, I ended up with four shirts. In the hour and a half I spent there, I had covered only the second floor. Time for a second date soon.

jcp will continue its metamorphosis because Ron not only an innovator, he has patience. What a smart, kind and highly creative person to have as CEO.

Vitamin Shoppe

In an effort to wean myself off Ambien, I stopped at the Vitamin Shoppe to find a lower-cost alternated to Kavinace and Travacor.

The guy there showed me eight options and confused me greatly. I couldn't track what he was talking about. Interspersed between unwieldy strings of words ending in "amino acids" and "globulin" were things like, "I have a degree in nutrition." "I'm the one who trains the staff here." And my favorite, "I don't mean to sound like a used car salesman."

Well, then don't.

In the end, he recommended a product called Sleep Optimizer and promised to call when it came in on Thursday.

Thursday came and went.

On Saturday, I stopped in again.

"You didn't call me."

"Well, I don't work on Thursdays."

I continued to look at him, blinking once.

"Besides, the post it note is gone. Someone's been throwing away the post it notes. Rob, did you throw away all those post it notes?" as he continues to look busy moving bottles around.

And again, with the used car salesman crap.

In the end, because my desire to get off Ambien is greater than my anger at this stup, I spend the $20 on it.

What drove this purchase? Desperation. A $20 gamble that may lead to a grudge and boycott.

What will drive a future purchase? End the asshole customer service, Vitamin Shoppe. Plus, this stuff better work.

This stuff better work.

I vote with my checkbook (or debit card)

I worked for Target for 10 years, and as anyone who's ever talked to my about my career knows, I loved it there. So it's no surprise that I despise Wal-Mart. In fact, I have some long-running grudges I've held against many companies, but Wal-Mart is at the top of the list.

Here are two Wal-Mart stories:

Once, in the Wisconsin Dells, my husband and I were forced to go to Wal-Mart because there was no other store to go to. We needed diapers. While there, a tornado warning went off. Our daughter was with my Mom, but as Jim and I looked at one another, we both had different thoughts ending in the same action: getting the hell out of there. Jim's was, "We've got to get back to Marcy." Mine was, "I am not going down in a Wal-Mart store." We ran out just as they were locking the front doors.

In my other experience with Wal-Mart, we again were there out of necessity. Our daughter's flip flop had broken. We grabbed a few other things we needed and headed to the check out. My daughter placed her foot with the new flip flop with the price tag on it for the cashier to scan, which she did. As we walked out, a security officer stopped us and asked sternly and accusingly if we had paid for the flip flops. We produced a receipt to prove we had and the flip flops weren't on it! She grabbed my arm and marched us back in and to the cashier, who scanned it again and we paid. No apologies. No explanation to the security guard. And it felt humiliating. I was treated like a criminal in front of my daughter. That's good customer service?

So Wal-Mart is on my company grudge list and has stayed there for a least a decade.

What drove these Wal-Mart purchases? No other choice. Again with the desperation.

What will drive future Wal-Mart purchases? I will never shop Wal-Mart again. There's a new one slated to go up about three miles away. Gross.

Wal-Mart: the Evil Empire.

Extremely frustrating extreme couponing

Anyone who has watched Extreme Couponing with the wide-eyed bewilderment I have knows that it is an oddly fascinating show that seems, in the end, to be about organized hoarding.

The episode I saw featured a woman who brought her kids to the garbage dump to search for coupons. She had stockpiled years and years-worth of paper towels, laundry detergent and French's mustard. She was proud of teaching them how to save. I applaud her efforts at teaching frugality (though not at traversing garbage dumps) and couldn't help but wonder: Would I be up to the challenge? Could I ever organize myself enough to get $1300 worth of groceries for something like $23?

The answer is found in this little microcosm: I clipped a coupon for $1 off Neutrogena make up. In the two or so months' time I hung onto that coupon, I lost it 3 to 4 times and didn't have it in my purse on at least 10 Target runs when I could have used it. I finally decided it was getting personal: I would find that coupon (I think it's somewhere in the kitchen?) and use that damn thing if it's the last thing I do on this planet.

Finally, on August 25th, 2012, I used the coupon, which, incidentally, expired on August 25th, 2012. It would have gotten really personal if I had tried to use it on the 26th.

What drove this purchase? A score to settle. Frustration.

Was it worth looking for it each time I misplaced it? Was it worth all the effort and energy to save $1? For me, no. I am barely organized enough to save $1, much less $1277.

Dang make up.