A first time for everything...

Whenever I go shopping at Abercrombie and Fitch I always come out shaking my head because of the interaction I have with the employees in the store. (In all truth I think they like the title “store model” and not “employee”.) It’s no secret that A&F is rather selective in their hiring process, they hire individuals that portray their brand/image/style. This equates to really good looking college aged individuals who possibly could be models if they weren’t gainfully employed at Abercrombie and Fitch. Sadly I have found a negative side effect to this hiring policy. (No… Not all the negative press that comes from only hiring individuals that have a specific body type/build.) On a regular basis I’m stuck waiting in a long line because the good looking individual at the cash register can’t seem to figure out how to complete the order or process a return. So then another good looking individual comes over to help, that person presses a few buttons on the screen, scans their employee card, presses a few more buttons and then asks a third good looking individual to help out. Usually the third person is able to save the day and complete the sale.

(A typical A&F Model from the abercrombie website.)

If you know me very well, you know that I don’t like blanket statements or painting people with a broad brush. So I slightly cringe at the thought of inferring that all A&F employees in the Salt Lake Valley aren’t too savvy with their in-store computer system. Perhaps there is more to the story… like they have never received appropriate training on the system, or the system really is overly cumbersome and difficult to use. Whatever the case may be, my personal experiences at the A&F cash register have been less than enjoyable.

That’s why I was so delighted by my most recent experience at A&F. I went in to buy a new shirt. (Don’t worry, I wasn’t going in to pay full price, the SLC store was having a 30% off sale and I had an additional 25% code.) I picked out my shirt, tried it on, checked myself out in the dressing room mirror from multiple angles, took it off, and got in line to check-out. When I got to the cash register I was prepared to explain the 30% off deal, and the 25% off deal… Yet the guy working at the cash register entered both discounts in before I could say anything. He had the credit card reader ready to go so I didn’t even have to tell him to select credit, and he had my shirt nicely folded in the bag before the receipt had finished printing. I was so in shock at this level of service that I found myself saying things like “Thank you… Wow you entered the discounts without me having to tell you about them… Thanks for being so fast.” I’d like to send an email to A&F headquarters or at least tell the SLC manager about the exceptional service… But since store models don’t wear name tags I’m not sure if my description of a good looking employee wearing an A&F shirt, pants, and flip-flops would be very helpful. So here’s to the cashier working at register #1 that actually knew how to efficiently use the computer system.

(And to all those "store models" that aren't too good with the computer system... No hard feelings, you still fold shirts much better than I can.)