Kinko's, How Careful Art Thine Hiring Process
Today I took my kids to Kinko's. To laminate some papers. And trim them. What was I thinking? They were actually very well behaved, all things considered. The "worst" thing Avery did was walk circles around the copy machines with her screech of glee erupting every 7 seconds or so. Probably not what the other patrons of the copy center had counted on while they collated and copied. Ben's biggest offense was talking very loudly (which he does all the time) and taking Mother's Day cards off the display and "reading" them. Loudly. First I had to stand at the counter for 10 minutes while I watched 7, I repeat SEVEN employees mill around the inner sanctum of the counter, ignoring me. At least 4 of them were not actively involved in a task. It was a woman from the back, returning from a break, who finally helped me.
When I made my way over to the laminating machine, a nice older gentlemen who was there making copies, quickly relieved me of my bundle of papers and freed up my arms to plop Avery in front of the lego table right next to me. He then enticed Benjamin with the green copy button and let Ben "help" him make copies. It was so sweet and Ben felt like the quintessential helper when they were done.
Laminating took a little longer than I thought and while my kids remained very well behaved, I did have to intercept Avery from one of her screeching loops of joy, and this was the conversation Ben was having with his lego men. "How are you today!? It's very nice to meet you. I have to doe wead a blog. Do you want to wead a blog? Okay, I'm donna doe wead a blog!" Must ALL my business be broadcast loudly wherever we go, just because my son can talk now? I actually couldn't believe he was saying blog, and wasn't even sure until he repeated it the third time.
Another elderly gentlemen sitting just a few feet from the paper cutter I had moved on to, got pretty upset about something. He was taking it out on the one Kinko employee who had been helpful to me. He dropped a couple of certain lettered bombs, and spoke of male cow excriment in response to anything the Kinko employee said. He had a naughty mouth. I didn't know old people talked like that. I quickly scurried away with my kids for an interlude at the collating and binding area. Mostly because of Ben's habit of talking loudly and repeating everything he hears.
Ben remembered the gelato shop next to Kinko's from the one time we went there TWO MONTHS ago after Fedexing something to Jay. I had naively gone in there with Ben because I feel it important to explore all the cultural delicacies. Particularly those of the ice cream variety. So the last 10 minutes, Avery was making me hold her while I slid the large paper cutter down the board, Ben was loudly trying to make me "amember" the ice cream store so we could go again, the laminating machine had made me sweat, I was jumpy about the swearing senior returning before I was done, and I had to return to the Counter of Unhelpfulness. This time after only a 5 minute wait (I think Ben's loud reading of cards and Avery's discontent yells attracted attention faster) a man came to help me. We'll call him Jim. Because that's what his nametag said. He too was an older man. I think I may have been interrupting his smoke break. All I wanted was my pages bound together. Having done it myself a million times in college, I knew the process took about 3 minutes tops. He asked me when I wanted it done by. That question kind of caught me off guard because, surely he wasn't expecting me to say, "Well, it's 11:53, how does 11:56 sound to you?" So in hopes of encouraging a response like, "Let me go give this to 1 of the 6 people behind me who aren't doing anything and you can leave with it and not have to drag both your kids back in 2 or 3 hours for a 3 minutes job" I said, "As soon as possible please." And then folks, I kid you not, I got attitude from him. Right now, it's hilarious to me. In the moment, words like shocked, taken aback, dumbfounded more aptly described the moment. He did that shrug, combined with sort of thrusting your upper body forward that says, "Well WHAT!?" I am happy to state that I did not say, "Dude, YOU are the employee, I am the customer, YOU know how long a job like this will take, YOU know what time 'as soon as possible' means on the type of schedule you all keep around here, since you are clearly not going to make any effort to be efficient and do it as soon as what SHOULD be possible, then I'm gonna have to wait for you to tell ME what time 'as soon as possible is'." No siree, I politely said, "How about you tell me when that would be, and I'll come pick it up then."
