A few days ago, I was looking into prices and options for bathroom renovations, looking for bathtubs, and so on. I stepped into a big Lowe's store, in the area where the lumber is sold. I was thinking that probably bathtubs might be close by to hardware. Wrong. I went to the service desk, not seeing anyone on the floor, and was told that the things I was looking for were on the opposite side of the store, next to lawn and garden, about a mile to the west from where I was. These stores are huge.
So I got back in my truck and drove to the other side of the parking lot. I soon found the display for bathtubs and related items, but had some questions about combination prices. So I started walking the aisles looking for someone to "wait on me" and give me information. I eventually found a fellow wearing a company vest, but this wasn't his department, so he would have to send someone else over to help me. That happened after a while. The new fellow could tell me that there really wasn't a combo price, you just add the two prices together.
Then I went to the big Home Depot store at Rogers. At the front, I happened onto a fellow who showed me where to go to find the right department, Aisle 32, and he said he would go get someone to help me in that department. While I waited for the someone to come, I found what I was looking for, made my notes and comparisons and checked over three options that I saw. After 15 minutes or so with no someone showing up, I decided I had pretty good info and didn't really need to wait any longer.
I was just thinking that many of the big stores these days take self-service a long way, sometimes to the extreme. It is often hard to find someone walking the floor and waiting on people. A few big stores even have self-checkout stations, so you might go in, get your stuff off the shelf, pay your bill, bag your purchases and leave, without ever speaking to a human being associated with the store. Sometimes I wonder if civilization isn't slipping back a bit when you can't find anyone to "wait on" you. The service might not have been perfect in the old-fashioned stores either, but most of the time in an old-fashioned store, someone was right there to wait on you.
I like to go to a store like Garner Building Supply in Rogers, or our T.H. Rogers Hardware in Pea Ridge, because they do a good combination of self-service along with the old-fashioned style of having guys behind the counter taking orders, and going to get things for you, or helping you find things on the floor. In the old time general store, you usually wouldn't be looking for which department you needed to locate things you needed. You would go into the store and approach the counter where the proprietor was working, then you would tell him what you needed, and he would either go and get it for you, or have one of his store employees go get it for you.
Of course, in those days you didn't have 40-11 choices when it came to picking brands and varieties. If you were buying groceries, and you needed a can of corn, you got a can of whatever brand of corn the storekeeper had on hand. There were no long shelves with every brand and variety in the world for you to choose from. But you didn't have to go running over acres and acres of store and miles of shelving looking for things you needed. You told the storekeeper what you needed, and the store people went and got it for you. I think most lumber yards still operate in the old way. You go to the counter and put in your order, and then the employees take you out to the lumber sheds and load your lumber for you. But some of the big stores I notice have gone to self-service lumber sales.
I hate ATMs! I like doing bank business with a real person, face to face, inside the bank, at the teller's counter. I like it when I call a business on the phone and a real person answers, and I don't have to press 1 for this department or 2 for that, or 3 for new accounts or 4 for whatever department that was that I forgot before I could listen through all the menu options. I miss the old-time gas station attendants, who would fill your tank for you, wash your windshield, check your oil and radiator, and check your tire pressure and add air if needed. I still like it when you walk into a store and a storekeeper welcomes you and asks "How may I help you?"
That still seems to me like the civilized way.
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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history, vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Editorial on 06/17/2015