Thursday, May 13, 2010

how i lost interest in staples

The store, I mean, not those little metal fasteners, I still think those are handy.

Office supplies, though, they are - to me - fascinating. Silly, probably, but I have a lot of personal investment in reading and writing, and there they have all the stuff for that, in a wide variety. Of course other office supply stores do too, so I'm pretty happy about that. Still, I'm not happy with Staples, Easy button or no.

First, let's digress. When I was a kid, my grandfather's brother and sister ran a print shop in Las Vegas, NM. They had drawers and trays and racks of letters. They and ink, and oh! the paper! Many colors, and when we went to visit, we always got to take home some of the odds and ends, odd sized little glued together stacks of papers. Our very own, personal sized notebooks. It was TREASURE! (and something that is probably pretty much gone forever, in this age of digital printing)

So office supply stores. I can wander through them happily looking on almost every aisle. I used to think it was just me, but, no, I've met others who would happily join me, or take me along with them. (You might think we didn't get out much...) Our local Staples store is conveniently next door to Best Buy, which we try not to visit too often, but occasionally technology calls to us, and we must answer. Then, the lure of paper, and toner often drags us next door.

Earlier this year, I stopped into Staples, and shopped around picking up some colored paper to take to school. The sign said it was on sale (Oh, yeah, you get a rebate, but all you're supposed to see is the lowered price), so I picked up 3 reams. Once again, it was, oh, no, fill out this form and get your rebate. The fact that I know why they do it that way, because there are people who won't fill out those forms, so then their "sale" doesn't cost them so much, doesn't change that I think it is cheating. Either have a sale, or don't. I dislike this practice so much, because it has been something I've run into time after time there, that I've lost my interest in shopping there. Ever. Think they care? Nah, didn't think so, either...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Ah, that's too bad. I love office supply stores too, but the cheesy mail-in-rebate stuff is a crock. I can see doing it -- maybe -- for high-end items (like our laptops), but for a ream of paper? Sheesh.