Orange you glad to see me ?

Stopped at Big Orange on the way home from work to pick up a couple of nuts and bolts a couple of plumbing connectors and miscellaneous small items for a few minor jobs that I though I could do after work.

It is in the rush hour time frame and there is not a single manned cash register.  There are 4  self serve registers.  Which if your experience is anything like mine , means that they will be not working or so tempermental as to be worthless.  My experience held true as I rounded the bend and saw a line of about 30 customers milling about with the lone attendant trying to coax the 4 self serve registers into accepting any form of payment, check, debit, credit, cash , gift card proprietary, gift card generic without much success.

Finally one of the managers noticed that near riot conditions were prevalent and decided to put the call out for all cashiers.   In fairness, I was in this very same store a few months back and the very same thing did produce a very loud and lengthy physical altercation, there was actually a riot. It was entertaining but at the same time a little frightening to watch--see there was a guy who had just come from garden tools and he was skilled with the pitchfork.

The pretty blonde , but woefully clueless manager managed to rush in and with a breathless urgency get several registers opened in the next 10 minutes and I was able to make my escape.  But I was left wondering, how is it that a retail giant with resources apleanty does not know to open a couple of manned registers in the rush hour time frame when customers are heading home to do some after hours summer projects.  Or was this young woman manager somehow operating under the belief that management must be crisis driven.  Some basic thought to the time of day and customer habit would present a solution , or so it would seem.

I think some MBA needs to hammer this one HOME.