IN GOOD HANDS

today's rant, as always, goes out to the fine boys and girls, who happen to work at the major big box stores. unknown to most of them, since the basis of most of their cliential is DIY's(dummies, idiots, yahoo's), the buy it 'cause i may need it, runs amock in our industry.
we are not car insurance companies; i did not go to school to sell policies to people to proctect them from theirselves; granted, it seems like it at times, when people, just like NASA, bid their parts out to the lowest bidder, i have to question having $12.99 brakes on a $40,000 SUV.no, my favorite pet peeves are the unsure ones who saunder into my store, no idea of what it is they want or need, and because of the retail giants, who will taake back anything, no questions asked, i have to bite my lip, and watch my parts go out the door and within one to two days, watch them come back, unused and unwanted. chances are, if you are a busy jobber store, you'll not catch the items on your order trigger and of course, since we are keeping lean inventories, they get re-ordered, and now our dollars are tied up by having two sets of what ever it was they bought.
true, a little forsight and query might(MIGHT) prevent alot of these transactions from even taking place, but there always be the ones that do and as well, there are folks who are steadfast determined to buy the product, look you in the eye and tell you these will come back, i am just hedging my bets.....some times, like the whack-a-mole game at Chuckie-cheez's, i want to take a big hammer and Whack the above said idiot...what even hurts worse and rubs the salt in deeper, is when they like clockwork, walk in all smiles the next day, triumphat, returning the said items, gloating how right they were...sure, we can hit them with a re-stocking fee; but in these tight times, continue a risk of sending them further into the trenches of the enemy?
hell, maybe it is time to get my insurance license afterall.