[ale] Another bites the dust

[Steve Litt]

On Wed, 24 Feb 2021 09:35:10 -0500
Chuck Payne via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

> Please take a moment and lower your heads, as we pay respect to
> Fry's. As of today, they have shut down.

The only Fry's I ever went to was the one in the San Fernando Valley
near Los Angeles. This Fry's routinely accused honest customers of
shoplifting, often with the police being called. I heard it happened so
much that the police drove the accused half way around the block and
let them out of the car.

Here's my PERSONAL experience with Fry's in the San Fernando Valley:

I needed a certain make/model of tape drive. They had many packages of
that make/model, and some of the packages had a tape inside the shrink
wrap. They appeared to be the same price as the ones without the tape.
I asked the salesman if there was any difference between the ones with
and without the tapes. He said "yeah, some have tapes."

So I grabbed a package with the tape in the shrink wrap, checked out,
paid for it, and headed for the door. That's when things went bad...

Their security guard took the package out of the bag, ripped the tape
out of the shrink wrap, shoved it in my face, and shouted "what's
this!!!!"

For about 5 seconds, I reacted like I acted at 18 when the cops caught
me drunk bicycle riding with a pint of gin in my back pocket. My brain
said "damn, I'm in trouble now!"

Then I remembered I was 47, not 18, and I'd paid full price for the
package, and it was THEM, not me, who put the tape in the package: I
hadn't stolen anything.

I sized up the security guard. He was well built and 20 years younger,
but I think I could have taken him. I thought seriously slugging him
in the nose to wipe that judgmental look off his face, but then
remembered I had a wife and three kids and an excellent business, and I
didn't need a neverending series of court dates possibly followed by
incarceration.

So instead, I got kissing distance from him and said "it's been a long
time since I've been accused of being a thief. You call your store
manager over here right now!

So the store manager came over. He was a 19 year old pimply kid with
acne and a serious tic disorder. He said something like "sorry, but a
lot of our customers put stuff in their pockets and walk out."

In other words, the store manager called me a thief again, even though
he knew THE STORE put the tapes in the shrink wrap.

So they "let me go", with the attitude that they were doing me a favor.

I felt so sorry for this kid and his acne and tic disorder that I
neither read him the riot act then, nor complained to corporate later.
But that day was pretty much the end of my shopping at Fry's. I don't
need that kind of noise.

That kid would be 45 today. Hopefully his acne, his tic disorder, and
his customer relations ability have all improved.

So anyway, my opinion on Fry's closing, based on my interaction with the
SF Valley Fry's, is "Good riddance to bad rubbish."

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Autumn 2020 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive