Friday, January 8, 2010I Want to Be Just Like Rory When I Grow Up.
A deer hit my car yesterday. Yes, that sentence is constructed correctly. A deer hit my car.
I should probably start from the beginning . . .
Once the Giant Vacuum of Construction Suck came to an end, I was left with several choices on how to get to and from work. My favorite is the one that takes advantage of the fact that we live at the very edge of civilization and that I work near a different edge of civilization. I can drive over a crumbling one lane bridge, through a field, past a barn, around a cow pasture, over a gravel road, and never once run into another soul. It's a fantastic way to spend a daily commute. Truly.
At least it was a fantastic way to spend a commute. Then hunting season started and it turned into a frustrating ball of anger-inducing suck. It wasn't that I was worried about getting shot by some moron chasing a deer, it was that the moron was sitting in the middle of the road, warm and toasty in his Escalade pickup as he used a spotlight and laser sight to track down deer. He. woulnd't. move. Three days in a row I ended up stopped by the ever-so-manly man who was too chicken to get out of his sparkly clean truck and three days in a row I waited over ten minutes for him to get a clue that my little car wasn't going into a ditch just so he could keep on showing nature how tough he was.
The whole fiasco came to an end after the third day only because I started taking a different route. That wasn't so much because I learned it wasn't worth going that way; it was more because I'm pretty sure if that guy in the black Escalade ever sees me again, he's going to shoot me. As I sat behind him on that third day, a huge buck wandered out of the woods. As Tough Guy swung his door open, stepped out of his truck, and prepared to pull the trigger, I kinda sorta maybe honked my horn. Several times. Until the deer ran away. I think the guy was pissed, but I'm not sure because I suddenly gained the ability to drive my little German import through the ditch and I high-tailed it out of there.
Fast forward to yesterday, the day that I decided that I would rather drive on an unplowed and traffic-free road than be subjected to the Snow Makes People Stupid Effect. I knew there wouldn't be a single car on that road because really, people may be stupid when it snows, but they sure as heck aren't brave.
Even if the road had been plowed, I would have been driving slow. It's a heavily wooded area so I fully expect things to jump out in front of me anytime I drive down that road after dark. I have, in the past, narrowly avoided murdering a possum, a mouse, several chipmunks, and two raccoons. When the deer came flying out of nowhere, I casually stopped and waited for him to move.
And waited.
And waited.
After what had to have been an eternity in deer years, he turned to face me head on. As I listened to Alexis snoring softly in the back seat, I thought about reaching down for my camera so I could try to take a photograph of the buck bathing in the light of my high beams.
He just kept staring.
I swear he was churning through his memory bank trying to figure out when he had seen me and my car before. I SWEAR IT.
Apparently he had the memory of the average human male, because then he reenacted one of my favorite scenes from Gilmore Girls.
THE DUMBASS DEER RAN STRAIGHT INTO MY CAR.
He didn't leave so much as a scratch. Alexis was too busy sleeping to catch any of it, so no trauma there. No harm done, except that IS NOT how you thank somebody for saving your life.
Ungrateful bastard.
If You Wait Long Enough, H&M Clothes Shred Themselves
I've been the store employee instructed to discard of unsold and damaged goods. Fortunately, though, I've never stood in the back room of an H&M and destroyed perfectly good clothing, clothing that could have been donated to a local shelter, the Salvation Army, or directly to needy families.
If you haven't by now read the NY Times article revealing that a New York H&M store routinely cut up and then threw away unsold clothing, you should. I'll wait.
I first came across the story on twitter (via @KshrGirl). After initially being angry about the report, I set out to see if there was another side to the story. I found a lot of information from H&M saying that it was an isolated incident and that corporate policy was not to destroy unsold clothes.
Then twitter told me otherwise.
I heard from a former department manager who worked there from 2006 through 2008. She worked at several stores in both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. They did the same thing at every store she went to.
And what about now?
Another twitter friend sent me a direct message to say that she works at one of the Pittsburgh stores now. She was instructed by a manager to destroy items as recently as a week ago. The items weren't returns that had obviously been worn. They weren't stained. They weren't damaged. They were articles that had been in the store several months and just plain hadn't sold. There was nothing wrong with them until she took scissors to them and cut them up.
I get the business side of this whole thing. It's important to make sure that the items on the sales floor live up to the quality standards and reputation of the company. I was a manager at Stein Mart for four years and was frequently tasked with deciding what to do with items that had been damaged, returned, or hadn't sold. We worked very hard to salvage what we could. If an item was damaged but still salable, it was marked down and sold. If an item was stained, our seamstress would pull out some magical cleaner, a little elbow grease, and get the item back to new condition. If an item was beyond hope, it was destroyed. If it just plain wouldn't sell, it was sent to a different store and given another chance. (Ever been to a brand new store and wondered how they had clearance items? That's how.) If the item wasn't worth shipping elsewhere, it was donated locally. Sure, it took time, but so does destruction and waste.
I'm breaking up with H&M. I can't support a company that I know cares more about reputation than they do about giving back to the community.
Now I'm just wondering what other companies need to be added to my black list.