He said 2 pm. But it's 4:05 and I haven't gone in yet. I'll show them.
When I made my way over to the laminating machine, a nice older gentlemen who was there making copies, quickly relieved me of my bundle of papers and freed up my arms to plop Avery in front of the lego table right next to me. He then enticed Benjamin with the green copy button and let Ben "help" him make copies. It was so sweet and Ben felt like the quintessential helper when they were done.
Laminating took a little longer than I thought and while my kids remained very well behaved, I did have to intercept Avery from one of her screeching loops of joy, and this was the conversation Ben was having with his lego men. "How are you today!? It's very nice to meet you. I have to doe wead a blog. Do you want to wead a blog? Okay, I'm donna doe wead a blog!" Must ALL my business be broadcast loudly wherever we go, just because my son can talk now? I actually couldn't believe he was saying blog, and wasn't even sure until he repeated it the third time.
Another elderly gentlemen sitting just a few feet from the paper cutter I had moved on to, got pretty upset about something. He was taking it out on the one Kinko employee who had been helpful to me. He dropped a couple of certain lettered bombs, and spoke of male cow excriment in response to anything the Kinko employee said. He had a naughty mouth. I didn't know old people talked like that. I quickly scurried away with my kids for an interlude at the collating and binding area. Mostly because of Ben's habit of talking loudly and repeating everything he hears.
Ben remembered the gelato shop next to Kinko's from the one time we went there TWO MONTHS ago after Fedexing something to Jay. I had naively gone in there with Ben because I feel it important to explore all the cultural delicacies. Particularly those of the ice cream variety. So the last 10 minutes, Avery was making me hold her while I slid the large paper cutter down the board, Ben was loudly trying to make me "amember" the ice cream store so we could go again, the laminating machine had made me sweat, I was jumpy about the swearing senior returning before I was done, and I had to return to the Counter of Unhelpfulness. This time after only a 5 minute wait (I think Ben's loud reading of cards and Avery's discontent yells attracted attention faster) a man came to help me. We'll call him Jim. Because that's what his nametag said. He too was an older man. I think I may have been interrupting his smoke break. All I wanted was my pages bound together. Having done it myself a million times in college, I knew the process took about 3 minutes tops. He asked me when I wanted it done by. That question kind of caught me off guard because, surely he wasn't expecting me to say, "Well, it's 11:53, how does 11:56 sound to you?" So in hopes of encouraging a response like, "Let me go give this to 1 of the 6 people behind me who aren't doing anything and you can leave with it and not have to drag both your kids back in 2 or 3 hours for a 3 minutes job" I said, "As soon as possible please." And then folks, I kid you not, I got attitude from him. Right now, it's hilarious to me. In the moment, words like shocked, taken aback, dumbfounded more aptly described the moment. He did that shrug, combined with sort of thrusting your upper body forward that says, "Well WHAT!?" I am happy to state that I did not say, "Dude, YOU are the employee, I am the customer, YOU know how long a job like this will take, YOU know what time 'as soon as possible' means on the type of schedule you all keep around here, since you are clearly not going to make any effort to be efficient and do it as soon as what SHOULD be possible, then I'm gonna have to wait for you to tell ME what time 'as soon as possible is'." No siree, I politely said, "How about you tell me when that would be, and I'll come pick it up then."
He said 2 pm. But it's 4:05 and I haven't gone in yet. I'll show them.
posted by Angela @ 5/04/2006 10:34:00 AM
1 Comments:
At 7:36 PM,
Code Yellow Mom said…
"Counter of Unhelpfulness" is hilarious and SO apt. Our Kinko's has an automatic door that opens onto a busy parking lot and once one of the "help" pointed out that one of my screeching circlers was running out of said door, but she didn't lift a finger to help with what could have been a 30-second copy job OR to actually catch my kid. So I rebel against Kinko's, to the point that I have been scheming on how to get a copier/printer and laminator of my very own and help myself.
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