About Andrew Phelps
Andrew Phelps is a WBUR reporter and the host of Hubbub, a new blog about Boston.
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No thanks, Borders
I patronize Borders frequently. It is one of my favorite places to go, I have realized with a little embarrassment. It’s hardly the local bookstore that needs my business. But it is my candy store — two stories of candy, all on display in just such a way that I want to buy all of it. I often wander through Reference first, thumbing through dictionaries and grammar books and etiquette guides and almanacs. I’m nerdy like that. Then I browse Travel and try to take in the overwhelming number of places I could visit in my lifetime.
There is one in downtown San Diego where you can usually find me; my old apartment was more within walking distance, but I still find myself there often. Here, in Evanston, there is one directly next door to my mother’s apartment, where I’m staying at the moment. Needless to say, I have been next door every day.
While I love the browse, from time to time I make a purchase. So far this week I have acquired Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, Capote: A Biography by Gerald Clarke, the Berlitz Hide This Spanish Book, John Williams’s “Salute to America”, and the July 2006 issue of Wired.
Sadly, the pleasure of the experience is soured for me at checkout. It’s like rinsing your hair in cold water at the end of a deliciously warm shower (good for the follicles), or eating a dill pickle after a great deli sandwich. In both instances, truly great events are ruined by their final moments; no matter how memorable that shower or that sandwich, all you seem to remember is what came at the end.
What I am complaining about is not unique to Borders, and I could complain more broadly, e.g., about the way I try to engage the checkers in conversation, such as on the 4th of July, when I greeted the tall African man with “Happy Independence Day” and he looked down, uninterested, or when I have tried to discuss why I’m buying this particular book, or, even, Have you read this one? — again, failure, even if there is no one behind me in line.
No, what I’m complaining about is a recent marketing push that is driving me crazy. It’s for the new Border Rewards Card, or the improved one, anyway. I have thoughtfully evaluated the program on more than one occasion, and I feel comfortably familiar with it.
Borders is serious about pushing this card, which requires an e-mail address to be able to send the customer Borders coupons (hello?), and offers strange, scant rewards, such as
Purchase a calendar valued at $40 or more between 8/01 and 8/03 and get 20% off!
Now, I’m sure this program is suitable for many people; in fact, I believe my mother is a member. But it is not for me.
So, every time I approach the person who will handle my transaction, I tremble slightly. I know that he or she will ask if I want a Borders Reward Card, and I already know what my answer will be.
Now, let me interject by noting that if Borders employees put the same enthusiasm and creativity into customer service as they do into promoting the Borders Rewards Card, I’d be a far more enthusiastically satisfied customer. The number of ways this question has been thrust upon me boggles the mind. My discomfort is varied and complex. For one, I hear it every single time I come in, so the sheer repetition of it grates. I have to wait for the end of the person’s rendition before providing the answer that I came prepared with. It must be like having a strange last name and grimacing subtly every time someone tries to pronounce it, knowing it will be difficult for the person but also knowing that this particular person might try his own spin, in an effort to sound funny or culturally relevant, and end up sounding no different from the hundreds (thousands?) of other people who have done the same thing. (A smaller number of those people will subsequently apologize: “God, you must have heard that, like, a hundred times.”†)
Another aspect of my checkstand anxiety is this: I know that, in many cases, the person is well-meaning, intelligent, and witty, someone who probably does not plan to work at Borders for the rest of his life, and he is not thrilled to be reciting the cockgobble required of him. Often they are just trying to make the most of something otherwise soulless.
Will I disappoint them by saying no? Aren’t they sick of hearing no over and over again?
The clever (read: annoying) ones are in a category lower than those who are just doing their job. They deliver the question as if they’re in for a whopping commission (Wait, maybe they are?):
“Do you have your Borders Reward Card tonight?” Instead of asking whether I would like to get one, there is a presumption that I already have one. Instead of one negation, I am required to provide at least two, which I think is cruel. This is an old marketing trick that forces the customer to consider that which he is rejecting and thus expand the window of opportunity for the salesperson to make the kill. This is marketing by deception and shame, and anyone as acutely aware of such tactics as I will surely suffer from similar anxiety.
Once I was so afraid of responding negatively that, when probed, I asked the checker to give me more information about the program. I did this despite having heard the spiel before and knowing full well what the Borders Reward Card entails. It was painful. The person was so glad to be able to explain the program that it was now excruciating to have to say no anyway.
