Thoughts on Pier 1

This post began as a rant, and ended with me being pleasantly surprised...

On Friday, I went to Pier 1 to purchase some incredibly cool dishes...When I went to purchase the dishes, however, several things occurred that made me not want to buy anything in the store...this is the complaint I lodged to the company online:

On Friday around 5pm, I went into this store to purchase a set of dishes and glassware. I was excited to see a sale sign sitting directly in front of both the black and white colors of dishware that I was shopping for, and I assumed that since the sign did not cite any exclusions that the dish style was on sale. I chose my eight place settings and took them to the counter, where I was told by a very pleasant associate that only the black ones were on sale, even though the white ones had a sign directly in front of them stating the sale prices (see above). She offered to let me talk to her manager, and I agreed.

The assistant manager was on duty and he and I went to the dishes in question, to which I asked why the white weren't on sale. At this point, he told me, "The sign clearly says "Espresso," so only the black are on sale. We've had trouble with this before, so the company began putting the color on the signs, and besides, we can't control when people move the signs."

I understand the concept behind what he told me. I have worked retail extensively, and I am keenly aware that there are people who will take advantage in any way possible. My concerns, however, are twofold:

Firstly, there were two colors of dishes on display: black and white. I am a discriminating person when it comes to colors and signage, and never did it seem to me that the sign saying "Quadrado Espresso" was in fact saying "Dish Style Black." To me, the title of the sign was the style of dishes since there was no difference in the appearance of the words to differentiate color from style. Had the ASM stopped at this explanation, I would have been upset at the bad signage, but I would have made my $250 purchase of dishes and glasses rather than leaving the store.

My second concern comes from the remainder of the conversation I had with the ASM. He was very pleasant, but when he told me that they had no control over people moving signs, I was mildly offended at his delivery. When he repeated it to me on three separate occasions in the course of the conversion, it became more and more apparent that he believed that I had moved the signs in order to ask for the cheaper price.

This offended me greatly, as I pride myself on being honest and upright in my business dealings. I refuse to deal with someone who for all intents and purposes, whether intentionally or not, calls me a liar to my face. Additionally, I find it to be in poor taste that Pier 1 has chosen to believe the worst about its customer base and has used that belief to determine management and marketing practices. Had I been treated with respect and courtesy, I would have made a rather large purchase rather than leaving Pier 1 empty-handed.

Well, the company did well to surprise me by returning this email to my inbox this afternoon:

Please allow us to apologize for any inconvenience you encountered during your recent visit to Pier 1 Store #xxxx located in xxxxxx. Our goal is to make shopping at Pier 1 a fun experience, and it is important for us to know if our customers are not satisfied.

We have spoken with the Store Manager and he would like to offer his apologies as well on behalf of the store. As we hope you have seen on previous visits, this is not our usual customer experience.

The manager regrets that the sale sign for the Espresso Dinnerware was partially under the while color. We assure you that the ASM in no way meant to imply you personally had moved the signs purposefully and we apologize for any inference. The signs are easy to move and are often slid over to allow easier access to items, or get bumped during normal shopping, etc. We certainly don't feel our customers as a whole are less than forthright.

In appreciation of your patience in this matter the manager would like to offer you 20% off an entire purchase of regular price merchandise, not limited to the white dinnerware. To take advantage of this offer, please contact him and he will be happy to assist you in this matter. The store phone number is (xxx) xxx-xxxx and his schedule is included below for your convenience:

Tuesday 12/4 until xxxx PM
Wednesday 12/5 until xxxx PM
Thursday and Friday until xxxx PM
Saturday until xxxx PM

Thank you again for sharing your feedback. We know it is because of customers like you, who take the time to write, that we are able to improve for the future.

Certainly more than I expected, but it (mostly, not counting Wally World, previous post excepted) renews my faith in large retail corporations...

