FISCHER: Self-service shopping

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

The brand new Legend of Zelda game is out and I’ve been getting my Nintendo Switch ready to dive back into the world of Hyrule.

Sadly, every time I play a game on my Switch, I’m reminded why I rarely do so. After 1,300 hours of use since 2017, the left analogue stick on my controller has become a little unwieldy.

I’ve tried to fix it myself, hoping that opening the controller and using compressed air to expel seven years of accumulated cat hair would resolve the issue, but results have been inconsistent and temporary.

Knowing that the next generation of Nintendo console is just around the corner I’ve been hesitant to buy a replacement, but this weekend I finally relented and made the trek to a particular big box store.

Now, tell me I’m not the only one that has noticed this.

You’re walking through a department store and decide to take a stroll down the video game aisle. You’re not looking to buy anything. You just want to walk through and reminds yourself of things you already know are out. Maybe you’ll get lucky and see a game you want on sale but this is the Nintendo aisle so that’s just not going to happen.

And, of course, without fail, a store employee will approach you and ask if you need help getting anything and you’ll have to turn them down.

Until you actually do need something. Then there’s nobody to be found.

A Switch Pro Controller is not an inexpensive piece of hardware and thus requires an employee to unlock off the hook. I circled around the electronics department for 10 minutes waiting for somebody to acknowledge my presence to no avail.

Once upon a time there used to be buttons you could press to attract the attention of an employee, but I guess those went away at some point.

I spent another 10 minutes literally sitting on the counter near the electronics department cash register, trying to make myself as conspicuous as possible without being outright disruptive to the store environment.

I saw employees, and I presume they saw me, but they all had things to do and were making beelines to wherever it was they were going.

Finally, I looked up the phone number for the store I was in and called it. Yes, the call was coming from inside the housewares department!

OK, the electronics department, which I called thinking that maybe the sound of an unanswered ringing phone would subtlety attract someone. No dice, but eventually the call redirected to an actual human being, who was all too happy to call an employee to the department for me.

Said employee showed up within a minute or so and … immediately helped another customer who had also been loitering around waiting for assistance. Still, I was next on the list and after nearly a half-hour of dinking around I was able to get my controller off the peg.

None of this is a dig on the employees. I’ve worked retail. Most of my family has worked retail. I know all too well what it’s like to work on skeleton crew conditions. This isn’t their fault, but the fault of obscenely well paid executive management who don’t think twice about cutting staff budgets and putting the savings into their holiday bonus.

So here’s a proposal. Since customers are already ringing up their purchases, let’s just take it to the next level. Leave a set of keys on a hook nearby and we’ll get our stuff off the pegs and out of the cabinets ourselves.

Or maybe put back the call buttons.

— Travis Fischer is a news writer for the Charles City Press and should have just ordered off Amazon.