Let's take you back to Thanksgiving morning, 4:00 am. I was at my second favorite mini mart, part of a big chain, getting a frosty cold diet cola and an out of town newspaper. By out of town, I mean 15 miles away. It isn't delivered in my neighborhood, and this is the same newspaper that regularly has problems getting its print issues on to the streets.
Soda, paper, and loyalty card in hand, I strode to the cash register.
The clerk couldn't scan the bar code on the newspaper's page one. It was just wasn't ringing up. She tried another paper in the stack. Nothing. We suspected that because the paper jacked up its price 800 per cent (no lie) for Thanksgiving, the new bar code wasn't in the system.
Here is the kicker. No unscanned item is allowed to leave the store! There was no system in place for ringing up something that the scanner didn't recognize! A manager wasn't on duty to green light the purchase. As you well know, I am extremely capable of making a scene. Rationality ruled. I know the clerk. She's an exceptionally nice woman, and she keeps her store spotless. I knew this wasn't her fault. She apologized. I paid for my soda and left. It was just a short trip, a couple of blocks away, to a less technology dependent mini mart, where I bought my newspaper for $ 4.00.
Get it together!