Tonight was particularly bad, and I left feeling icky. Before I could say hello, the man at the register asked enthusiastically if I was going to use my Borders Reward Card this evening! And I, trying a different tactic, looked extremely uninterested and already familiar and said “No” as sternly and quietly as audible. This was an accurate response to his question but with all of the subtext of “I’m not interested”. Clearly, if I had a Borders Rewards Card I would use it, so by not using it I must not have one and not want one. Without hesitation — the man was a magician — he asked “Have you not had a chance to activate it yet?” I winced in reaction to his audacity, partly in pain and partly in anger. How could he require me to provide at least one additional negation? I said, in exactly the same tone, “No.” Then he said “Well let’s go ahead and get you signed up. What it is is–” His body language and energy were so convincing that I thought for a moment I had said “Yes!” But in fact I had said no. I was annoyed by his obstreperous advance. I stopped him and looked straight into his eyes.
“Look, you guys tell me this every single time.”
(Beat.)
He almost literally sank into the ground. He was mortified and downtrodden. “Okay,” he said, “just say no thank you.”
I was ready to flog the man. “Just say no thank you”? Was he actually advising me for future social interactions?
Let’s examine his advice a bit critically. He told me to say “No thank you”. But “no thank you” would not have been an appropriate response to any of his questions (supra). See, I am quite weary of meaningless social abbreviations, especially as a resident of California, where “how are you?” means “hello” and not “how are you?” Unlike many people in today’s fast and crazy world, I choose to think before speaking and to respond with precision, where possible. Essentially, he was advising me to use one meaningless social abbreviation to respond to his equally meaningless marketing banter.
The man was appalled at my rudeness and I at his. All further interaction on his part was minimal. The total for tonight’s purchase was $4.99, and I gave him a 5. Normally I tell the person to keep the penny and the receipt, but this time I stared at him and waited. He mustered the energy to hand me my receipt and my penny, never looking at me again.
I left, and as the situation unfolded more clearly in my mind and I became more indignant, I passed by a Barnes & Noble.
Afterword
While I’m feeling fiery, let me criticize something else about Borders. I’m of the crowd that shops and reads late at night, usually until closing at 11 p.m. or midnight. For this I am punished in my last hour of patronage with disruptive, incremental announcements over the loudspeaker. “BLEHP. Attention Borders guests, your Borders of (area/city) will be closing in just 1 short hour. In just 30 short minutes. In just 15 short minutes. In just 10 short minutes. In just 5 short minutes.” We know, we know, just let the muzak play! It is so jarring that I find myself tensely anticipating each announcement, finally being forced to leave 15 to 30 minutes prior to closing to avoid further discomfort. Additionally, why are the minutes called “short minutes”? A minute is a minute is a minute. It reminds me of third grade, when the teacher asks, “Which is heavier — a pound of feathers or a pound of rocks?” And all the students feel sheepish when they hear the answer, because they’re smarter than that, thank you, and they don’t like to be made to feel like sheep.
19 Comments on ‘No thanks, Borders’
Respond
And here I thought I was the only one who wondered what a “short minute” was :)
Forget refuge and B&N, they have the same kind of ridiculous card program.
I always thought it would be funny to get EVERY card from EVERY retailer and then when prompted for the card hand all of them to the cashier and say — it’s in there, somewhere.
Or play dumb and keep handing the wrong card. Apologize and saw you left your glasses at home and you can’t tell which one is theirs.
Or I could just order from Amazon.
Speaking of which, what was the title of that book you recommended to me recently?
Tara,
It was Consider the Lobster.
You ARE mailing this entry to Borders Customer Service, aren’t you??
Nancy
Dear Mr. Phelps,
You are one bitter human being. I hope you will eventually learn that there is more to life than complaining about human fallibility. The only person that you have the power to change is yourself, and you should learn to ignore the faults of others and work on changing your own pompousness.
There is a reason why people do not engage you in conversation and treat you as if you are insignificant: You really are unimportant to them, and rightfully so. You have not given them a reason to care. I hope you will take this advice to heart and be happier from now on.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Strange
P.S. – Chill out about the whole Borders Reward thing. Those people are just doing their job and no, they do not make commission on it. Don’t you have some whales to save or marijuana to legalize? Rant about that for awhile.
