Recently I went into my neighborhood Cingular Wireless store to buy a new phone charger, a $20 item. Cody, still teething at 6 months, had eaten through the last one. I was struck by something that I have been noticing again and again ever since.

I asked the clerk for the charger, and within thirty seconds she had produced it. Very efficient. Then, she proceeded to spend nearly five minutes entering various bits of information into her computer system. She scanned the product code, then entered so much additional prose that I thought she had begun a novel. Next she turned to me, but ignored the twenty in my outstretched hand.

“What is your name?” she asked politely enough. “I don’t want to get on the mailing list, thanks,” I responded, indicating the cash in my hand.”I need your name to complete the transaction.” Ok, I told it to her.

“Zip code?” “Why do you need my zip code to sell me a phone charger?”

Well, you can see where this went. Apparently, in many retail stores the computer system requires both extensive inventory control information and customer personal information before it will spit out a receipt. So much for customer service! It feels, as a consumer, like quite an imposition to stand around solely in order to feed the system with information.

Remember the old days? You walked in, paid in cash, and were out in a few seconds. I am not fond of shopping to begin with, but this slavery to corporate database needs really drives me nuts.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2007 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.