A Silentkid Rant

[_silentkid]

I'm kind of bored today. When I'm bored, I write reviews/rants for my friend's internet media review page. I came up with a rant today about those pestering check-out offers at retail stores. I focused specifically on the free magazine offer at Best Buy. I'll post it here for your enjoyment/torture. (Warning: it contains some colorful language.)

An Open Letter To the Best Buy Corporation:

I would like to register a complaint with Best Buy. I am too lazy to call them, email them, or talk to one of the managers at my local store. I also think any attempts by those means would be fruitless. I would rather type and post this open letter so that my friends may read it and perhaps share the agony of my recent shopping experiences (not really all that recent, this has been going on for at least the past two years). They may even commiserate.

I shop at Best Buy at least once a week. I know that sounds like a lot. Sometimes, I go there more than once a week. I am what some would term a “media whore”. I love CD’s, DVD’s, videogames, and other assorted electronic appurtenances. I am a Tuesday Shopper (if you don’t know what that means, you don’t feel my pain). I spend a lot of my well-earned money at Best Buy. I am a legit customer.

Here’s my complaint. Every time I take my purchases to the register, dig for my wallet, and prepare to check-out, a certain anxiety hits me. A knowledge of the forthcoming. A fear of the imminent. I retrieve my debit card to pay for my goods, and without fail, the lovely check-out employee (associate, team-member, whatever they are calling them these days) asks me if I have a Best Buy Rewards card. I say no. “Would you like to hear about the benefits of having one?” I reply, no. “Oh, since you are purchasing your items today with a debit/credit card, you are entitled to eight free issues of one of these magazines (check-out dude/chick holds up pamphlet with magazine descriptions).” Sweat breaks out on my brow. My heart rate spikes. I need a Xanax. I wave my hand in a no-gesture while mumbling something about thanks, but no thanks (like I should be the one thankful for the offer), blah, blah, blah. I take my newly-purchased items and receipt and run for the exit. This happens every goddamned time. It’s always the same, except for the running part. Sometimes I just walk.

I have been shopping at the same Best Buy store for the past two years. I understand that there is probably a high employee turnover rate and I don’t expect any employees to remember my inconsequential face. I’m just really tired of them pushing the Rewards Card and the magazine subscriptions on me. I’d probably be less irritated if they only pushed the Rewards Card. The magazine thing really, really, really pisses me off. If I wanted a subscription for magazines, I’d answer my door when the monthly, formerly meth-addicted magazine salespeople come-a-knocking in my apartment complex. “F”. I don’t want you’re eight free issues. Your magazines suck. I don’t want your magazine people to have my debit/credit card number so they can harass me when my eight free issues have expired and can begin charging me for full subscriptions to magazines that I don’t give a rat’s puckered butthole about. Stop asking me about the damn magazines. The worst part is when I get stuck in line behind some septuagenarians who get confused by this break in their normal shopping routine. “What…free magazines? I’m not sure, what do you think, dear? Do we have to pay? What magazines are those? Hmm…I kind of like Time and Entertainment Weekly. Do we already get Time, honey?” Et cetera. Here I am in line, scratching my balls, waiting to buy my DVD copy of Under Siege 2. Anything you can do, as a store, to shorten my time in line would be much appreciated.

I have a solution. I figure that most of your shoppers who are old enough to own a debit/credit card are also literate enough to read a sign (those that can't read wouldn't want them anyways). Get a big sign that proclaims the virtues of the “eight free magazine issue promotion” and hang it above the registers. Make it damned blinding, hot pink for all I care: huge-ass block letters, 3-D, with a Spanish translation. That way, if people are interested in your free magazines, they can ask you about it. I’m not placing any blame on the check-out kids. They have a crappy job. They have to push what their managers tell them to push. I’m sure that they hate having to ask every customer if they want in on this great magazine deal. This goes all the way up to the corporate level. Come up with a new corporate marketing strategy on this issue. Please. I’m sick of it. Leave me alone. I’m off to watch Howie Long in Firestorm.

Yours truly,

Silentkid

[_Who Knows]

Haha. I feel your pain.

Reminds me of every time i rent a movie from blockbuster. They ask me if i want to try their online service. I think I've told them more than 20 times that i'm not interested. The last time i was in there, i told them 'please put a note on my account that i'm not interested in the online service. if i want to sign up for it, i'll let you know'.

[_silentkid]

Reminds me of every time I rent a movie from blockbuster. They ask me if I want to try their online service. I think I've told them more than 20 times that I'm not interested. The last time I was in there, I told them 'please put a note on my account that I'm not interested in the online service. if I want to sign up for it, I'll let you know'.

I need to make a t-shirt that says something like, "No, I do not want to hear about your offer or program." I used to work check-out at K-Mart as my summer job during high school. I hated it. That was before these corporations started making their employees push these programs, offers, credit cards, etc. I could never do it now.

[_Yoda]

OMG! Silentkid, your essay is brilliant! It eloquently states everything I think about Best Buy! Love it!

:)

[_KimberlyAnn]

I love your rant, Silentkid!

Like you, I abhor harassment by sales clerks at the check-out counter! They even do it at the mall. Asking repeatedly if I want a store credit card and then badgering me for my phone number or zip code. Around here, they've started asking if customers would like to donate a dollar to some fund or another by adding it to the bill. Personally, I find it outlandish and nothing more than panhandling. It irritates the hell out of me!

Thanks for the rant. I loved it.

KA

[_barrelomonkeys]

:)

I must be a weirdo. I feel bad for the people checking me out and I talk to them just like those poor people working for minimum wage that call my house trying to get me to add Showtime or buy vinyl siding. I can't be mean, they don't irritate me. I'm such a dork. My husband hates going shopping with me because I strike up conversations with the checkout people.

[_silentkid]

:)

I must be a weirdo. I feel bad for the people checking me out and I talk to them just like those poor people working for minimum wage that call my house trying to get me to add Showtime or buy vinyl siding. I can't be mean, they don't irritate me. I'm such a dork. My husband hates going shopping with me because I strike up conversations with the checkout people.

You're no weirdo. I'm nice to the check-out employees and other minimum wage retail or food industry employees too. It's not their fault they have to push these programs (the telemarketers are a different story). That crap comes from above, usually accompanied with quotas. I think that as consumers, we have the right to say no to this kind of stuff. I don't need a credit card offer from Target to pay for my $5 purchase of toilet paper and toothpaste. If it bothers you (not you specifically, Book of Mormon), don't take it out on the low-level employees, take it out on their managers and hopefully it will make it up the chain. Next time I buy something at Best Buy, I'm going to talk to a manager and explain that I don't enjoy being harrassed about the magazine subscriptions. Sure, I'm just one person complaining and it may not make a difference, but I'll feel better about it.

[_barrelomonkeys]

You're no weirdo.

Aw, thank you!

I'm nice to the check-out employees and other minimum wage retail or food industry employees too. It's not their fault they have to push these programs (the telemarketers are a different story). That crap comes from above, usually accompanied with quotas. I think that as consumers, we have the right to say no to this kind of stuff. I don't need a credit card offer from Target to pay for my $5 purchase of toilet paper and toothpaste. If it bothers you (not you specifically, Book of Mormon), don't take it out on the low-level employees, take it out on their managers and hopefully it will make it up the chain. Next time I buy something at Best Buy, I'm going to talk to a manager and explain that I don't enjoy being harrassed about the magazine subscriptions. Sure, I'm just one person complaining and it may not make a difference, but I'll feel better about it.

I think that's the way to handle it too. :) Perhaps there's a way you can contact them via email too?