Ahahaha…
I enjoyed this one a lot, especially the description of the silent punishment you gave him (wait for the penny…) :-)
As someone who has had the (unfortunate) experience of working briefly for a large corporate bookseller (not Borders- the other one), I feel sorry for the cashier as he probably was just trying to do his job. Asking for the card is probably like having to wear “flair”.
And I hate that manipulative marketing shit that their managers probably watch them do to make sure it’s done right. I second the hope that you’ve sent this letter to their customer service department, you tree-hugging, crunchy granola tie-dye wearing hippie…
(?)
love,
Amory
I remember that there was a Border’s within walking distance from our hotel in which we stayed during our road trip before senior year. I believe you purchased Shop Girl(italicized) by Steve Martin and I God Bless You Mr. Rosewater (ditto) by the one and only Vonnegut.
And you learned that little gem about rinsing in cold water from my sister, didn’t you? I don’t remember if she said it was good for the follicle, but she did say something about it locking the hair in place somehow. Guess I’m just splitting hairs here. Guffaw.
You really need to lighten up! You seem to analyze every tiny little interaction and comment and work yourself into a full-sized freakout over something that really doesn’t matter! It’s just a stupid card! A stupid *free* card that actually gives you some of your money back! I agree the coupon you listed was stupid…but getting weekly and biweekly coupons for 20%-30% any book or CD is nothing to cough at! How utterly evil and rude for someone to offer these things to you!
Do you have any idea how many people come into a Borders store on a daily basis? In a week? In a month? Do you expect every cashier to know exactly who you are and that you don’t have/want a card? Even if they did know you as a regular, how are they to know that you did not get one the last time you came? We are not mind readers…and you are not the only person on the planet! You have no right to be rude to those who are just trying to do their jobs and don’t know who the heck you are!
Do you know that each employee is graded on how many Borders card signups they get and on how often existing cards are scanned? Maybe think of that the next time you decide to agonize over a “no thank you” that would take 2 seconds out of your life and opt to be rude to the kid at the register instead. Its something that employees are forced to do and that most of us are sick of as well! He’s the one who’ll get ripped apart by the managers and supervisors for not keeping his “percentages” up…whether you take the freaking card or not! You want to make the guy feel worse when his job is already threatened?
You really think he was trying to “advise you on future social interaction”? What an absolutely arrogant, pretentious prick you are! If that’s how you describe a conversation with another human being, you might actually need some help in that department anyway!
Save your complaints for corporate instead of taking it out on an employee and using him to fuel your superiority complex. I’m actually glad a miserable jerk like you won’t get the card and won’t be getting 5% of your money back during the holidays and will pay list price for every item!
As for the closing announcements….are you out of your mind? A place of business needs to close its doors and you have a problem with a closing announcement? The world does not revolve around you, sir. The nature of a bookstore being what it is, people get engrossed in things and actually need those reminders. It is store policy that they are begun an hour before closing. So someone makes a 5-second announcement every 15-20 minutes…so what! It’s a store, not a church, or even a library. We have actually started to use headsets to cut down on intercom use! Now the only time we use the intercom is an hour before closing (except for emergencies like lost items and people, or if a nice customer like yourself accidentally leaves his lights on in the lot). Go to a department store and they use the intercom much, much more frequently. Just because we sell books and not clothes does not mean that we are not a large retail establishment!
Also, people are walking in right up until the last closing announcement, and if we don’t lock the door in time, even after! You might have heard 4 announcements, the person next to you might have only heard it once. It’s not all about you! We often stay until midnight cleaning up after people who would not leave until after the last closing announcement…and won’t put anything away where they found it! Then we put out all the new releases for the next day. It’s mostly because of your fellow customers that we need to be “rude”… in order to actually get home ourselves! Not that you’d care about that.
Hey man, I don’t know about the Borders you go to, but the one I work at is ruled by a bi polar behemoth She-man who has about as much intelligence as the gorilla who learned sign language (and that’s being generous). Although her intelliegence is nothing to be afraid of, the mere thought of being alone in an office with her and being disciplined over your “below company standards” borders rewards percentage while she spits out her barely recognizable words and stares her beety pig eyes into you is not a very pleasant concept.
