necco, target, and things that go bump in the night

I love Target stores. I don't really know why, but I do. When I was a kid it was K-Mart becuase Target didn't exist (at least not in North Carolina) and there weren't any Wal-Mart's around. The K-Mart in rich north Raleigh was actually pretty nice anyway, and always had a good supply of TMNT action figures in the back, and ICEEs in the front. When I was in VA they opened a Target there and I remember going some. But it really sank in when I moved to Garner and started driving and working at OfficeMax. OfficeMax and Target are in the same shopping center that is walking distance from my house. They have good stuff, decent prices, its always clean, and easier to find what you need. My favorite store manager at Omax would always want to do stuff the way Target did it, because Target was retail done right.

So to dig somewhat deeper in this.. I'm very much a creature of habit, and have a bit of an obsessive compulsive nature. I like things to be right and to be the same way. I also LOVE Necco Sweetheart candies. The conversation hearts, but the original ones that taste like 15 year old chalk. Especially the orange ones. One of the best gifts I ever recieved was when my truly caring fiancee (then girlfriend) gave me a container full of JUST THE ORANGE ONES!

OK, so part three of this stupid journy into my sick mind. This morning was my first trip into my Garner Target since the Christmas stuff came out and the Valentines Day stuff went up. I was running in to grab some stuff before my day at intrex (more on that later) and decided to grab some conversation hearts, which I have been buying at that same Target for about 5-6 years now, and I eat a lot of these suckers. But, they only had Brach's. There was the mini-packet bag, with a bunch of individually wrapped packs, but they are usually really dry (the best Necco Conversation hearts are when they are nice and damp), and when there are a bunch of little packets, it's much more difficult to eat all the colors except orange first and then leave all the orange for last. Not to mention about 1/3 of the candy as the normal bag at the same price.

This is a major strike against Target. No person, or entity for that matter, is perfect, but this is certainly hersey in my book.

So I go to work, a bit miffed. Things are somewhat slow for the first hour or so. I put in some good time playing Super Mario 64 DS (stupid name) on my DS. Its the Super Mario 64 game from the N64 redone for the DS. I think they could have called it something different, but I guess Nintento isn't exactly winning too many wars nowadays. Then the calls begin. There weren't that many (except one at the end) that actually made me angry, but they were almost all really frustrating. It was a very stereotypical tech support day, and my only solace was from reading some BOFH and sharing my experiences with some of my Kinko's coworkers. As much as Rey complains about Kinko's (he's certainly not the only one, just the most drastic one), he even admitted that he wouldn't do tech support the way that I do.

It was just one of those days where nobody believed me, nobody wanted to actually go to their computer for me to walk them through something, and the best part was at least 3 calls I had today had the approach of "my email isn't working, why can't I receive email?!" I'm sure the neanderthal on the other end is envisioning me with my finger on a button that says "NO EMAIL FOR YOU!" with an evil grin on my face. All the while I envision someone... damnit I'm not a writer.... but inserts some witty term for some really stupid person here. The Email Nazi line was about as good as I get.

So, anyway, the way these people approach these things would be like calling a mechanic who has never met you before, never seen your car, nor knows what it is, and simply calling him and saying "my car won't start, tell me how to fix it over the phone." Then when you ask them to click with the left mouse button on the start menu and hover the little arrow over "All Programs" they tell you not to be so technical because they are illiterate, (no, they don't say computer illiterate, they really do just say illiterate) which is a whole funny, paradoxical statement unto itself.

from dictionary.com

il·lit·er·ate adj.

I.
1. Unable to read and write.
2. Having little or no formal education.
II.
1. Marked by inferiority to an expected standard of familiarity with language and literature.
2. Violating prescribed standards of speech or writing.

Grrr. I think I am a very patient person. And I am totally comfortable with dealing with someone who is truly ignorent of computers, as long as they are somewhat intelligent in general, and willing to work with me. In fact, I would much rather the person on the other end needs explicit instructions instead of jumping ahead of me.

The good news is this is not really the norm. Most days there are a handful of decent people, 1 or maybe 2 bad ones, and a decent amount of free time to surf the web. But days like this are certainly detrimental to my ability to deal with people.

I think to close I will give a link that I had to show someone yesterday. Alex is a friend of mine at work (and my fiancee's brother) and when someone we like to give a hard time asked him how to send a single fax to a number of people (broadcast faxing) he said that she could do it with the RTFM feature. It's a phrase I hold near and dear to my heart, but have never seen a really appropriate usage of it, and Alex's execution was superb.

Cheers.