Because Kmart can really afford to turn away business....(long)

[Ironclad Alibi]

Bicycle air pumps
Or am I better off not knowing?

You are indeed better off for not knowing. Highlight if you dare.

Supposedly, some people use bicycle pumps to pump air into their rectum. There is an urban legend aspect to the story as reported on Snopes.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Oh, yeah, that too. I heard of that.

Although I wasn't picturing a bunch of kids doing it when I learned about it.

[Anthony K. S.]

It's comic strip time again . . .

. . . Except that this time, it's not purely for fun. It's a reminder.

Corporate makes the rules, and we take the heat.


Frankly, I don't care whether KMart's policy makes sense or not. That's not my point.

So the old man puts his cash money back in his wallet and says "Fine. Don't. There are other stores in town."

In my opinion, this gentleman crossed the line into mild . . . Just mild, mind you . . . SC-behavior when he directed his unhappiness at the cashiers, rather than the people who were actually responsible for this situation :

1. The management of the store.
2. The company's Corporate offices.
3. Whatever idiots have been abusing spray paint to the point that either the government or businesses have seen fit to take this kind of action.

What he really should have done is either voiced his complaint to a manager or contacted the Corporate offices. In any case, it would have been nice if he'd told the cashiers, "Look, I know you folks here don't make these rules, and you have to follow them. I don't blame you for this."


Not that the cashiers themselves handled this situation brilliantly, either.

So the old man puts his cash money back in his wallet and says "Fine. Don't. There are other stores in town." Two more cashiers start trying to tell him he needs to give his birthday.

Please believe me, I know how tempting it is to try to defend your position, even if the policy you're trying to enforce is stupid. But in this case . . .

The customer already said that he'd rather go somewhere else than cooperate with this policy. Now, unless the cashiers had the power to change or waive this rule (which I very much doubt), there was no point in their arguing with him over it, any more than it would have been worthwhile for him to argue with them.

I think it would have been better if the cashiers had just shaken their heads and said, "Sir, if you disagree with the policy, you are free to take it up with our managers or our Corporate offices. But down here, we can only do what we've been instructed to do."

Had they done that, they might have been able to salvage something from this, rather than just letting the customer walk out the door.

So I say to him, loudly, "I don't blame you one bit, sir. I wouldn't give it, either, that's outrageous."

And then I look at the cashiers and say, "With respect, does he look like a minor to you all?"

With respect (and I'm not being sarcastic here, I really mean it), RecoveringKinkoid, everything I said above about that gentleman applies to you, too.

It would have been better if you'd directed your criticism to the managers, or the Corporate offices, rather than the front-line employees who (1) had no part in making this policy and (2) probably had no choice but to enforce it.

I'm not saying that you were necessarily wrong here, since the cashiers didn't really handle the situation all that well. But I do think that you were not as right as you seem to believe you were.

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that municipalities are doing stings and sending in people who are clearly old enough to buy a restricted item, to see if the store checks IDs like they're supposed to.

You know, I can totally see this :

A customer walks into a store. (It doesn't necessarily have to be KMart. Could be any company.) The customer buys spray paint, or a bicycle pump, or some other such item.

The register computer pops up a screen, asking for a birthdate. The cashier looks at the customer, who is clearly much older than 21. Not bothering to ask for a birthdate, then, the cashier simply makes one up, and completes the transaction . . .

. . . aaaaaand the store gets busted, because the customer was a secret shopper. And now, the District Manager is on the phone with the Store Manager, reading him/her the riot act because the store's employees are not following company procedure.

So, the manager, in turn, reams out all of the cashiers, and warns them that they'll be written up or fired if they fail to enforce company policy again.

And who winds up taking the heat from pissed-off customers?

As Marla said, most customers never bother complaining to the people who actually make the rules. They just scold the person behind the register.

The irony here, of course, is that if a store's sales actually do tank as a result of a stupid Corporate policy . . . Do you imagine for even one second that the Corporate offices will accept that they were at fault for the falling sales?

Of course not. They'll blame the store's employees for "not exercising common sense in situations where keeping a customer is clearly far more important than enforcing a rule . . ."

In other words, Corporate will blame the employees for not doing exactly what Corporate told them not to do.

Makes no sense at all . . . And what else would you ever expect from Corporate?

[Hobbs]

<snip>

US Code, Title 18, S. 2721

Read paragraph b, subsection 3.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Oh, I'm not arguing with you, Anthony K. S. Both of us were irritated, and it wasn't, on the surface, the cashier's fault.

I wasn't nasty to her, but I was annoyed, and while I didn't take it out on her, I didn't hide it. My tone was one of exasperated disbelief, not anger or meanness.

You could argue that we were both mildly sucky; however as long as I'm not abusing anyone, I see no reason to pretend I'm not annoyed when I am.

I am reading the thing Hobbs posted to mean that it would have been okay to ask for a license in this instance? Did I read that right? (I'll have to pore over that to get my head around it, I find legal speak hard to get my head around sometimes, it wanders around too much).

If that's the case, then asking for ID would have been safer for them and less foolish and insulting for him. He reacted to what I reacted to: their basically asking a man who was clearly old enough to be their great grandfather if he was a minor.

[Hobbs]

Yes, that's what I meant. Basically, it means that businesses reserve the right to see ID to verify information, including age, during the course of a transaction.

I find legal talk fascinating; so definitively defined.

Maybe I should be a JAG-man...