Target

I live firmly in the bosom of suburbia, but perhaps hypocritically, I don't consider myself a suburbanite. Why? Well, I don't have a "Jazzercise" window decal and I don't get on the freeway to go from one street to another 1/4 of a mile away. I don't have a lawn and even if I did I sure as hell wouldn't manicure it. Better yet, I don't drive a minivan or a sport-utility vehicle (the suburban equivalent of penis-enlargement surgery). True story, today at a stoplight (I-35 and Johnson Drive in Johnson County, KS) the vehicle directly in front of me was a late-model, maroon Nissan Pathfinder. Another vehicle came up behind me ... guess what it was? Another late-model, maroon Nissan Pathfinder. It was amazing. It was an Impala sandwich.

Anyway, shopping at Target is part and parcel of the suburban experience. Suburbia, as the baseball cliche' has it, is Target's wheelhouse. And why not? Target purposely markets itself to a different class of buyer: the middle class family who desires a slightly more upscale retail experience and, maybe, just maybe, the moral superiority gained from not shopping at Wal-Mart. These are people who are (typically) not walking on the economic razor's edge and thus willing to spend a little more. Target corporate, when designing training manuals for employees, couches themselves as superior in customer service and employment practices. You may pay extra but by God, you get extra. That, the cashiers are likely told, is how to deal with a customer who ever vocalizes what most people think at one point or another but do not speak: Wal-Mart is cheaper than you guys.

Here in the Burbs, I shop at Hy-Vee and when I need something Hy-Vee does not peddle, I will shop at Target. I don't shop at Wal-Mart while down here, but it's not for any reason of moral superiority, and shockingly enough it's not because I'm afraid of being touched inappropriately in the bathroom or ran down by a female driver. Frankly, these, along with being killed by an elderly person at the helm of a gasoline-powered death machine, are risks we all take just by getting out of bed in the morning. No indeed, I don't shop at the Lee's Summit Wal-Mart because, as far as I know, cutting down large swaths of people with an industrial chain saw is still illegal in this country.* And as long as this prohibition exists, wading into the sea of humanity that is a suburban Wal-Mart just isn't worth the risks. However, as Micah will surely agree, a graduate student living on a stipend will gain little moral gratification by paying $4 for something they could have easily obtained for $3.

Back on course, I visited Target today. You could say the above is nothing but a prodigious preamble to this trip; a trip that once again pounded home my 2 major annoyances with Target. One of them I believe to be fair on my part: their customer service fails to deliver. First off, in the aisles, Target employees seem no more welcoming (or, you know, present) than those at Wal-Mart. A couple of weeks ago I wandered around the store for 20 minutes looking for a goddamned bathroom scale - or even someone who might know the area that this particular creature frequents - before I eventually said "fuck this" and went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Found it straight away once there. That was frustrating and not a new experience. But really, I'm a simple man. At the end of the day the only customer service I truly care about in a discount retail experience is that which allows me to procure some needed (or at least wanted upon a whim) item and get the hell out of there. It is here, in this most basic of tasks, that Target fails miserably. In every Target I've been in, from Atlanta, GA to Omaha, NE and points in between, there has always been a chronic shortage of cashiers. Whether you are there at 9am, 12pm, 3, 6, or 9 it doesn't matter - whenever they're open, you're going to wait in line. It will very likely be in a line in which the people in front of you are a young homemaker with a couple wee babes in the stroller, a 50ish woman in a Puma tracksuit and enough makeup to recreate La Grande Jatte, and a 75 year old man who is confident that the credit card machine will steal his soul and thus must, just must, write a check.

For reasons beyond my comprehension Target resists self-checkout lines. Anyone who knows me knows that I love self-checkout lines. I think that, in the hands of a competent human being, they are as good for the retail experience as putting a Starbucks inside your store is bad for it. But no, Target won't have it. My guess is that they believe self-checkouts would damage their customer service, that it would be just another step in the "depersonalization" of America. Hell yes! I say. Depersonalize me. If it gets me out of your store at a rapid pace I promise not to speak to a single person while I'm there. With apologies to John Donne, I will gladly be both a man and an island.

I worked for Hy-Vee for 6 years, and although I wouldn't go back unless starvation was behind Door #2, I think Hy-Vee does customer service done right. As an employee they beat you over the head with it and eventually it sticks. "Can I help you find anything?" "You have a good day Mr. Magruder!" I've shopped in Hy-Vee's all over the chain's great plains empire and in each cashiers have been plentiful, employees approachable and extant, and the overall experience sufficient to convince me that I'm not sacrificing much by paying a little more (except for Clif Builder Bars, which they now want more than $2 for. Cough).

The other complaint I'm sure is grossly unfair, but I shall plunge ahead: I find their claims of philanthropy and latent moral superiority to ring hollow. It seems to me that many folks give Target a pass because it's not Wal-Mart. It's still a huge corporation with operations sprawling all over this country. It will stilll do things like this. Target makes great "to-do" that they give money back to schools. But, just in my own metropolis I ask, where are the Targets? Lee's Summit, State Line Road, Belton, Liberty, Mission, Overland Park, Zona Rosa. These are the burbs. These are areas served by schools with ginormous bond issues, sprawling courtyards and glass walkways, LEED Certification, and even coffee-shops inside. Schools where state of the art equipment takes your picture and prints out a visitor badge with your image upon it and a full-time employee is paid to do little more than drive around the parking lot and issue tickets. These aren't the schools with metal detectors, police escorts, and guidance counselors you can't even get ahold of because their voicemail is full.

Luckily, Target themselves is generous enough to provide me with comparisons:
Liberty High School, Liberty, MO
Lee's Summit North High School, Lee's Summit, MO
Shawnee Mission East High School, Prairie Village, KS
and then
Central High School, Kansas City, MO

I have to admit I was shocked to find that anyone had designated Central as their school of choice, but it's still just a fraction of what suburban high schools are receiving. Yes, it's an unfair comparison because it is the shopper - in fact the shopper with the "Red Card" - who makes the decision. But some of the bias from Target's side is right there: you have to have a Target credit card for this to even work. I think the "Number of red card holders who have designated this school" stat is just as telling. Who's going to get a Target credit card? People who A. shop at Target regularly and B. are approved for a Target credit card. Targets are in the suburbs. By and large I'm willing to bet that these aren't the people living at 24th and Prospect.

Yes, I've spent a lot of time and energy ranting about Target Stores. Yeah, it's unfair, they're doing their part blah blah blah. But nobody's perfect. Me, I'm just passing the time while my oil is changed, and very often in my case a lone thought morphs into several overly-long paragraphs.

* Sidenote, while driving around Olathe, KS correcting one of my co-workers' mistakes today, I did stumble upon Swedish small-engine giant Husqvarna's North American Headquarters. It's in Olathe, KS.