My biggest pet peeve

I'm not prone to letting things bother me, but for some reason this does.

Yesterday I go to Can Tire to buy a few items. I go through the store and pick up my handful of small items (easily concealed in a pocket - this becomes relevant to the story) and then I need a small pill size battery for my digital caliper. I go to the locked small battery cabinet and see it there and it costs $2.99 So I look around for an employee. I find one, but she doesn't have the key for that cabinet and radios another fellow. He eventually gets there, I tell him what I need and he gets it out for me. Now, god forbid he might actually hand it to me and send me on my way! NO! this $2.99 battery is something special and they want to make sure I don't stick it in my pocket and walk out the store with it. He holds onto it like it is the holy grail and escorts me to the cashier, where he hands it to the cashier and indicates it is for me. What a joke. I have a basket full of similar sized items ranging in price from $5 to $15 that I could easily steal if I were so inclined. It's crazy. I think what bugs me the most about it is the total lack of thought behind their whole process. It seems nobody in that organization has stopped and thought to themselves "why do we do this?" "why is it important to so closely safeguard a $2.99 battery, but not an $8.99 mini light bulb?"
Also, the same store has Mechanix brand work gloves - I just love these, and so do my hands. There is a locked cabinet with $24.99 Mechanix gloves. But the $34.99 Mechanix gloves are hanging on a self serve rack! WTF?

Every once in a while, all of us need to take a critical look at the things we do and ask ourselves if this still makes sense, and if it doesn't, then we need to implement change.

Re: My biggest pet peeve

Plenty of things don't make sense. Take this for instance, my company recently merged with another company, and they formed a new name for the merger. The old parent company threw money at problems and never complained, those were the good days. This new company is very stingy, but only in certain areas.

The areas they are stingy in: we have a pay freeze where nobody can get a raise right now (understandable), our trucks which used to get traded in at 50k miles now stay here till the wheels fall off (again, I understand), switched company phones from Nextel to Verizon which really sucks!! (cheaper rate, but poor service from what I've seen), and in my normal area there is no overtime permitted whatsoever. I can understand each of these, and have no problem with the company trying to save money, however, some things don't make sense.

The areas they waste money: bring people from out of state to help an area with an average cost of $80 a night per person for hotel (these are extended stays, anywhere from two weeks to three months in my case), instead of driving said employees to the main airport 45 minutes away they would rather pay an extra $75 one-way to take a pond hopper plane for a 15 minute ride (VERY annoying, layovers suck), hired an ungodly amount of "secretaries to the executives" (what, are you too lazy to answer your own phone or type an email?), and pay astronomical amounts for IT guys that are absolutely terrible at their jobs, I could learn to fly a space shuttle quicker than these guys could fix an issue with the server.

It just doesn't make sense to me. I am very fortunate to still be employed, but question the motives of the company sometimes.

Re: My biggest pet peeve

It doesn't seem to make much sense but consider that if that battery if very small and very desirable then one may be more inclined to steal it i guess. For ex 10 people a day come in for the light bulb and 100 come in for that battery odds are that more thieves will approach the battery. Then again I may just be full of it

Re: My biggest pet peeve

Same boat as Shane. The company I work for has purchased another company and has done the same things with salary and stopped 401K matching. We haven't lost any money but they aren't happy with the profit margin.

As far as stores go I used to take sudaphed for congestion. A pack of 24 tabs would last me a couple of months. Now with meth being such a big problem I, a law abiding citizen, can't get it anymoree because they changed the formula to one that doesn't work.

On top of that pharmacy issue I recently injured my knee. I don't have access to fresh ice packs during the day. I have to supplement my therapy with the instant cold packs. Now those apparently include a chemical used to make meth so now instead of picking them up from the shelve and checking out I have to wait for the pharmacist to get them for me in limited quantities. You'd think it was a watch battery or something.

Re: My biggest pet peeve

I let all matter of stuff get me PO'd....used to go thru life just titched. Then I learned to laugh at it. Now I just belittle about everything. Heck, I've been known to ask for a store manager to point annoying stupid stuff out to them.
If they can waste my time, the least I can do is return the favor....and get a laugh out of it. Go down the road, you know somebody will do something stupid.......just point to them and laugh...it's even better at a traffic light

Now, I still try to help where it looks like it's needed, ie the boat ramp, or somebody is broken down, COOL, NO TROUBLE. And if you don't want the help, and you're not in my way, no big deal. HOWEVER, if you are in the way and don't accept the help, I AM going to laugh, and try to make as many others laugh as I can.