Horrible Action (Store) Experience (Resolved now!)

IMPORTANT: This issue has been resolved by now, and further on in this post you can read an update 🙂

DISCLAIMER
Please be aware that my pet humans always ask permission from the store staff (or manager) if it would be allowed that I would come along with them into the store, for example to pick out new toys, decorations etc. And they/we will do this at least the first few times, even if we are an returning customer while we had been given permission the last time(s). Obviously once we have been to the store multiple times (and the people there know me), then we don’t (have to) ask permission anymore. And if there is a store that does not allow me to come inside, me and my pet humans will just respect that (without any grudge) and just leave to go to a different store. No problem or bad feelings there.

Preamble

Usually me or my pet humans aren’t that quick to write or publish (or even post an review) about an ‘bad store experience‘, simply because in most cases it was “just” an employee with a “bad day” so to speak, and it would (and should) not represent the company, store or staff in general. But what happened today definitely (and unfortunately) does reflect on the general attitude of this store, and behavior like this is not uncommon at this store either. So we did now (finally) decided to actually write an blog post about it (also just to get this ‘story of our chest’).

You can find a ‘photo vlog’ of me previously visiting this particular store on either my YouTube or my Twitter:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/g-rGMdGNE2w
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PigeonSophieXNL/status/1635501811191644161

General Store ‘Introduction’

The store I’m writing about today is The Action in Apeldoorn located on the Maasstraat. And to be honest customer service has been going ‘downhill’ there for quite some time now (and this only got worse after the ‘Click-and-collect’ period during the Covid lockdown). Employees are very blunt, often refuse to help customers if they can’t find stuff (which they have relocated for the “100th” time in 2 years) and then just ‘point into the direction’ while saying something like: “It should be somewhere over there, next to the…….”. And if you then still can’t even find the ‘reference’ product they mentioned, and you return to the same employee all you then often get is: “Well then we don’t have it anymore huh?” 😳. And more blunt (or even more rude) behavior like that, but that’s not what this blog post is about now.

The ‘Horrors’ of Today

But today they (and a customer) thought they could do even ‘much better’ in delivering a terrible shopping experience. Well like I told before; I have gotten permission multiple times before (at least three times) to come along into the store with my pet human(s), and even have been there many times already (somewhere between 10 to 20 times) without any (personal) issues. My pet human just knows how ‘horrible’ the “customer service” in general is at this location, so he just avoids them and does his shopping ‘silently’ together with me, without bothering either other customers or the staff.

And today was such a day again (at least we thought), I needed a power bank for my iPhone (for my Pigeon Vlogs), a charging cable for my iPhone, my pet humans needed a watering can for their plants, and I was planning on looking for some new toys for myself. Well we decided to skip the latter, due to what happened next.

A Horribly Rude Customer Appeared (Yes a Pokémon reference 😝)

^{The moment when it actually happened}

I was just looking at some pretty (fake) plants to see if we could find some to place at my home (day-time cage), when a rude and obnoxious man suddenly ‘yelled’ “Bizarre!” to us, followed by a ‘smirky chuckle‘. My pet human just friendly smiled back, nodded and turned back to me while picking out my plant(s). To which this man raised his voice a bit and resumed with a bit more ‘threatening & condescending tone’ by saying: “Mentally disturbed even to be honest!” (note: It is translated from Dutch and this is the closest fitting translation!). To which my pet human responded “Pardon me? Why so if might I ask? There are also plenty of people whom take their dogs to stores and such” (he still said/asked this with a friendly smile).

The man responded with (this time by sounding even more condescending than the last time): “Yeah, those are dogs, this is a bird! Why would you even take that ‘beast’ with you?” while he walked away and kept mumbling several insults/remarks of a level I am not going to lower myself to by posting them here (Note: My pet human did not responded to those remarks/comments at all and just resumed shopping with me).

Obviously as you might understand my pet human was quite agitated by this strange and unusual behavior, but he thought it was smarter to just be ‘the better man’ and ignore “Mr Loony“.

Escalation Started

But ignoring “Mr Loony” wasn’t really going to happen, because that was just the start. Me and my pet human where just looking at a toy together, when a rather young store employee approached us and said the following:

“While there are actually no rules for taking birds into the store, but we don’t want that, so would you please leave the store immediately?”

This employee was probably just between 17 to 19 years old or so and most likely ‘just’ a stock clerk (which is not a problem on it’s own, but keep this in mind for what comes next).

