Wherein my SO was an SC... and how I handled it

[NorthernZel]

Over here we have a Bottle Return Law. It states that ALL stores have to claim deposit for bottles, and the stores are also obligated to pay the deposit back when the bottles are returned. Most stores have machines to take care of it (you put the bottles in the machine, the machine scans the bottles and prints out a receipt that you can get changed into cash at the till).

Now, our local store has a lot of problems with their new bottle return machine at the moment - it breaks down constantly, most often due to a software failure (which means that a tech has to be called, and it most often takes a couple of days before the problem is fixed).

Before New Year it was no biggie - you just asked for an employee and he/she would handle the bottle return manually.
After New Year, apparently Corporate made a new policy - manual bottle returns were not allowed, customers had to either wait until the machine was fixed or visit another store. (A bit of a problem if you have bottles that can ONLY be returned at that explicit store). Thing is, that policy is illegal according to the Bottle Return Law.

So my SO went once with a lot of bottles and was yet again met by the sign "sorry but the machine is out of function, due to Corporate policy we can't handle manual returns".

He then went ballistic, swore up and down to the cashier AND the MOD, referring to the Bottle Return Law, but there was nothing they could do, again they referred to the new Corporate Policy.

He then went home and ranted about the situation - and then I ripped him a new one I then told him that I would take care of the issue from now on.

So what did I do? I did the following:

1) Wrote a polite mail to the agency who is responsible for enforcing the Bottle Return Law and asked about what normal procedures are when a bottle return machine is out of order. They replied that the store IS obligated to make bottle returns at all time, so they MUST handle returns manually if/when the machine can't.

2) Copied the mail from the agency and sent it to Corporate. Corporate + the store will most certainly get a call from the agency as well

3) Told SO that he must get to the store and apologize to the cashier and the MOD. He had a right to be angry, but he let his anger out to the wrong people. He admits that, and promises to do so - once the return machine DOES work, that is.

[rageaholic]

The corporate of that store need to get a real ass chewing. I HATE policies like that. Hell, I can even sympathize with your SO (depending on how much of a scene he made).

Yikes, I hope I'm not becoming an SC!

[Mikkel]

I had the same problem a few years ago. I asked for the name of the person who denied to take the bottles manually, was handed over to the manager who wasn't afraid to put his name to the policy and emailed corporate and Dansk Retursystem. Corporate was fined, apologised and the policy was changed.
There really isn't any reason to be unpleasant to people who doesn't make the rules and can't change them.

[Chromatix]

I don't know whether the law is exactly the same in Finland, but I wouldn't be surprised. The same kind of recycling scheme operates here.

[NorthernZel]

Well, short update:

Store got a visit from the Bottle Return Agency AND the TM at the same time. It turns out that the decision to refuse manual returns was solely the SM's decision, and he got a stern talking to.

The TM also wrote to me and said that he would have a "serious conversation" with the company who is responsible for maintaining the return machine, to make sure that it would not break down so often. (Turns out that the tech that installed the machine in the first place wasn't trained!)

My SO was down at the store earlier today and apologized to the MOD. MOD accepted the apology, and no hard feelings from the store's part. As MOD stated, the situation was just as frustrating for them as it was for the customers.

[NorthernZel]

Slight epilogue from today:

Mr. Zel had to return some bottles today, and whaddyaknow - an "Out of Service" sign on the bottle machine, and when he got hold of a floor worker and requested a manual return the sheepish answer was: "we can't handle manual returns, only the managers are authorized to do so and none of them are on duty at the moment". A salesperson who had a stand near the entrance also confirmed to Mr Zel that the machine had been out of service for most of the day.

Mr. Zel thanked politely, dragged the bottles home again, and said five little words to me as he opened the door: "Honey, call Corporate HQ. NOW."

So I did, the lady on the phone said that she would take care of things immediately, and when Mr. Zel returned to the store half an hour later to hear whether the store had heard from Corporate, he had no need to... because the bottle machine was miracously working again.

Obviously two scenarios come into play: either the tech arrived at a convenient time, or either someone trained in rebooting the machine was too lazy to do that and just thought "hey, let's just refuse return service for the rest of the day". The first explanation is okay, the latter is not - not according to law, that is.

Nevertheless, Mr. Zel knows at least the SM and the AM by name, so next time he meets them he'll talk with them about the possibility of training/authorizing more workers to handle manual returns "just in case".


(EDIT: Of course there have been several episodes between February and now, but we let that slip because we observed that in the late hours when the store was running on skeleton crew. This incident happened mid-afternoon where one is expecting that the store is fully staffed, especially with tomorrow being a public holiday where all stores are closed.)