A very rare day indeed.
She'd wanted to get the kids' Christmas pictures done there (they are the cheapest in town after all) and after 4 aborted phone calls, she finally went in to book an appointment. When the day came, I was able to go with her, albeit reluctantly.
We had a 12:30 appointment and got there around 12:10 or so just to have the kids get acclimated to the studio. The last thing anyone wants is a crying child in the Christmas pictures! The 12:15 appointment was an old friend of mine and she had her 3-week old baby with her. Totally adorable. And I knew that when they went in right at 12:15 that everything was going to work out fine.
At 12:25 another 2 families came in. One had an appointment right after us and the other was complaining about some problem with their appointment time for the previous Saturday. The girl behind the counter was apologetic and booked them in right away.
Right away. Five minutes before our appointment.
In the meantime, the other family had a small terrorist in their midst. She kicked, she screamed, she ran after other kids and knocked over equipment. For anyone with small children, 5 minutes can feel like an hour, especially when there's a problem child.
12:45 rolls around and we're finally called in for our photo time. We set the kids down on the mat and the photographer asks a couple of times which backgrounds we want. We only give her one because we were told we could only choose one when we made our appointment. She huffed and said we'd have a blank background as well as the Christmas one we'd picked. It took about another 15 seconds before our son burst into tears. While my wife was on one side of the mat, I was on the other and we're both trying to get him to stop crying and to stop reaching for Mommy. That, and convince our daughter that no matter what was happening to KEEP STARING AT THE CAMERA! If not, then when our son would finally look at the camera, we knew she'd be looking at him instead. After a few minutes of my son crying, the photographer had the nerve to say 2 things which, had I strangled her right then and there, no jury would've convicted me:
- "This is taking way too long. We're getting backed up."
- [after taking a picture with our son still crying and leaning toward Mommy] "See? If he keeps that up, we'll never get him in focus."
"It's families like this that always get us backed up on our appointments."So, then the shouting started. We came in 15 minutes late because they took in another family. To which the photographer defended that they had a scheduled appointment just before ours. She then said that they have appointments every 10 minutes --much lik our 12:30 appointment and my friend's 12:15 appointment. Yep, that's already every 10 minutes....
So, on our way out the door, she asked us when we'd like to make our next appointment. I turned back and shouted for all to hear that we'd be getting them done somewhere else, where the 3 minutes in the studio wasn't a "burden" on everyone else there and where WE wouldn't be blamed for holdinh up other families' appointments when we didn't get in until 15 minutes after our time.
It was also right then that I noticed the sign hangin above her head with the phone numbers for the regional and district managers. And then I called, so I could explain to the regional manager what we'd just been through with their "customer service associates."
So, what was the girl's name? No idea. She didn't have a nametag on and wouldn't tell me while I was on the phone with her regional manager. So, off to the next counter I go and lo and behold "Sarita" probably had a very bad day.
Much like last Christmas, we'll be making our own cards & pictures. Coincidentally, we ordered digital picture cards from Wal-Mart in November 2003 and they arrived just after New Years.
But finally, my wife is convinced that Wal-Mart is indeed an evil place.
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