Babies "R" U{suck}s

I've spent the last hour searching "woman goes freaking ballistic on babies r us employee" on You Tube. So far, no hits so I'm fairly sure the employee decided against uploading the store's security footage to the site. Phew, it got ugly...real quick.

A while ago, I mentioned that Babies "R" Us was basically a warehouse full of worthless employees all wearing purple shirts who have zero knowledge of any of the products they are selling and zero desire to be working there or provide an ounce of customer service. A friend of mine mentioned it sounded similar to an SEIU rally. If you've worked in state government in Sacramento, you're likely familiar with SEIU rallies. Basically, on any given day, you can find a group of public employee union members wearing purple shirts marching around the capitol chanting "Si se puede" Translation: "Yes, we can" or "Yes, it can be done." I quickly pointed out to my friend that if the Babies R Us employees chanted, they'd be saying "No, we can't" or "No it's not possible." Really.

So today when I set out to my local Babies R Us, I had a couple of objectives.


1. Pick up some Baby Talk magazines because these free publications that are available at BRU contain golden $10 off Baby Store purchases at Amazon.com.
2. Get some questions answered about what type of video monitor I should get this time around
3. Buy a few of the necessities that I know I'm going to need for the first 1-2 weeks after baby arrives. You know, bottles, pacis, etc.


Here's how it all went to shit real fast.


First stop: Registry desk.


Me: "Hi, can you show me where your Baby Talk magazines are located?"
Her {Puzzled and slightly cross-eyed}: "Um, why do you want Baby Talk magazines?"
Me: "Well, my friends mentioned that they are usually sitting on a free rack at BRU and contain some valuable amazon.com coupons."
Her {Slightly nervous and twitchy}: "Yes, they do. However, we stopped leaving them out because it creates too much competition with our store. So now we keep them behind the desk."
Me: {Slightly irritated}: "Ok, so...do you not give them to people that ask or...?"
Her: "...sure. Here's one."
Me: "One. Really!? Just one. Thanks so much for ONE magazine. Did you ever think that maybe if you lowered your prices on diapers, people wouldn't come to your store to ask for coupons to use at someone else's store?"
Her: {Silence}


Ok, maybe I shouldn't have gone that far but I couldn't help it and my smart ass comment did guilt her in to giving me 4 more magazines. Point is, BRU has gone so far as to realize that they're losing sales to Amazon.com baby store but instead of offering great deals/discounts and coupons to be competitive, they just decided to hide the amazon.com coupons under the desk. Fabulous sales tactics. Not to mention, why is my BRU the only store that hides the coupons behind the desk and makes you threaten the employees for them? At all the other stores, supposedly, they are just sitting there just waiting to be pillaged. Figures.


Second stop: Baby Monitors

As I'm waiting in the Baby Monitors section, hoping someone will recognize my confusion and ask me if I need help, I overhear this:

"So, can anyone tell me what their sales goal is going to be this week?"

I turn around and to my total shock and disbelief, I see literally 20 purple-shirt-wearing BRU employees sitting around, nodding off in the middle of a sales meeting.

I walk up and interject: "I have an idea. How about you save your genius and obviously ineffective sales meetings for times when the store isn't full of customers who require, I don't know, customer service?"

Ok, so maybe this last part only happened in my head. But seriously. What company holds sales meetings during store hours with every single available employee on the floor in the meeting? I'm beyond annoyed. Contractions are commencing.

Third stop: Bottles and Pacifiers

I spend about 20 minutes trying to figure out which bottles I want to use this time. Not sure why I've decided that I need to switch brands, but I know I'd like to get new ones since the last set of bottles has been used by two kids for longer than a kid should probably use a bottle. I'm sure I've reached some statute of limitations on these bottles so it's time for some new ones. While browsing, 4 purple shirts walk by. "No, thanks. I've got this. No help needed here. Thanks for asking." Oh wait...Anyway, I decide on the Tommee Tippee bottles where the nipple literally looks like a boob. Throw them in my basket and head towards checkout.

By now, I've been at BRU for about an hour. I get to the front of the line. The cashier rings me up. I hand her my gift card to pay for a portion of the balance and she says "your card has a zero balance." I tell her this is impossible because I just got it as a gift and haven't used it yet. She gives me the now standard BRU blank stare and basically says "sorry, can't help you. call the 1-800 number."

At this point, I'm done. I start to lose it. I head over to customer service and meltdown. I manage to get out "This place is un-freaking..." and then I burst into tears. Since I've left my items in the only open checkout lane, and the clerk can't void the order without a manager, the clerk and the 5 people in line behind me are now watching me at the customer service desk and are witnessing the meltdown. Can't blame them. I'd be staring at me too.

Now bawling, I proceed to tell the asst manager that BRU sucks ass. That all the employees are miserable, unhelpful human beings and that the only reason I am even in the store is because I have a gift card that I now have been told has been given to me with zero dollars on it. I spend 5 more minutes telling her how angry I am and how I'm literally about to go into labor in her store- which would be awful since no one there knows wtf they're doing or what a baby even is. All the while, she's standing there staring at me. Finally, I walk out, call my mom and have a meltdown in my car in the parking lot. Like hyperventilating-can't get a breath-gonna freaking kill someone-meltdown.

Eventually, I stopped crying...about 30 minutes later. And not before I realized how pissed I was that I didn't just pay full price for the items that I actually needed. Shit! I really needed that stuff and now I can't go back and show my face after bitching out that asst manager.

24 days to go...just. breathe.