Too bad to be true

I went to buy some irrigation pipe at Builders Express in Craighall Park. My initial impression was that the store was very neat and tidy: all the trolleys in the parking lot were neatly put away, the entrance was uncluttered and customers were moving freely, and the store itself was spotlessly clean. I would later see while waiting to be served that the shelves were neatly packed with stock and little notes apologizing if something was out of stock. The store layout is thoughtful and the product range is excellent. If only there were no staff in this store, this would be the best shop of any chain in the country. I walked up to the help desk to ask where I could find irrigation pipe. There was no one behind the counter, so I walked up to two women in Builders uniforms who were sitting at the desk. They were chatting and laughing with each other so I was shocked when they ignored me - no acknowledgement or anything, they just ignored me. I asked where the irrigation pipe is kept and one of the women, who I would later learn is a supervisor, pointed to the nursery. I trundled off to the nursery and, finding no one there, I walked back across the store and said to the lady, Okay let’s try again, there’s no one in the nursery, can someone help me with the irrigation pipe? I was further shocked to hear her call over to a man who works in the nursery, who had been standing perhaps 2 meters away, in plain view and within earshot, helping another customer. Sensing I would get no assistance from the woman I asked her to call the manager. Instantly, and with a definite sneer, she told me the manager was in a meeting, basically telling me to f@&k off. I barked at her that I didn’t want to know where the manager was, or what he was doing, I asked her to call the manager. The manager duly appeared, a very pleasant man. He was very apologetic. He found a nursery assistant to help me, and I was on my way, though strangely after a long wait as the nursery assistant took the other customer’s goods to the till, punched numbers into the till alternately with the cashier, and carried the goods to the customer’s car, repacking the car to fit a standard gardenia. Now I’m not the sort of person to roll over and accept a bad attitude: I will go to this store every week and seek out this woman, whose name is evidently Fila, and I will trouble her to help me until she is exhausted or fired, or I run out of money. I can tell you this is a Builders problem - no matter which Builders store I go to, the staff are always standing in groups chatting to each other, never in their sections, and totally put out to help a customer. If this were my business, I’d replace the whole staff with power-steering trolleys and robotic cashiers, pronto!