What's becoming of us?

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kwired said:
Who says the manager even addresses the returns people after you call him? They don't want to deal with returning these items or even whatever it takes to replace them - it is easier and more profitable to continue to try to sell it, even if it has to be discounted.
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How can it be more profitable to sell and restock 10 times. No one will buy it with the lens busted. At 100.00 they will return it and it costs both parties to return. The manager may not do anything but then he is not a good manager if he did not.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
How can it be more profitable to sell and restock 10 times. No one will buy it with the lens busted. At 100.00 they will return it and it costs both parties to return. The manager may not do anything but then he is not a good manager if he did not.
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There are people that buy things then they sit unopened in the box for a long time, if one of these people end up with it then it does not get returned. That is probably not happening too often though - I'm just trying to figure some logic as to why so much defectives are returned to sales shelves. The next best reason is probably ignorant returns clerks. Even if they look at the returned item they may not know something is wrong with an item they know nothing about, then you have customers that just tell them they did not want the item when in reality they broke it somehow.
 
Joethemechanic said:
Look up the term "Conspicuous Consumption" and "Thorstien Veblen" if you want to better understand this kind of behavior

You might also want to take a look at "Cluster B Personality Disorders" It seems today to be almost epidemic.
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people make decisions based on emotion, not logic. that includes all of us.

for the price of a service change, you can buy an above ground jacuzzi.
guess which one gets picked, unless the lights are out in half the house,
or the fire department just left after putting out the panel?

people get their car detailed at regular intervals. they replace the brakes
when they get a bad noise.

and all of our customers, including commercial accounts, the buy decision
is made by people.
 
ed downey said:
I must be too honest. I never would have thought to put the old part back in the new box and return it.
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I once bought an under the counter light that someone had removed the ballast and then returned it.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
No one will buy it with the lens busted.
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Sure they will. People buy damaged items all the time and then return them. Then they think about how easy it was to return these items so they buy more items knowing that if they don't like the item for any reason (other than spite ) they can return said item.

Plus it makes the store look busy. Often see more people in the returns line than in the check out lines.
 
Unfortunately stores with no questions asked return policies are often the targets of scams. Lots of times during a return the clerk does not even look in the package to see what you are returning. If you have a receipt and a box you are in. I am very careful about what I buy at these stores.

I know a couple who pretty much use big box stores as no cost rental shops. For instance if they need an inflatable mattress for a weekend house guest they will buy one on Friday and return it on Monday, and they do not understand that what they are doing is wrong.
 
cowboyjwc said:
That one I almost understand. You used to be able to get a 4' shop light for like $15, but if the ballast went out it was something like $25 for a new ballast.
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I think it was more along the line of the store didn't have just the ballast for sale so they bought a new one, STOLE the ballast and took it back as not working or didn't need it. So I got to take it back to the store, show them what had happened and get an in-store credit so I could go get a replacement. Opened it before I left too.
 
qcroanoke said:
I think it was more along the line of the store didn't have just the ballast for sale so they bought a new one, STOLE the ballast and took it back as not working or didn't need it. So I got to take it back to the store, show them what had happened and get an in-store credit so I could go get a replacement. Opened it before I left too.
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I actually thought that too, but I liked my answer better. :p
 
I think what OP is failing to realize is that this issue has nothing to do with electricians. It's about much more than that. It's people, regardless of profession, looking around at the world and seeing what success is all about.

There's something to be said about honesty and integrity, and I truly respect anybody else that can stay true to themselves like I try to do. But when this world is controlled by thieves, it becomes evident that we're putting criminals up on a pedestal.

The real question you should be asking is not, "Why is my fellow man failing us morally," it should be, "How can our fellow men stop these parasitic thieves from stealing our lives?"
 
I realize very well that my OP has nothing to do with electricians.
It has to do with everyone in this country, and as electricians are part of the "everyone".... indirectly it has to do with electricians.
Personally I don't think it's a minority that feel justified to cheat and steal.
Which brings me to the other question:
It's become sport to bash "big" corporations(whatever big means, never heard big government, or big lawyers, etc)
So my question is: Are corporations entities from out of space? or are they an extent of our (as a whole US) mentality that is ok to cheat, is ok to steal?
If the first, I'm not gonna argue with you, but if it's the second, WE GET WHAT WE DESERVE.

jaylectricity said:
I think what OP is failing to realize is that this issue has nothing to do with electricians. It's about much more than that. It's people, regardless of profession, looking around at the world and seeing what success is all about.

There's something to be said about honesty and integrity, and I truly respect anybody else that can stay true to themselves like I try to do. But when this world is controlled by thieves, it becomes evident that we're putting criminals up on a pedestal.

