Standards for Sales Clerks

I ran into a really simple, simple sales clerk today. Oh, excuse me, I mean Sales Associate.

Apparently, smarts aren't a job qualification for this position. I took back several pieces of clothing I purchased a week ago to our local Macy's. I had removed the price tags, but left on the manufacturer's tags. I had my sales receipts with me. But, the sales associate couldn't enter the items back into the inventory/point of sales terminal (formerly known as cash registers) without the barcode on the missing price tags.

Now, let me further explain that the sales receipt had descriptive entries that were easy to match up with the items being purchased and now returned.

But no. She couldn't handle the return transaction without the missing price tags. So, now I had to return home to get these price tags and then go back again to the store - which fortunately is not very far away from where I live.

What if I didn't have the price tags any longer? Would I have to keep these items? These were gifts for my daughter's birthday last week. Nobody gives birthday gifts and leaves on the price tags. In fact, this is the reason that Macy's gives gift receipts - which I did not bring along to the store. Guess that makes this entire scenario my fault.

Anyway, I thought I'd capture this incident here so any chance reader would be fore-warned. Macy's sales associates cannot handle returns without price tags even if you have your sales receipts. Perhaps I am unfairly lumping the smarter sales associates in with this more challenged colleague. I'll let you decide that for yourself.