Hateful Hasting's

[800trunkerman]

Yep. As friendly as pit bulls. The checkout clerk was an unmentionable word, and barked orders at us like we were marine booties.

Been there once, been there the last.:mad: Yeah, he looked like that also. New location but with the same ratty attitudes.

800trunkerman

[howdy ya'll]

wow that too bad.....

[sparky-4]

I've never had anyone be rude there.
I've gotten slow service, but never rudeness

My son lost a DVD we rented and the manager was really professional and courteous about it about a month ago.

[800trunkerman]

Glad you got some good ones, Sparky. We may, in time, go back, but it will be some TIME before we do.

[sparky-4]

I guess I spoke too soon when I defended Hastings in my earlier post here.:eek:

I called them a week before a new release book was due out and I was told it would be out on the selves on Sept 1 or 2

I went down there on the 2nd and it wasn't there.
I asked the girl in the book dept and it took about 5 minutes to just find the title of the book
they told me there were non of these books even on order.
Then she said, well maybe there was a large order in the back but they were not allowed to open the boxes because they couldn't "receive" that shipment yet and it might be days before they can find out if any of those books were in that order in the back.
in the meantime they offered to order me one and it would take 2 weeks:eek:


Wow, they are really in the book business huh?

I told her, that I could buy one from Amazon and have it in 3 days.;)

I got on my phone and from their store, I called Booksamillion and literally, within 1 minute of someone answering the phone, they found a copy and set it aside for me so I drove over there and got the book from them.

Let me stress, nobody was mean or rude at Hastings, it's just they don't seem to have it together as a bookstore.

[800trunkerman]

Wow. Really on the ball, sounds like. They build that fancy bigger store then hire robots.:rolleyes:

[howdy ya'll]

sounds like they need to program their robots........or just hire people that can think.

[800trunkerman]

Yep, probably still learning the ropes.

We went in there today, the wife purchased a cookbook, and they were much nicer. May have had the jitters from the move.

We visited Honda's new building, and it sure is nice there! Lots of room for all of them. Our neighbor, down a few doors from us, is a salesman there.

[Passenger]

I used to work at a Hastings before...there are usually a lot of issues where employees are unable to find books...it usually turns out to be something trivial such as one word in the title being off...example: if you are looking for a copy of say, Stephen King's "It", there are really only two ways to search for it, either by title, or author...now imagine typing "It" into the computer system as the only parameter...it will bring up every book title containing the word "It", and there are tons of them...even if you try to search for Stephen King by himself, that guy has written tons of books, and it can take some time to locate the exact one a customer needs...

I'm just throwing that out there...there are really a ton of variables that could lead to a missing book...as far as them not being able to receive a book...well, that's just poor work on a different employees part...usually these stores have a Receiving Manager who handles all the new inventory...this person is typically stuck in a back room somewhere and is in charge of scanning all the new product into the computer system...if a book is scheduled to arrive on Sept. 2, a Tuesday- the book is usually in the back room by the Thursday/Friday before...the receiving manager scans it into the system, puts it on a stocking cart with other new arrivals/releases, and bingo, on new release day, Tuesday, the cart goes out with the new arrivals...

one of two things has usually happened with a new book that isn't there...
1. the original associate who ordered the book was an idiot who screwed up the order, an entirely possible situation, or...
2. the receiving manager didn't scan everything in before their shift ended on Friday (receiving managers are typically older, full time employees who don't work weekends)...also an entirely possible situation...there are plenty of times when a receiving manager causes a screw up but won't admit it...

as far as this situation goes, I imagine that the employee who was trying to help knew exactly what was wrong, but didn't want to just flat out say that another employee screwed up...then that person would get mad and make trouble for them...

I could be wrong of course, but politics comes into play no matter what job you work...

as far as employees being rude, I don't know...I've always had pretty good experiences with the abilene store...
sometimes though, and this is probably wrong of me to say, but as an employee, you get a pass when a customer resorts to name calling or threatening language...
for example, when I was working at the Sweetwater store, one day I received a call from an older gentleman (atleast he sounded older), who claimed that he had ordered internet service from our store...
the sweetwater location doesn't offer any internet service/plans/accessories- nothing of that nature...anyhow, I started asking him questions, trying to figure out why he had called us...he kept getting more and more irate, voice getting louder, etc...apparently what happened was, he ordered Xanadu service from the abilene location (and I'm not even sure how that works, or if Xanadu is even the right provider- there is little or no communication between stores about those things)...regardless, the gentleman lived in Abilene, ordered from them, and was upset because he called in to check the status of his order and whoever he talked to, had no idea what he wanted...I assume he got rude with them (and rightly so), but they hung up on him...so...he called the Sweetwater store (no idea why)...after I learned that they had hung up on him, and repeatedly telling him that I couldn't help him and nobody at our store could, I gave him the district manager's number...this is the man a customer calls in that type of situation...the DM is in charge of both stores...but that didn't satisfy the customer at all...the gentleman started shouting at me that I was just blowing him off and refusing to help him and that he would call and complain to the district manager about me being rude to him as well...then he started cussing at me and using a lot of foul language...I tried calming him down and reminding him that by giving him the DM's number, I was helping him...that the DM would be able to fix it all...but nope, I just got threatened and told what an idiot I was for working at Hastings...I hung up at that point...I've worked a lot of different jobs in a lot of different situations, and I think I've only ever had to terminate, maybe 3 calls the whole time...the elderly gentleman was the worst...

whew...just realized how long all this is...I guess I was just trying to say that, sure, there are definitely some idiots working at stores like Hastings, but for every idiot, there is somebody else just trying to work in a bad job, keep the customers happy, and still hold their head up at the end of the day...