On ethics

In today's world, it seems that there are people with ethics, and there are people with ethics. You know who I'm talking about. The people you encounter on a regular basis whose personal morals loosely resemble those of a used car salesman. Or a loan shark. Or your great-uncle "Little Joey." Since this particular ethical breach could earn this person a lifetime enrollment on my personal if-the-Mafia-came-to-my- door-taking-requests hit list, it is only fitting to dub this person as "The Weasel."

The Weasel is a real estate agent. Recently, her nefarious dealings have included screwing her best friend out of her house. No, really. The friend was going to be foreclosed upon, and they struck a handshake deal (it's hard to shake hands with a snake as you will see) that the friend would deed the property, valued at roughly $25K, to The Weasel, make payments to her for it, and after the financial situation had gone away, The Weasel would sell the house back to the friend at a small percentage profit for her trouble. Easy, right?

Wrong. When the time came to sell the house back to the friend, The Weasel got a crooked pal to reassess the house to be worth just shy of $80K. (Understanding this house is approximately 1000 sq. feet in a bad part of a bad little town...and our big house in the nice part of town just barely cleared $80K...) Since the friend was having trouble making the $25K, she ended up living in one of our rental houses (she is the assistant to the lawyer I used to work for, and a friend of the family) when someone else bought her house and The Weasel had her evicted.

Fast forward to last Friday.

Ma gets a phone call from a random town resident asking whether she should take the money to her or to The Weasel to get the quit claim deed. Ma asks, "What money?!? What deed?!?" and finds out that apparently The Weasel sold this woman and her husband one of our vacant lots. In April. They had given The Weasel a $300 commission for the lot, along with $100 monthly payments since APRIL, and Ma and I had yet to see a penny. Ma asked her if there was a contract on the lot, and the girl said there was, to which Ma told her that it must be fraudulent since she had not signed a contract on that lot, especially with The Weasel, since the lot was actually listed with another realtor. The girl said that she had her receipts that were received in exchange for the payments that specifically state the money was going toward the purchase of our lot. Hmm.

Ma calls The Weasel to see what was up, and this was roughly the conversation that ensued:

Ma: "Did you sell our lot?"
TW: "Yes."
Ma: "Is there a contract?"
TW: "Yes."
Ma: "Is there a reason that I've not seen the contract I've supposedly signed?"
TW: "It's in my desk drawer. I was planning to bring it over." (When???)
Ma: "You do realize that the lot is listed with someone else, therefore you can't sell it, right?"
TW: "But it's already sold!"
Ma: "But there's no contract!"
TW: "I have the money too. It's on top of the contract in my desk drawer." (Why???)
Ma: "But there's no contract!"
TW: "Well, I was planning to give you the money when I gave them the contract."
Ma: "But there IS NO CONTRACT!"
TW: "Sure there is. It's in my desk drawer!"
Ma: "You can't sell a lot that's listed with someone else."
TW: "I probably shouldn't have taken the commission."
Ma: "YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TAKEN ANY MONEY! THERE IS NO CONTRACT!"

OMG. Could The Weasel really be so stupid to not see any ethical implications to taking money without a contract?!?

Not ten minutes later, our friend from the law office (yes, the one The Weasel screwed) calls and says, "Well, I hear The Weasel is at it again." Apparently the people buying the lot went to the attorney complaining about Ma and I because we were reneging on our contract to sell the lot. Friend knew that this didn't sound like our normal M.O. and called to find out what happened. Ma roughly told her what she told The Weasel (as in every other statement was "There is no contract!") and finally the people understood that we'd sell them the lot if they would give us the full amount (they have the money on hand) and start the whole process over. They went ape because they thought they'd lost their money to The Weasel.

Not my problem. Either way it goes, we get rid of the lot and get our money in exchange. But I'd sure like to be a fly on the wall when the paralegal and the couple sue the pants off The Weasel in the kangaroo court that the AD Judge (another business acquaintance that knows my family VERY well) runs in the blessed little town.



Let the games begin.