Either Jusco has strange policies or strange employees

In my many trips and experiences with Jusco staff, I have to say that it gets more and more strange and frustrating to shop at Jusco. It’s either because Jusco has got strange and silly policies or they have strange employees who are simply saying and doing stupid things. I don’t think I’m alone in judging them, as you can read a couple of bizarre stories experienced by Busy Bee here. Here are some of mine to share.

The episode with Jusco vouchers

Some months back I went to renew my J-card membership which was close to expiring for the year. The staff asked if my address remained the same, and I said yes. Luckily, she read it out to me. It was totally wrong, from the house number to the street number! Now that’s why I never received any vouchers although I’ve spent quite a lot of money shopping there! Clearly, whoever was keying in the data when I applied for the card did such a mess in typing in the wrong address. So I asked the girl to check how much voucher was due to me and that I want them given to me although they may have sent them previously to the wrong address.

She shrugged and said “Tengok la macam mana” (for the benefit of non-Malay speakers, it means “Let’s see how it goes”). I was so pissed with that reply. I got demanding hearing her answer which was so non-committal. I said I wanted to see the manager right away to demand for my vouchers and I was going to make sure I will get them no matter what. She said they don’t have a manager whom I can see there, and if I want, I can write in to the management to ask for my vouchers. I said fine, but I wanted to write the letter right away and not send in by post of fax.

So she got me an empty sheet of paper and a pen and I wrote away. A few months later, I finally got a reply from Jusco to say that they would give me the vouchers that were due to me. I just had to go to the counter to collect them. I was wondering why they can’t send them by post to me. I have to be inconvenienced to go to Jusco and queue up at their Customer Service to claim them. What a waste of customers’ time. Not friendly at all. It was their mistake in sending to the wrong address and they don’t even have the courtesy to send them to me at the correct address while they were sending me the letter. Isn’t that just strange? Totally boo service, I tell you!

The episode with cashier #1

There are far too many stories of cashiers at Jusco, and all of them involve stories of how slow they are. I’m sure many of you Jusco shoppers agree with that. So I’m not going to talk more about how slow they are because it is a known fact that they are slow coaches. What I will talk about is their stupidity.

One of the earlier weekends I was there to purchase something at their household departments, the queues at several cashiers were long as usual. I took the pain to queue up just to buy one item simply because there was a good sale on it. It came to a point where I was third in line at the counter when I witnessed this.

The cashier had finished ringing up the bill of the customer she was tending to, and was proceeding to bag the items. The customer bought something about close to 20 glass jars. The cashier took out a stash of paper to wrap up the glassware before bagging them (at this point, my heart sank, knowing how slow they are at doing things and it could be an hour before she’s done bagging them. Of course, I exagerate). The sheets of paper were too big to wrap just one jar, so she was going to cut a sheet into two. Makes sense right up to now.

It was how she planned to cut up the paper that sent shivers through my spine. First, she folded the paper into two. You would then think she would use either a pair of scissors or a blade to cut them up, right? For some strange reasons, she didn’t use any of them. Instead, she was going to tear them up with her bare hands! I’m talking about big sheets of paper here, about half the size of a sheet of mahjong paper. How are you going to tear them?! And the way she was tearing them was like how you would tear open a packet of potato chips. Isn’t it such a horror? Upon seeing this silly act, I turned and quickly hunt down the next cashier. I really didn’t have an hour to wait to pay for my shopping!

The episode with cashier #2

In another encounter, I was again queueing up at the cashier. There was a sign near the front of the counter that read “Cash only”. There were about 3 staff manning that counter and one of them asked a man quite far behind in the queue whether he was going to pay by cash or credit card. It’s funny how she never asked anyone else but she picked him out and only him. Anyway, he said credit card. Upon hearing this, I thought she would’ve told him that it was a cash only counter and that he needed to queue elsewhere if he was still going to use credit card for his purchase. That would be the logical thing to do, right?

Instead, upon hearing his answer, she just turned away and continued doing her job (which really, was nothing). I was quite puzzled. Why was she going to let him continue queueing? Why did she even care to ask in the first place? The guy, who was probably also puzzled why he was the only one being asked, then turned to another staff there and asked if it’s ok for him to pay with credit card since she didn’t say a word to him after his reply. He was then told that it’s a cash only counter. So he left for another counter. What on earth just happened with that silly girl??! I couldn’t grasp it. It’s really beyond my understanding!

The episode with gift wrap service

After paying for my purchase from the story above, I proceeded to the gift wrap counter to have the gift wrapped. It didn’t come with a box, so it’s either they will provide a box and then wrap it up, or they could use one of those wrapper bags which they readily have. Since there were quite a few customers’ gifts to wrap and I didn’t want to wait, I thought I’d just ask for one of those wrapper bag to take away.

So I went up to the girl at the wrapping counter, showed her my purchase and the receipt, and explained to her that instead of waiting for her to wrap the gift, I’ll just take one of those wrapper bags which they’ve stacked up on the table, and do up my own gift wrapping. To my utter surprise, she said that I can’t do that. She said the gift HAD to be wrapped there, otherwise I cannot take the wrapper bag.

In the first place, it isn’t even considered a wrapping job when you use one of those wrapper bags. All you need to do is put the gift in it, and seal off the top with some tape. It’s something I can do myself, I just need that ready made wrapper bag which they were providing anyway. I found what she said to be so ridiculous, that I couldn’t be bothered to adher to some stupid policy. I took one of those bags and left. What would you have done?

Have you heard enough stupid stories in one sitting? I bet there will be more if I keep going back there to shop. Maybe I should just save myself some frustrations and go elsewhere with less stupid policies or strange staff!

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