I really miss Pete.
Pete from the corner store that is.
He lost the corner store back in December 2005, and the new owners, while they are nice, they have their prices a bit steep, almost as steep as 7-11.
I had to go up to the corner store and get some cat food and stuff, I didn't feel like walking all of the way to Publix, and their charge card/debit card thingy wasn't working right.
I knew what the problem was, the guy had a girl in there talking on the phone, and the phone line is tied into the POS systems, so if you try to run a charge while someone is on the phone, it will not work.
He kept trying and trying, said he didn't know why it wasn't working, so I told him to have her hang up.
He tried arguing with me, saying that wasn't the issue, but I know from all my years in customer service that IT was the problem.
He finally relented and had her hang up, and what do ya know?
It dialed in and went through.
I told him that they should probably get a dedicated phone line for the cash register because this will happen every single time if someone is on the phone.
He gave me kind of a snotty look after that, but whatever dude.
The guy at night is not the owner, the owner only works in the morning, and he's a nice guy, but the guy at night can be a total jerk sometimes.
He always has people hanging out with him too, like I think that was his girlfriend, and there's usually a couple of guys just hanging out in there, standing around chatting with him.
The owner doesn't like that, he told me the other day that he is thinking of reviewing the security tapes because the store is never cleaned how it should be when he comes in in the morning.
I didn't tell him about all of the people hanging out at night, I figure he'll see it all on the tapes.
But yeah, the jerky guy at night is the main reason I miss the old owner Pete.
Pete was cool, it was a family business, his whole family worked there.
He kept his prices low, he was friendly, the store was clean, and there weren't ever any weird people hanging out at night.
Comments
This is why I don't go to the local 7-11...high prices and always weird people hanging around.
And this is why The Skeevy Corner Store is skeevy. When I first moved here, it was owned by an old Irish guy, he seemed to be there all the time. He was a nice guy.
Then he decided to retire, and he sold the store to a very nice young Korean couple. They kept the store nice, and I got to know them.
But the neighborhood started to go downhill, and they were having more and more problems with shoplifters. Once, when I was in there, some teen thug ran in, snagged a 12-pack of beer out of the cooler, and ran out. The husband was there by himself. He asked me to watch the store for him, as jumped over the counter and went running after the little punk.
A couple of minutes later, he came back with the beer, but the kid managed to escape. I told him that if the cops manage to catch the punk, I'd be happy to testify in court as a witness to the theft. But the kid never was caught.
Sadly, this sort of thing was happening more and more, and they didn't always catch the thieves and recover the merchandise. They sold the store and moved away, and that's when it started getting skeevy. I very rarely go in there any more.
I hope the owner of your corner store catches onto what's been going on at night, and fires these people. Weird people hanging out are always bad for business.
Posted by: Christine | October 1, 2009 10:09 PM