When Computerization Goes Too Far

JoLin

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Took the wife's company car to Firestone early this morning for an oil change, new wiper blades and a non-working brake light. Total bill came in a little over $100. Here's the stupidity:

I was there when they first opened (7 AM), and the guy behind the counter was having trouble with the computer terminal. He was on the phone with his tech support and asked me to give him a few minutes. Ten minutes later I walked up to him and he was still on the phone with TS. Told me if I couldn't wait he'd remake the appointment and offered some freebee stuff if I needed to come back.

Me: "Wait, you can't service the car?"
Him: "The computer's down."
Me: "What's that got to do with servicing the car? Write up a work order and do the data entry later."
Him: Blank stare. "I don't have any way to do that..."

A few minutes later he was up and running, but... seriously? Your hands-on, mechanic-driven service company is literally out of business if a computer terminal is down? Utterly stupid.

My .02
 

Bayou Dave

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Took the wife's company car to Firestone early this morning for an oil change, new wiper blades and a non-working brake light. Total bill came in a little over $100. Here's the stupidity:

I was there when they first opened (7 AM), and the guy behind the counter was having trouble with the computer terminal. He was on the phone with his tech support and asked me to give him a few minutes. Ten minutes later I walked up to him and he was still on the phone with TS. Told me if I couldn't wait he'd remake the appointment and offered some freebee stuff if I needed to come back.

Me: "Wait, you can't service the car?"
Him: "The computer's down."
Me: "What's that got to do with servicing the car? Write up a work order and do the data entry later."
Him: Blank stare. "I don't have any way to do that..."

A few minutes later he was up and running, but... seriously? Your hands-on, mechanic-driven service company is literally out of business if a computer terminal is down? Utterly stupid.

My .02

If he had half a brain he would have taken your advice and entered the info later. Wonder how many customers would have walked out instead of waiting for the computer to come back up? I would have left and gone elsewhere.
 

JoLin

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I was about to do just that but the terminal came up. It appeared that there was no way for him to enter information 'after the fact'. Either he was lying, or Firestone's "head office" oversight and control policies place more emphasis on bookkeeping than on customer service. I've written to them. The whole thing is nuts.
 

aspeck

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I can be very patient, but some things just trip my trigger, and that would have been one of them! I would have been out of there pretty quickly!
 

GA_Boater

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Probably the reason the info couldn't be entered later is because he had no way to take your payment without a working computer.

So the system designed to increase efficiency and maximize profit almost cost a sale.

And your time isn't worth anything! For your inconvenience you should have received some kind of discount, even a coupon to use for your next oil change. aspeck - Don't take too long opening the door or you would have footprints up your back.
 

82rude

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Bought something a while back at a store and the comp was wonky,1.35 sale ,gave the kid 2 dollars and they had a hard time figuring out the amount of change to give me!
 

redneck joe

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Bought something a while back at a store and the comp was wonky,1.35 sale ,gave the kid 2 dollars and they had a hard time figuring out the amount of change to give me!

give them $2.10 and watch a complete meltdown occur before your eyes.
 

JoLin

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Probably the reason the info couldn't be entered later is because he had no way to take your payment without a working computer.

You might very well be right, but there's a customer-friendly alternative if the system isn't "up" by the time my car is ready. Mail me an invoice. I'm not a new customer, and they aren't a small mom and pop. Wife's car has been serviced there twice before, and I bought a set of tires for my car 18 months ago.

I'm not looking for anything from them. In the end I only waited about 15 minutes in total. What bothered me is that they have a policy that demonstrates so little regard for my time, and the fact that I left the house at 6:40-freakin'-AM to keep my appointment.

My .02
 

JoLin

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Bought something a while back at a store and the comp was wonky,1.35 sale ,gave the kid 2 dollars and they had a hard time figuring out the amount of change to give me!

Ugh, don't get me started. My wife is a director for a 14-store grocery chain. Things have gotten so bad that not only do the cash registers show them the correct total of change, it now tells them how many of which denomination of bills and coins to hand back. It's both ludicrous and scary.

My .02
 

Scott Danforth

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my local mechanic uses square if his computer is down. he said he does his business with quickbooks. he also takes a deduct for cash.
 

GA_Boater

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I remember when some stores had automated coin dispensers.

Click image for larger version  Name:	coin.PNG Views:	1 Size:	22.7 KB ID:	10525259

Sort of like the coin belt things Good Humor men used to wear.

Click image for larger version  Name:	coin2.PNG Views:	1 Size:	80.2 KB ID:	10525260

That was a long time ago when we could make change! :facepalm:
 

64osby

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Our local Firestone is horrendous. Would never take a vehicle to them.