I’d rather not ask people about the stupid card, but I do because it’s part of the job. However, if they don’t want it I couldn’t care less. I move forward with the transaction. It is because of this that I have gotten written warnings and the such on my otherwise pristine clean work record. I have heard people keep pushing the card, but hey, that’s not my style. I’d find it quite obnoxious too, and for that, I cannot blame you.
But please understand, when you’re ready to check out you may be happy and excited about a current read, but the person behind the counter has probably been standing there for hours doing the same mindless motions, talking to the same drabble of people, and taking all their shit, so if they don’t want to have a lively conversation with you, please understand.
Most of us do not want to be there. I certainly don’t. I try to be amiable as much as possible, but if you think border’s employees are intolerable, you should deal with borders customers.
I work at Borders too.. and most of the time I want people to have the card because books are expensive.. and that 20% really does help. We do get yelled at if we don’t get enough sign ups.. but that’s not really why I do it. Also. about that closing thing.. it’s because it’s takes us an hour or more to clean up after people who leave their coffee all over and piles and piles of books and magazines because they don’t have the common decency to put them back. So, please — excuse us for ruining your otherwise perfect night.
I signed up for the Borders “Rewards” Card program at the beginning of July. I’m here to tell you that even if you go along with all the rigamarole Borders staff members put you through, which is extensive, there’s no guarantee they’ll honor the discounts. I spent over $400 at the main Borders in San Francisco from July to December, earning (at least in theory) a 10% “personal shopping day” discount, two 25%-off coupons, and a little over $21 as a year-end discount bonus. When I tried to use the shopping day bonus, the cashier couldn’t be bothered to run my card through her register. She offered me a “substitute” bonus instead, the idea being to get me back into the store one more time before the end of the month. It took not one but two manangers nearly thirty minutes to find my “membership,” which I promptly cancelled. Borders cashiers regularly ignore or even destroy promotional coupons. The store manager explained to me that his staff was “confused” by the wide array of discount programs on offer, and of which he described exactly three, and that I shouldn’t expect clear communication in such a “high-volume” store. Henceforth I will do my part to decrease that obviously oppressive high volume by one very disgruntled (former) customer, so as to prevent further “confusion” on the part of the store’s staff. It’s nice to be able to thumb through a book before committing to buy it, but since checking out at Borders has evolved into running the gantlet, I’ll take my business elsewhere.
As a Borders cashier who walked off the job yesterday, I have to give you my perspective on this. Please, whatever you may feel about Borders the massively rich corporation, remember that the cashier talking to you is still just some overworked humiliated pee-on making pennies above minimum wage and getting screamed at dozens of times a day for stuff over which they have no control. Like the lines–I don’t profit from long lines, I only have to work harder but Borders understaffs itself to make a higher profit, obviously.
As sick as you are of hearing about the Borders rewards card, believe me, we’re sicker of asking you about it. I’d practically start slurring the words by the end of the day, after saying it a billion times that day and feeling a defensive and angry rejection from a customers at what felt like 20 times a minute. I hate the rewards program. But we are yelled at not only if we don’t ask, but if we don’t push it. I received notes explaining not to drop it as soon as the customers refuse. What’s more. management had a special problem with me because I would actually inform people when they had benefits coming from the card (as long as they weren’t jerks). When you consider they get a paltry 5 cents per dollar of store credit, and they only get access to it for about 6 weeks a year before it vanishes, I would look up and tell customers sometimes if they had, say $13 bucks in store credit and you wouldn’t believe the crap I got for that, being told that I’m only allowed to give customers benefits they already know about, despite the fact that to get store credit the customer had to spend a lot of time and money in the store and put up with craploads of spam. Managers will “need” to straighten up the front displays as they listen to the cashier interactions and make sure you are following the script. Oh- and i can also tell you why some of the cashiers ask if you’ll use your card today (or at least why I would). Believe it or not, probably a third of the time, customers with the card WON’T hand it to you then after the entire transaction is over will ask if it went on their borders card. At that point, you can only either post-void and re-ring them up, which is a pain in the a**, or explain how they can enter the receipt number on line, which seems often to confuse and infuriate them. So it’s just a way to nip a problem in the bud before it occurs.