My pet human responded with: “Okay fine, I will just put everything back and leave without checking out then.” (because he obviously could not just put me outside alone by myself to finish shopping 🤦🏾‍♀️) and my pet human resumed (in a friendly tone) with “I do find it a bit strange though, because we have gotten permission from the manager and other employees several times before, and have been here many times already with our pigeon. But if that’s your request, we will just respect that and leave, no problem. Just let me put back the items and we’ll leave.“.

As soon as my pet human finished the sentence, the store clerk responded with:

“Oh, well, euhm, hold on please, I’ll check with the manager”

So we did…. And once he returned he said:

“It is indeed okay, as long as she stays with you and doesn’t poop on the floor indeed.“

My pet human replied with “Okay, thank you for verifying, and in case she does accidentally poop, we will always clean it up ourselves. We carry tissues with us for such instances.“

The clerk replied with “Okay thank you“, and we thought that would be the end of it, we did not even considered for a second that it would have anything to do with “Mr Loony”, but boy oh boy what where we pecking wrong!

Major Escalation At (Self) Checkout

Once we had everything we needed (my Power bank, cable and the watering can), we headed for the (self) checkout and started checking out our products. When we suddenly heard from a manned checkout point (from the employee at the check out):

“That man! That man over there with that bird! he has been harassing people with that bird! Something needs to be done!“

(The cursive part was a bit unclear due to the starting commotion, but this was the most likely thing he said).

Within just a few seconds, two other STORE CLERKS (not a manger or so!), started pacing along the self-checkout like it was a pecking ‘bar brawl‘ or a ‘fight in a schoolyard‘. And I wish I was joking or exaggerating but this really was what was going on now 😳. Even a third employee (the same clerk that earlier wanted to ‘kick us out’) now joined in, but in a bit more ‘calm mood’ and stood ‘on the side’ while the other two where still (quite quickly) pacing back and forth and saying things like “he needs to be removed from the store” or “we need to do something now, lets remove them from the store!” (at least the things that where being said, were along those lines).

So my pet human asked to the “third clerk that joined”: “Are there complaints that I’m harassing people with my bird? Because all I really did was look for toys for her, that’s it.” (still in a polite tone).

The clerk replied with: “Ah, don’t worry, just ignore it, it’s fine“. But meanwhile the other two kept pacing and looking at us, now also with the clerk from the manned checkout leaning into our direction while ‘eyeballing’ us 😳🤷🏾‍♀️

So when we completed our payment, my pet human approached the clerk at the manned checkout and asked if there where any complaints like we just heard him say. And it appears there would have been complaints from people that my pet human was harassing people with his bird (me), he would have been ‘chasing people with the bird‘ and (if heard correctly in the commotion) would even have ‘thrown the bird into/onto peoples necks‘ 😳 WHAT. THE. PECK?

Do note that the clerk said that there where complaints (thus plural!) and that people (also plural) had complained at him. Well obviously my pet human by now also started to reach his limit on staying calm and he replied with:

“People? Complaints? as in multiple? You do mean that rude jerk in the blue shirt and grey shorts right?” It startled the clerk a bit and he did indeed confirmed that it was (just) “Mr Loony” that had complained. So my pet human told him what actually happened and that he even had the audio of it on my phone because he was filming me (not the other customers), while I was looking at the plants, so he could even proof it. And he then resumed with “Why would I even do such horrible things with or to our bird? We are just trying to give her a great time by letting her pick out her own toys, while doing our best efforts so that nobody has any inconvenience from her.“

The only thing the clerk replied was:
“Yeah I believe you, I don’t think you would harass people with that bird, don’t worry“.

My pet human had enough of their antics and decided to just leave, but obviously it is a very strange way (to say the least) to behave that ‘aggressively’ towards customers if you actually believe that they didn’t do anything. Especially if you are even inciting other employees like that.

There was even another women (customer) whom tried to defend us against the allegations of “Mr Loony”, she even told what she had seen about what happened and what me and my pet human where actually doing: “Innocently and cutely picking out toys together with the bird, on the side of the isle and definitely not bothering other people.” (Literally what she said). But the employee/clerk still did not care and did started that ‘half baked riot’ when we approached the self checkout anyway.