I love making cashiers think. I don't like pennies or lots of change. I will give an extra dollar to get a five or ten. Or give a penny to avoid 3 more. Half of the cashiers give the deer in the headlights look when not given an exact amount or a single bill.
 

bassman284

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This thread reminds me of an event almost 25 years ago. May not be totally relevant since the computer problem was due to a general power outage. Anyway, just read.

Back in July, 1993, I was attending the Ruan Grand Prix in Des Moines Iowa with my 3 best friends (it's a car race). Yhis was our 4th year at the event which ran Friday through Sunday so we were well acclimated. sometime on Saturday we noticed some pretty intense lightening to the NW and started wondering if we were going to get wet. This was an enclosed street course and we hadn't brought any rain gear in with us in the morning. Turned out the races finished up without rain and we headed back to the Holiday Inn planning to go out to eat later. Shortly after we got there it started raining hard so we ordered pizza stayed in, ate pizza and drank some of the booze we'd packed with us. We watched TV as they reported on the rain and the flooding that was occurring around the city. We watched as they showed the restaurant we had planned to go to filled to knee-deep with water. Then they started talking about cancelling Sunday's races and later actually cancelling them which really annoyed us. Cowards! So we went to bed knowing Sunday's races were cancelled and planned to sleep in and travel home at our leisure.

I woke up about 7:30 Sunday with a fair hangover and a desperate need to hit the bathroom and get a drink of water, not necessarily in that order. Flipped the light switch in the bathroom and nothing happened. Not good. I tried for the drink of water but when I hit the faucet, nothing was there. I was baffled but really needed to take a whiz so I did that and, unfortunately, flushed the toilet. That was the last of water in that hotel room. I was desperate for some coffee and looked at the little Holiday Inn coffee maker and decided to go to the ice machine down the hall and get a pot full. Got back to the room and realized that even if I figured a way to melt the ice, I couldn't make coffee without electricity of which there obviously was none. I started slurping on some ice chips while I was looking out the window (we were on the 8th floor) and I spotted a 7-11 about a block and a half away. I thought COFFEE and was about to head out until I took a longer look and realized they were dark, too. Bummer.

About that time my roommate woke up mumbling something that sounded like COFFEE and I said, "Sorry ol bud. We got no water and no power." Took him a while to process that information but I eventually mentioned FUBAR and he understood that. About that time our other friend was pounding on our door hollering, "Guys! Get up and get packed! We gotta get out of here." We already packed the night before so it didn't take long. We took the stairs down to the lobby and that's where the computer came into play.

We got to the lobby and there were already a couple dozen people hollering and waving their arms. Without power, the computer was down and the manager said to check out he had to process credit cards the old fashioned, imprint way. One particularly noisy guy at the head of the pack was insisting that if they couldn't do it via computer, his stay should be free. The rest of the crowd were being good quiet sheep. My buddy Rab said, "This is not good"

(A word about Rab. Think of a guy about 6'2'', 280 lb. with most of that 280 in his shoulders, arms and chest with a blond Afro and thick glasses.) Rab pushed through to the front of the crowd and asked the noisy guy, "Do you mind if I talk to him for a minute?" Noisy guy says something like well yeah OK. Rab goes to the counter and hands the manager his credit card and says, "Can we take care of this?" Manager says yeah, imprints the card, Rab signs the receipt and tears off his copy, thanks the manager, looks at the rest of us and says, "We're outta here!" I will always remember the bewildered looks on the other people in the lobby.

Aftermath: We left Des Moines eastbound on I-80 headed for Iowa City. About 30 miles east of Des Moines I80 crosses the Skunk River which was well out of its banks. The westbound side was down to a crawl because the right lane and about 1/3 of the left lane was under water. Rab said, "That's what I was worried about."
 

avenger79

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give them $2.10 and watch a complete meltdown occur before your eyes.

my better half gives me crap for doing that all the time. LOL

if you really want to have some fun, watch a young mechanic try to diagnose a car without the use of the diagnostic port to plug in a computer. (not all mind you, there are still some good mechanics coming up the line but many younger ones have no clue)
 

southkogs

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Sort of like the coin belt things Good Humor men used to wear.



That was a long time ago when we could make change! :facepalm:
One thing that I've found that I like about the Sonic fast food joints here in the Nashville area is that most of the carhops still used one of those coin devices. The kids do a pretty good job making change there.
 

garbageguy

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I ran into a similar thing last night. We went to get fuel for the Admiral's car and pay at the pump with cc, as usual. The store's shift manager asked me if I could pay in cash as he had set it for $20 for a guy that ended up paying by cc at another pump there. So he was waiving people down to use up that $20 credit and pay cash because he couldn't get the computer to understand this little matter. I just happened to have cash (usually don't, now I have none) and helped him out of this unfortunate computer deficiency. People will always be needed. If the computers kill us all, they will eventually meet their own demise...
 

joed

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My local Subway still has one of those auto coin dispensers.
 
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