Are you Searious?

(Apologies in advance, I wrote this in paragraph form but Blogspot will not show paragraph breaks no matter how I try) For the first time ever, I bought something online from Sears. The price was unbelievable so I risked it. The problem was, they didn't have any pictures of the items but they had all the color options listed. I knew I could return what I didn't want, and I really wasn't sure what the color 'mineral' was, so I just ordered one of every color and figured I had a 50/50 shot of liking them. An email arrived telling me that I had to print it out and take it to my pickup; the problem was though, that Yahoo would *not* let me print the email in its entirety, so I had to resort to just printing from my toolbar. (Yes I tried everything to make it print through Yahoo, no dice). Unfortunately they also assigned me a pickup location that is far from anywhere I live or work, that was the only Sears carrying these particular items. Great! So on the day of pickup, I take my email in and scan it in the kiosk like the signs direct me to do. Won't scan, because duh the email printed out a tiny portion of the email but it sure got ALL OF THE ADVERTISEMENTS in my yahoo account! My email printout in fact, only showed about half the invoice. The kiosk directed me to scan the credit card I used at checkout, THIS worked. Right away my name popped up on a giant TV overhead. Right away, I saw the list of other people who had picked up before me. (Remind me to use a fake name or something next time I check out, that is just flat-out creepy!) So while I'm waiting and waiting and waiting, I see a sign that says they'll give me a $5 coupon if they don't assist me within five minutes. Great! So at almost 8 minutes, a guy comes out and stops the timer on the kiosk, and out pops a coupon. I was pleased to see that it had so many restrictions on what I cannot use it for, that it needed to go straight into the garbage! This should have been a clue for me about how my Sears experience was going to unfold. About 15 more minutes later, after giving me my coupon and going to find my order, "Louis" returns with only 6 of my items. Two are missing. (And most are ugly, I can see right away.) He acted as though he fetched what I needed and we were done; but I was still short some items. He said he couldn't find anything else but let him check. Twenty more minutes go by and he comes back up; "I can't find anything else, I'm sorry". And he just stood there like I'm supposed to leave. I told him I can't leave without my items or him doing something about them missing, I paid for them and if I just walk out the door right now, it will be as if my order was completed and I'll be out of luck. He just ...stood there. He said again, "I'm sorry but I can't find them anywhere". I asked him, so what are we going to do about that? He scratched his head, rubbed his chin, and said he didn't really know, he wasn't sure. OK then, don't just stand there, GO DO SOMETHING, get someone who has an idea of what they are doing! I told him, I can't leave without some kind of resolution to this. He asked, "Can you wait a little bit?" I said I can wait a few minutes. (It had already been there about 45 minutes, this was getting old in a real hurry!) Almost 20 more minutes passed, I was about to the point of calling Customer Service from right there in the pickup area, trying hard not to pitch a fit because clearly this guy was not from the high end of the hiring pool. (Yet getting very annoyed that I had to deal with him anyway!) FINALLY Louis came out with my two items; I assume that faced with having to find the items vs. actually figuring out what to do about his inability to find them, he chose the former. Good man. I took my stuff and went home. When I got home with the items, I could see right away that four of them were hideous and had to go back, so I bagged them up and set them aside. Today I went to a different Sears to return them since, "RETURNS ARE FAST AND EASY!" Who are they freaking kidding? I went to the counter and a teenager named "Jesus" (yes, the irony is not lost on me) reluctantly stopped talking to his buddies long enough to help me. I did not bring my email receipt because it was useless to pick up the items, to think it could be useful to return them was just asking for a letdown. The order information was on two of the four items in the form of a Sears.com sticker, so it should have been easy for him to look it up. Let us remember though, that there is a reason Kmart and Sears are not top-rated retailers! Jesus could not figure out how to process the return; he asked for the credit card I used to buy the items and I brought out my card. "No this doesn't pull up anything". I pointed out the order number right on the packages, he ignored me. He asked for my driver's license; and then the computer beeped, and he handed me a receipt with a phone number that said "REFUND DENIED". An older guy stepped over and told me to call the number on the reciept and give them the code so they could tell me why. It may sound like all this happened pretty quickly but I must say that by the time I got the 