What has happened to customer service? I've had two not so pleasant experiences this week.

I gave a clerk $20 for a small purchase, and I asked for change. She was too busy to listen. She closed the cash drawer before I finished asking for fives, so she couldn't make change. I'd have to call a manager and hold up the other 15 people in line if I really wanted two, five dollar bills. She was too busy to be bothered with anything but the next person in line.

I went to another store to upgrade my cell phone. (I thought I was being smart. I did my internet research before I left the house, but I still had a couple of questions.) When you go to this store, you have to register at a kiosk before a staff member will help you. Well, the computer went down, so no one could register. That also meant that no one could help us because we weren't in the queue to be helped. (I was standing right there. They could see me, but I wasn't in the queue.) It took me about 10 minutes to convince one of the staffers that I just had hardware questions. I explained what I wanted. He spent 15 minutes trying to convince me that I needed another model so that I could text, take pictures, download music, and make coffee. He probably didn't say the last one, but I was so over it that I stopped listening. I just wanted a phone (to make calls on occasionally). I had to say it 12 times before he gave up on the idea that I would be the next Blackberrymytwitterfacespace master.

The phone that I wanted was free on the internet. (It also had free one-day shipping.) If I wanted the phone in the store (which I couldn't have because the computers were down), I'd have to pay $90. Then I could fill out a form and send it with my receipts for a $50 refund. It turns out that the only service difference between buying it online and in the store, is that I would have to load my own contacts if I bought it online. If I wanted the one in the store, I'd have to come back tomorrow and hope that the computer was functioning.

My phone arrives by FedEx tomorrow, and I'll spend a few minutes tomorrow loading contacts. It's good to follow the rules and be so efficient that you make all your numbers and get all your commissions, but there's something to be said for creating a pleasant user experience. It'll be a while before I go back to either of these places.

At least my online shopping experiences didn't pluck my last nerve. May be my weekend grocery shopping experience will be better. (Our new WallyWorld opened.)