Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The most boring stand against corporate america in history

So today at the grocery store I was faced with the ultimate in mundane dilemmas: as I watched my groceries get scanned, I noticed (rather randomly, as I really dont ever pay attention to stuff like this) that my $3.99 carton of eggs rang up at $4.59. Yep, 60 cents. Of course, my immediate reaction was what anyone's would be: "Hey, I don't think that's right!" Except that's when the dilemma rears its pathetic head: "Take your receipt over to customer service and they will refund you the difference."
It is at that point I say to myself, "60 fucking cents. 60 fucking cents. Do I really care?" Yes. It's not about the money, it's about the principle. Right? If you don't say anything, then no one will, and they will continue to rip off their customers for the rest of the night/week/forever.
Thus, I haul my newly-purchased groceries back over to the eggs, just to make sure you don't make an ass of yourself should you turn up to be wrong. And indeed, I am not. So I drudge back to customer service and explain the situation. "We'll have to send someone over to do a price check." What? I just checked it. Don't you have a book with the prices in it somewhere? So I am left sitting, again contemplating the question of how inane this moral stand that I have chosen to take really is.
In the end, the guy returns, verifies my claim, and I get 60 cents back. And nope, there is NO policy on giving you the item for free. Instead, though, I am offered a $1 coupon (that's one hundred cents!) towards a future purchase... which I also, amazingly, had to wait for as it was retrieved from the back room. Clearly, it is their intent to make it as annoying as possible to inform them of such price discrepancies, as if it's not already enough of a disincentive that you are spending your own time trying to get a couple of dimes rightfully returned to you.
But it makes you think: shouldn't there be a rule on this? Some sort of a minimum required fine/coupon that is given to someone who gets overcharged? There seems an odd incentive to "accidentally" sell many items for a few dimes more than their actual cost: although customers hate being ripped off, they also have no desire to spend their time, not to mention endure the shameful greed that accompanies demanding something that will inevitably fall out of your pockets and be lost in the couch cushions anyways; meanwhile there is effectively zero punishment for the grocery store when it makes such errors.
In the end, my 15 minutes devoted to this effort hopefully is somehow useful, but I can't help but think that either a) it'll happen again soon, b) it's still happening, because they didn't bother to update their system. But come on, this is a really simple problem that seems like it should have a simple solution in our era of modern technology, right?

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Top 10 music/things of the moment

These are my top 10 songs of the moment. Note: non-songs are permitted by the sole discretion of me.
1) TV on the Radio: "Golden age" (Dear Science)
2) Cougar: "Strict scrutiny" (Couga)
3) Pale Young Gentlemen: "Clap your hands" (Pale Young Gentlemen)
4) Moby: "The Stars" (Last Night)
5) Marshmallows
6) Girl Talk: "Let me see you" (Feed the Animals)
7) Okkervil River: "For real" (Black Sheep Boy)
8) Ratatat: "Lex" (Classics)
9) Sigur Ros: "Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur" (Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust)
10) Jax liquidation outlet in central sq