'refund denied' slip, I had already been standing at that counter for almost 20 minutes and I was getting pretty damned pissed off. The older guy pointed me to their customer service phone so I went to call the number. The customer service rep took her time asking me 1,000 questions about who I was and then she said, "Oh, the reason you were denied is because your driver's license number is not valid!" Rather than scream, "WHAT THE ____" at her, I asked in a psuedo-calm voice, "What do you have for my number?" Apparently Jesus was in such a hurry to get rid of me so he could go back to socializing, that he left out a number when he typed in my driver's license. I thanked her and hung up and went back to the counter. Again, poor Jesus had to drag his lazy ass away from his other teen buddies, and he reluctantly returned to the counter where I was standing. I tried to stay calm, really I did, but this little dragass was really making me mad. Why should customers be punished because Sears can't hire decent people? They apparently have no problem with the QUANTITY they hire, since Jesus and four other teen-ish guys were standing around talking! So I said as NICELY as I could, "They said you entered in my driver's license incorrectly, and that's why I was denied a refund." He stood there staring at me like I was about to throw a bucket of bananas at him! He took my driver's license and started all over again, and the older guy who was there earlier stood by and watched. Jesus either has ADD fingers or he is just too lazy to do his job right, maybe both, because he kept typing so fast and sloppily that the computer would not take my information. At this point I had been in the store for well over half an hour, half an hour that was being wasted because of incompetent jerk employees! Sure YOU get paid by the hour but I actuallly have stuff to do and places to be! Alas, finally Jesus had a little mini-fit and stepped aside and told the older guy to do it, he couldn't. And then he went back to talking to his buddies. I should have just terminated our transaction right then, right there. But no. Enter Comedian Cal. Comedian Cal couldn't find any way whatsoever to get my transaction through. He pulled up my name and he even SHOWED me the screen full of transactions I have done at Sears; but he just couldn't manage to find the one I did two weeks ago. I think it was too overwhelming. He even said, "I don't think this is going to work with a Texas driver's license"..what?!?! My driver's license is the same state you are standing in, you f----g idiot! I said as much (Leaving out the 'idiot' part) but he just kind of let it go past. I'll cut out a lot of the details since I stood at that counter ANOTHER 45 MINUTES but at one point, he was on hold on the phone. Jesus handed Cal an Angry Birds toy that made a lot of noise. It was a sound that pissed me off even more since I had been standing there enduring their idiocy for so long! I commented about how ANNOYING that sound was.. and then! THEN! Cal takes the toy and SHAKES IT a few inches from my face, back and forth like he thinks he's in a children's cancer ward trying to cheer up the kiddies! What planet is this simpleton FROM?!?!?! He is so lucky that I didn't punch him RIGHT in the face, I was about BOILING mad at this point. ... about fifteen or twenty MORE minutes past this point, Cal is telling me what the order number is, 'for my reference", since he got it from the customer service center call. I pointed out to him that it was right on the packaging and that I had pointed that out over an hour ago, he just kept on writing. And then he said he would give me a gift card; I said I did not want a gift card, I wanted it back on the card I used. He called his manager over and they both said, "We can't give you cash, sorry." I said, I DO NOT WANT CASH, I do not want a gift card, I want this to go back on my card! I do not want a gift card, I cannot use a gift card! I told both of them, just forget it, I will go home and print out the email best i can and I'll come back tomorrow. Well, the Retail Rapists just ignored my "NO" and next thing I know, Cal is handing me a gift card and the receipt for the return. I said no, I didn't want a gift card, I will just come back tomorrow. He said...(I wanted to shoot myself by now), "I don't work tomorrow!" That's it. I was SO disgusted, SO ready to do the world a favor and wipe him and his buddies off the face of the earth right where they stood, I took the gift card and left. I also found out that Cal didn't refund me all I'm due (I paid sales tax you incompetent asshole!!) so I still have to go back to Sears. At this point I think I would rather stab needles in my eyes, or sniff my customers' armpits! Is it possible for one company to have so many dumb, lazy, shiftless, uninspired, and uncaring people working for them? (Other than government?) I almost want to get a job there so I can get into management and fire them one by one. [EDIT: He didn't credit me sales tax, but it worked out as I discovered later that I actually paid $1.00 less per item than he had refunded me. Don't have to go back to Moron Hell!]