What made this even more unfortunate was the massive Labor Day sale going on, which brought out everyone and their crunchy granola cousin to snap up the bargains on hand. Sam found a nice pullover that was marked down to about 30 bucks, with an additional 50% off at the register. Being more like his father than he cares to admit, Sam was thrilled to get the bargain.

With a tent rental to process, we were able to bypass the checkout line due to the craftiness of the guy from the rental counter. We discussed with him at length the fact that the pullover was 50% off of the marked price, and yet we did not notice until we were out the door that he failed to actually follow through on taking the 50% off.

Of course, we turned around and went back in. Our clerk had retreated back to the rental area, and the first available clerk whose attention we could get informed us that yes, THEY did make a mistake, but he could not correct the transaction. Sam would have to fight his way to the Customer Service area in the back of the massive store, stand in a line several people deep, and get them return the pullover and then re-ring it with the correct price. I guess you really have to want to get your money back to deal with that, and perhaps they are counting on customers who don't think it's worth the effort. Kind of like rebates.

Why do customers have to suffer for the mistakes of the employees? Why wasn't the clerk empowered to make that correction? It had been less than 10 minutes since we had checked out, and yet we had to spend much more time than that correcting their screw-up.

And for the love of god, why don't you have a bench I can sit on while I am waiting for said correction to take place?