"Excuse me?" I said.
He continued to glance down at his pyramid of ruby orbs. I waited the obligatory two seconds. Then I assumed my salutation had not registered over the din of Muzak and automated spray nozzles.
"I'm really sorry to bother you," I continued, dialing up the volume and lurching a step closer. "I just had a quick question about –"
"– I heard you," he said gruffly, sounding more like a carjacker than a grown man in an apron. "What?"
Given his surly tone and the fact eye contact had still not been established, I concluded he was having a Bad Day. Who knows, maybe his girlfriend left him that morning. Maybe he was passed over for a deli promotion. Maybe he really hates fruits labelled "Red Delicious."
"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, glossing over his rudeness. "Is there someone who could help me with patio furniture?"
The outdoor living display, it should be noted, was about three celery stalks away from where we were standing. But he winced as if I had just said, "Excuse me? Could you carry me to the bakery on your shoulders? Then I'd like to harvest your organs."
Finally he looked up, through me and past the surprisingly affordable mint-coloured furniture that had prompted this awkward exchange. He pointed toward the other end of the alleged superstore and said: "Go ask at customer service."
When I arrived there, an elderly couple were in the midst of a complaint. Apparently, the store was selling expired cottage cheese. The man calmly said he had flagged this folly a week ago, but to no avail, since the outdated tubs were still beckoning dangerously from dairy shelves.
He wanted to speak to the store manager. Now.
Soon, I approached the counter. There were three young clerks, two female and one male; they had a combined age less than some of the nearby blocks of cheddar.
"Is there someone who could help me with patio furniture?"
One of the females whirled toward her male colleague and blurted out a gleeful: "He can!" Then she tittered the way people do when some poor idiot (in this case, me) stumbles into an inside joke (in this case, theirs). Like a low-rent Shakespearean actor, the male clerk emitted a throaty sigh and his eyes dramatically fluttered closed.
Not since sides were being picked for volleyball in Grade 7 had I felt so unwanted.
I bought the powder-coated steel furniture, even though the put-upon sales associate disparaged it with a number of references to foreign sweatshops and child labour. ("The table probably won't last," he warned solemnly. "Kids aren't good welders.")
This trauma capped a number of other woeful retail experiences over the past month, including an epic misunderstanding over "30 per cent off ticketed price," a wrong delivery, a botched refund and a completely unnecessary shaking of the head when a gift receipt was kindly requested during a Mother's Day transaction.
So now I'm wondering: What has happened to "customer service" in Toronto? Like "affordable housing" and "safe streets," it seems to have become something of an oxymoron.
It's almost as if an airborne contagion has spread through the ventilation shafts at some retail outlets, infecting workers with involuntary scowls and two unshakeable beliefs: 1. The customer is always wrong. 2. The customer is worthy of contempt.
Given the fears over declining tourism rates, this seems particularly unwise. It doesn't take much to make a good impression in the checkout lane. But an unpleasant one will travel far and wide.
Vinay Menon can be reached at
vmenon @ thestar.ca
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