As for our reward–the borders employee who signes up the most customers gets, I think, a couple free CD’s at the end of the year or some stupid crap like that which doesn’t even begin to make up for the hassle. So while there are always these poor employee schmucks who try hard to follow all the rules, sell the most crap for the boss and believe whole-heartedly that they will be rewarded for their good work– we don’t profit from these cards, we aren’t Border the rich company or its avatars, most of us could care less whether or not you get the card, we’re just forced to go through that whole humiliating spiel.
The above comments from Borders employees are proof that it’s better to visit the local library.
I work at a Borders in the UK and it seems like Borders US and UK are quite different. We don’t have the reward card (yet) but we do have the e-mail collection scheme and we have to ask every customer if they want to leave and e-mail because if our e-mail collection record is below a certain number, disciplinary action follows. But most people seem happy to recieve the email discounts (and our borders is in the middle of a big university district and we don’t offer student discount so it’s a good alternative.)
If anyone’s had a bad experience recently it’s because Borders employees don’t get paid as well as we deserve and the Christmas season is very stressful for us (noise, mess, panic, rude customers etc) and we don’t get any bonus for dealing with all this.
Also, we make a point of kicking everyone out at closing time because we have to clear up all the crap you lot leave behind becuase you think it’s a public library or your home. We also, of course have lives and would like to go home to them, not hang around at work because someone just wants to but a magazine at 10 at night.
More fuel for the fire.
I just bought a book at the Borders near my work, and when the cashier asked if I had a Borders Reward Card I politely replied “no thank you.” She then said, “well, I’ll give you one anyway, it’s a free rewards program and etc. etc.” and dropped one in my bag. I didn’t comment on it, but did leave it on a shelf near the door before exiting the store.
Part of my annoyance is…why do so many stores make you enroll in some kinda useless rewards program (complete with user ID, password, one more card to carry around) when all I want to do is buy something and get out with a minimum of fuss and hassle? Nothing against Borders employees, mind you (I know you’re pressured to ask about the program), but…please take my word that I really DON’T want sign up.
As far as annoying customers go…well, that’s retail for you. I hate to put it that way, but any job that requires you to deal with a cross-section of the public is gonna give you ample reason to despise humanity.
I haven’t shopped in a Borders more than twice, but I work in a Books-a-Million which also has a rewards program. I started out as a cashier and the managers pushed hard for us to sell our cards. When I got hired last summer, the card cost $10 and lasted for a year. Shortly afterward, they raised the price to $20 per year. Instead of the system Borders has in place, our rewards card saves you %10 on everything you buy in our stores, right down to the coffee & .33 cent lindt balls. Cashiers are expected to come out with %4-%5 percent card sales each day. A seriously difficult task as most people won’t spend enough money in BAM to even recoup what they paid for the card in the first place. Some of the cashiers really try to go out of their way to explain the program and get sales so they won’t get yelled at, but after a short while, I just gave up. When people came up to my register, I would ask if they had a discount card, and if they said no I wouldn’t bother going any further. Eventually I was moved over the cafe, where card sales don’t matter as much. I’ve learned to recognize most of our regulars and whether or not they have discount cards, so I don’t bother even asking the ones I know don’t have or want one. I never try to sell it unless someone asks me about the program or if their membership expires very soon. It’s a pain in the ass to have to push the card, so forgive the cashiers that seem a little pushy about it.
Our store doesn’t start making closing announcements until 15 minutes til. Like everyone else said, though, there’s a good reason for it. We constantly have people coming in anywhere from 30 to 5 minutes before close.. And we just want to get customers out so we can clean and get home. There are some considerate people that clean up after themselves, but every night, there are cups of coffee, napkins, straws, those annoying magazine subscription cards and stacks upon stacks of books left on the tables in the cafe. And I’ve yet to meet a single customer that had the decency to tell an employee when the trash if overflowing. Many times, I’ve been stuck picking up half-full cups and scrubbing floors because people toss out things or shove things into an overflowing trash without caring about the person that has to deal with it. So just try to give us a little leeway.
If you really dread having to listen to the cashiers ask if you have your card or if you want one, just beat them to the punch and tell them you don’t have one and you wouldn’t like one. As long as you don’t have a rude tone, the cashier shouldn’t feel offended and they ought to skip it over.
You ARE mailing this entry to Borders Customer Service, aren't you??
Nancy
I got a borders card and they send me 25-40% any item off coupons every week.