Just this morning I woke up at 9.00am (which I usually don't) just to go with my mum to make some purchase at Crabtree & Evelyn 1 Utama Shopping Centre. There was a redemption of an item of 3 for a purchase of RM 120 for 50 early birds. The gift was worth RM 40 and it was a good product.
I arrived at the outlet at 9.45am, grabbed the items needed and proceeded to make queue. While waiting in line as a good citizen would, around me however evil is working its magic.
There was a lady who made a large amount of purchase with at least RM1,600. The assistant was helping her calculate on receipt manually. She got the gift immediately without even having to make any payment yet. Fine. I thought since 9.45am there was still only about 20 customers I thought I was still within the 1st 50.
A few minutes later, another assistant called out to the neighbouring person not waiting in line and asked whether she was done, pointing at her basket of goodies much more than mine. I held only 3 items. She started to calculate. As I looked around I saw that girl approached the cashier and prepared a credit card slip and at the same time the cashier was calculating someone else's items. Fine. Now that girl who was being so nice to help the shopper, continued her transaction, and then I saw her placing one of the gifts in her basket. Okay. Fine. Be patient.
Moments later the lady in front of me, was making her payment and the cashier was helping to calculate and had to recalculate because her friends from no where popped into the scene and added items to her basket. Fine, you know shopping and sales and offers.
While waiting for the fickle minded ladies to finish, another assistant called out loudly if anyone wanted to have their items calculated. The lady behind me passed her basket to that assistant and asked, "Oh, do I have to queue still?". The assistant's response, "No need! Come follow me I will get it done for you?".
By now I was getting suspicious as another gift was also placed in her purchased bag while the cashier was still doing the calculation. The assistant was giving the credit card slip behind the cashier to that customer who asked whether she should queue. I smelled a rat.
By the time it was my turn and nicely passed to her the items with my voucher ready, she calculated and when she saw that my amount was more than RM120, she told me in a blunt tone, "The early bird gift no more already."
What...the...F***?...
What the hell was going on?
And I wonder, what happened to "early bird gets the bigger worm"? I wonder what happened to the 1st 50 customers with purchase of RM 120?
And I also wondered what could have happened if I had asked the assistant to help me with my items first? And I also wondered what could have happened if I had made a comment like, "Hey I came first, shouldn't you ask me first because I am standing in front of her and had waited in line like since half an hour ago?"
What happened to etiquette? What ever happened to waiting in line? What happened to the existence of a cashier counter? What happened to pride and conscience?
Where is the class? Where is the mindset of proper handling of customers and management of customers? Where is the civic conscience of the staff and that of customers?
Seriously, it seems the term early bird was abused and terms and conditions is violated here!
At the end of the deal, I wasn't even given a receipt!
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