Isn't the customer always right?

Hm. Well, I'll start by saying that my plans to blog on Saturday were obviously foiled. I spent the majority of my afternoon Saturday cleaning around the house, particularly in our room, and packing for our short trip this weekend. We were only gone two nights, so packing didn't really take all that long, it was just the fact that I had to get everything we had unpacked from Christmas put away finally before I could actually have the space in our little room to pack again. Then, I went to church with mom, and right after I got home, James got home. We ate real fast, then hit the road headed for Round Rock. We got to Round Rock just in time to watch Texas Tech win, and by the time that was over, I was exhausted and it was way too late to blog. Yesterday was spent driving to Houston, celebrating a birthday, and driving back to Round Rock, which I'll discuss more after I upload my pictures to include. Today, after a couple errands, we made the drive back up to Fort Worth. I hate that drive.

Anyway, one of the errands we ran this morning was to Plato's Closet. All I wanted to do was exchange a Christmas present from my sister-in-law. No big deal, right? You wouldn't think so, but apparently this is becoming increasingly difficult. And not just at Plato's, either. I've found in the last week that all of retail is making it harder and harder to make exchanges and/or returns. Which leads me to the question.......WHY?? You are still getting the same amount of money for your merchandise, as it has already been paid for, I just want a different piece of said merchandise! Now, I am all for policies and whatever, but as long as I'm not asking for anything ridiculous, I don't understand why you can't make minor exceptions for Christmas gifts. And while you're at it, how about not giving me such an attitude? I've worked in retail, I know it's annoying, I know people suck, but I didn't do it, so don't take it out on me! It just makes me crazy. And several times this week, it's made me not want to shop at certain stores with my own money after the poor service and lack of common sense. Like today, at Plato's. The girl told me about five times that "normally" they wouldn't do returns without the original receipt, but they would today. This was after I had explained that I didn't have the original receipt because it was a gift. Now, to me this seems strange, since they are a buy and sell type store, but if it's just me, that's cool. And on top of that, this was after finding out from the store in Euless (17 miles away from the house in the snow) that they can only do exchanges at the store it was purchased from, which is why we made the special stop in Cedar Park today on our way home from Round Rock. It just seems a little ridiculous to me. I mean, it's not like I asked for money back. I just wanted something that fit so that the gift would get put to use. It just seems like we've gotten a little too uptight about exchanges in the retail world. It just seems to me that as long as the store isn't losing money, policies should be able to have a little leeway.

All this to say, I suggest gift receipts. While this does not completely solve the problem (as I had issues with those exchanges as well), it does help some. So next time you're in the store, buying a gift, make sure you get a gift receipt!! That is my warning to you all out there in blog world! Because otherwise, people get screwed and upset, and the whole point of giving the gift in the first place (to make people happy) is ruined. And if you work in retail, I suggest bringing this up to your company. Because when you make people mad, and cost them money unnecessarily, they tend to not want to come back to your company (as well as tell all their friends not to shop there) and then you've lost a lot more money than it would have cost you to just waive the policy in the first place!

That's my two cents.