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Your view: Keep Councilman Tony Brooks in office

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Alleged robber who attacked mother waives hearing

It was a bad week for retail in the United States. I haven&#8217;t looked up statistics, but I am The Generic Consumer, and I can tell you that America is failing Retail 101 and is on the verge of flunking Customer Service unless it can get the notes from somebody who&#8217;s been paying attention.My awareness of the peril was triggered by the process of trying to buy a new phone. I had sufficient funds and a focused need for a specific product. Straightforward, right?I sincerely believe it would have been easier to convert to any major religion, secure a new job and find a legal parking space in a cosmopolitan city &#8212; simultaneously &#8212; than it was to acquire a new phone from Apple.As a longtime and devoted Apple fan, the kind who argues with non-fruit users, I was particularly frustrated; I wanted it all to go smoothly. I wanted to be able to brag. I wanted that lovely glow of self-righteousness that makes Mac users intolerable to others.The problem probably started when I refused to call the process of purchasing the device an &#8220;upgrade.&#8221; When I buy a new roll of toilet paper, I do not refer to it as &#8220;upgrading&#8221; my toilet paper even if, for some uncanny reason, the new roll is slightly better than the previous one.In the same respect, I do not &#8220;upgrade&#8221; my soap, my kitty litter, my seltzer or my toothpaste. I buy new stuff when the old stuff is depleted. It&#8217;s not that I want anything shiny and new for the sake of it, but I do require stability and recognizable ingredients. In that respect, it&#8217;s pretty much like dating, at least as I remember it.But now it&#8217;s as if buying a new phone is like winning some kind of contest. I felt as if I were in a bidding war for the color I wanted, not that I actually care, because I&#8217;ll get a case to prevent the thing from shattering the first time it falls out of my bra strap, which is where I tuck it to have long conversations on speaker phone as I walk around the house doing chores.It didn&#8217;t take mere hours to get what I wanted. It took days &#8212; not to mention lengthy on-line chats, then actual human-being phone calls (made from my landline) and finally petty threats about switching to the carrier who uses tin cans and string.And all I really wanted was for a retailer to take my money and, in exchange, give me the item I purchased. Retailers, however, no longer seem prepared to make these kinds of tawdry deals. It&#8217;s not just Apple.On another day, I tried to buy four towels, four washcloths and a bath mat from a major department store. It was tough enough to locate a clearly overworked sales associate &#8212; she had to go to the back to see whether they had, in stock, an actual bath mat in the same color as the towels &#8212; but then this poor soul started asking me to fill out forms for a store credit card that would give me 4 percent savings over a lifetime of purchases, meaning I could get $11.45 if I paid on time until I dropped dead but would be charged $7,873,974 in fees every month if I was late because their interest rate is higher than my weight and then also they could put a lien on my house.It was not a happy shopping experience.On another day, I called one of those nationally advertised delivery services to have food from a little local place brought to my office so that some terrific students could have a good lunch. I&#8217;d have been delighted by the irony of the delivery service not being able to deliver, but the mood was ruined. I had to pick up the food myself, which meant losing my campus parking space, and the students couldn&#8217;t wait around. They went off to class lunchless, looking like the cast of &#8220;Oliver!&#8221;Board members, officers, executives, directors, managers, client service experts and geniuses: We, the consumers, want you to succeed. We dearly want to believe you know what you&#8217;re doing &#8212; and that you care about our respect and appreciation. It doesn&#8217;t take much to make us feel both looked after and loyal. But it doesn&#8217;t take much to make us feel like fools, either, and we&#8217;re less afraid to talk about it.Caveat venditor: let the seller beware. The guy with the tin cans is now offering a 10 percent discount.<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>Gina BarrecaGuest Columnist</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Gina Barreca is a board of trustees distinguished professor of English literature at the University of Connecticut and the author of 10 books. She can be reached at <a href="http://www.ginabarreca.com">www.ginabarreca.com</a>.</shirttailMeta></div>

Gina Barreca: America is failing Retail 101