The real question you should be asking is not, "Why is my fellow man failing us morally," it should be, "How can our fellow men stop these parasitic thieves from stealing our lives?"
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Strife said:
Personally I don't think it's a minority that feel justified to cheat and steal.
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I was just reading about a guy that was "caught" shop lifting and now he can't believe he was dumb enough to try it.

If he hadn't been caught he would now be thinking how smart he is. Why pay?

Garrett Hardin asked the question: "How can we make the right decisions when we reward ouselves for our mistakes" ( he was speaking of society in general)? Try giving the mouse the cheese when he doesn't do what's required.
 
Remember that big corporations are big because we make them big. Watch the show about how HO got started they didn't start out big, we made them big. People bash Wally World all the time, have you ever been inside of an empty Wally World? Do I for one minuted believe that CEO's need to make 7 figure salaries, NO NO NO. The thing is like I posted earlier is, the start making that kind of money and they get used to it, they don't care that the people in the vests, that are working just to put food on the table, are the ones that allow them to make those 7 figures.

We are a society that believes we deserve things, whether it's good service or good prices, and that's why we go to Wally World and then complain that all the stuff they sell is crap. That's why we complain about the price of gas, but jump in the car on Saturday and drive around just to go see the poppies bloom. We create our own problems, because we don't have the fortitude to fix them. And I am not at all saying that I am any better, when I stick the nozzle in my truck and it hit's the $150 mark, I simply think to myself that it is what it is.
 
MJW said:
...I suspect when they get a return half the time they just put it back on the shelf regardless of what the customer tells them.
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I also suspect that. I've returned stuff that was broken, and watched them put it in the same cart as all the other things to go right back on the shelf, even when I told the cashier it was defective.
...When I get something from Home Depot that is broken or missing parts I write "BROKEN" or "PARTS MISSING" in sharpie on the box....
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Good idea. I'll be doing this from now on.

-John
 
One thing to keep in mind about us keeping the big corporations big - at least those in consumer goods - is that the deck is stacked against the consumer. There are herds of psychologists working in marketing that apply every trick in the book and designing new tricks every day to make buying more inviting. This isn't only about subliminal advertising or product placement. It's thousands of techniques built in to every product design, package, color, lighting, even manufacturing in China, not to make you just want one product, but to turn consumption into a way of life.

Consumption at some level is necessary for survival. You can't wear the same clothes from the time you're born till when you die. I did see a change in the US though during the fifteen years I lived abroad. Products overall seem cheaper, but also more cheaply made and people buy more of them. New houses are bigger than they were, there are more TVs in them, there's more furniture in them, but it's cheaper than it used to be. There are tons of cheap, accessible junk to be had around us. Electrically speaking, things have changed too. When I started back in 1988, there were a lot of homes doing fine with a 100A service and many were still fine with a 60A service. Nowadays most new homes in this region have a 320A service or larger. That's a lot of juice for a family of four or five, but it's deemed necessary to make our consumption levels safe.

I think the key to reigning in consumption is teaching people about quality. Quality seems to be one of the things that the marketers have tried the hardest to make a fuzzy concept out of to the point where a lot of folks really can't tell the difference between something that's high quality and something that's not. It seems to me that most people I've met who have quality stuff tend to have less stuff in general. On the other hand, maybe I'm wrong.
 
Strife said:
...Personally I don't think it's a minority that feel justified to cheat and steal....
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I'd like to believe that's true, but I think most people do what they think they can get away with, and I think laws exist mostly just to keep honest people, honest.

Interesting story about the opening of the JFK Center in DC: When it opened, they had stores staffed by very high-society, affluent volunteers. They discovered that without strict book-keeping, they had a huge amount of theft, something in the neighborhood of 30-40%. It actually turned out that the very wealthy volunteers were making off with money and products. Many of them sincerely didn't believe they were stealing, simply being compensated for their "volunteer" work.

People have an amazing way of justifying their own behavior.

-John
 
How about after dealing with DIYers bringing good stuff back it is easyer to put it all on the shelf till we show up and show them it is bad?
 
sameguy said:
How about after dealing with DIYers bringing good stuff back it is easyer to put it all on the shelf till we show up and show them it is bad?
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So let's just say I have some extra time on my hands. Do you think Home Depot would let me stand next to the returns desk waiting for people returning electrical items? And if so, am I doing everybody a favor if I point out the scam artists? Or am I just doing HD a favor?
 
I think Home Depot's situation is, why should the employees care?

Wages are low, and they treat everybody like they are easily replaced. I can't see myself caring much in a situation like that.

The funniest thing I have seen (well not really funny) is many times I see older workers who have been displaced from their "real job" working in a home depot and being disrespected by their younger inexperienced "managers". It seems like inexperience is a virtue there. Inexperienced younger managers are more likely to dance a jig, or jump through hoops when commanded to do so.
 
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