How we know what this nice lady did? She actually waited for us outside the store and approached us to tell us what happened before we reached the checkout, and that “Mr Loony” tried to get us into trouble for nothing but his own ‘fun’. We then told her how it did escalated anyway, but we did obviously thanked her for her support and it did made us feel a bit better after all that ‘stress’. So thank you for that and supporting us unknown lady 🥰

‘Verdict’

We will definitely not be going back to this horrible store and it’s employees, we will definitely not leave it at this either with this behavior and seek contact with one of the corporate offices of course. Me and my pet humans really are not people (and pigeons) whom complain quickly/often, and most of the time we will just let things pass and focus on happier things in life. But this whole ordeal while we didn’t do anything wrong and tried to respect everyone (by asking if we where allowed to enter, planning to leave anyway when it was asked, de-escalating with “Mr Loony” instead of engaging etc), is in our opinion just way over the line.

A very disappointed pigeon in humans

What disappoints me, is that there are actually humans (like “Mr Loony”) which make it their purpose in life to just peck up other peoples (and pigeon’s) their day by causing havoc for no obvious reason at all. How can your life be so bad, sad or boring that this is actually how you need to get through the day? If I think about it, I even feel sorry for people like “Mr Loony”, it’s actually very sad that your life has become such a “dark place” that these are the things you have to-do to still “slightly enjoy your day”. Poor “Mr Loony” 😢

But what disappoints me even more, is how inappropriately the employees of this store behaved, the amount of ‘panic’ they displayed, and how disrespecting their attitude was (with the ‘spectacle’ at the self-checkout). All just for a non aggressive man with a white & brown fluffy pigeon on his shoulder 😳. Seriously, what is wrong with those people? Every time you think it can’t go any lower with this store, they turn it up a notch, really “incredible” 🤦🏾‍♀️.

No, this pigeon will never return to this store like this (and neither will my pet humans).

What About Updates?

IF there will be any updates or responses from this Action store, or corporate, I will of course followup on it in this post 😊. But I will have to be honest, I’m not expecting them to do anything about or with it though.

BEGIN UPDATE (This is an update to the situation and how Action has taken care of it):
There has actually been a response from Action, a very nice manager from Action emailed my pet human and they later even had contact over the phone about the whole situation. This manager was not pleased at all with how things happened at this store, and he also told us that he was actually aware of situation like this occurring more often in this particular store. However he also told us that he is currently ‘right on top of it’, because he said that this is not the image that he wants (or expects) staff to express for Action.

He even asked to my humans if they expected anything ‘in return’ from the conversation, but my humans just politely responded with: “No not really, we just expect to be treated normally as human beings and not as ‘professional criminals in a bar fight'” . To which the manager totally agreed, and he even said (and I quote): “Well I will make sure that this will never happen again, and Sophie your pigeon is also welcome in our store(s). If you have any situation like this ever again in the future, or having issues with Sophie visiting Action, just call my number and I will make sure it will be taken care of”.

He then invited my pet humans and me to come to one of the stores because he wanted to meet us in person and he also wanted to apologize for what happened. We could even choose which store we wanted to meet him at (which would be the most convenient one for us). And when we arrived there we where welcomed in one of the staff offices in the back and we even got these nice flowers.

So against what we expected, Action did responded, and very professionally also. The solution and how the manager has taken care of it, has been discussed in much more detail with my pet humans, but we promised to keep that ‘off-the-net’ so to speak. I can assure you that it has been resolved very professionally though. And that I can once again safely visit the Action to shop for new plants, lights and gadgets 🙂

END OF UPDATE (From here the original blog-post will resume again)


IMPORTANT NOTE: This blog-post is only about the Action store located at the Maasstraat in Apeldoorn, there are two other Action stores which I have (also frequently) visited (with permission), and those stores are actually very nice, and do have kind people working there.

Thank You for reading

I hope to be posting more fun stories next time again 😊, but I just had to get this off my crop by sharing it. Because I also think that if this happens so suddenly out of the blue to me and my pet humans, then it most likely also happens to other customers of this particular store. And this behavior is obviously not acceptable in anyway to anyone. I’m not even talking about “Mr Loony” here now, but just the whole (extreme) escalation what the employees of this Action caused.

Talk With Me About this post or ask questions

If you like you can ask a question, leave a comment or even engage in a (small) conversation with me about this blog post by leaving a comment bellow. You do not need to create any account or so, you can just enter the fields bellow and “you’re good to go” 😊.

Don’t be shy, even if you just say Hi; I would love to read some comments from my readers from time to time 🥰

Much Love, And I hope that you have a great day,
Sophie The Pigeon