Gap -- It's What's for Breakfast!

I was recently shopping in a Gap Outlet store in Orlando. I was walking through the men's section, checking out the clothing. That's when I noticed a woman plopped down on a men's sweatshirt display breastfeeding her baby. Mind you, the men's section takes up about 25% of the store. The rest is women's. Was the breastfeeding section in the women's section too full already? Or was she shopping for a babydaddy? Perhaps she'd be better off in a regular Gap store with higher-priced merchandise for that. Nevertheless, I hope they keep abreast of the situation.

Broken Halo

I was visiting PetSmart yesterday looking for some natural/organic foods for our cats and dog. I was reading all the contents of the various brands of moist canned food. Like the voice of God, Ellen Degeneres starting speaking from the PA system. It was a humorous advertisement for Halo brand pet food, of which she's a co-owner. It then dawned on me that I've never seen Halo carried in PetSmart stores. Yet this broadcast commercial was meant for PetSmart customers to purchase Halo products in the store today.

When I got back home, I searched PetSmart's website for Halo products. Sure enough, there weren't any. I sent an email inquiry to both Halo and PetSmart.

Halo responded first, explaining that Halo products are sold in Canadian PetSmarts, so that was probably why, even though I'm probably about 1000 miles away from the nearest Canadian store.

PetSmart responded later and thanked me in about four or five different ways for writing to them, but never once answered my question:

"Thank you for contacting PetSmart. I appreciate the time you've taken to share your comments about our loudspeaker announcement. We value any feedback that you can provide as it helps us to understand how our guests feel and gives us an excellent opportunity for self-evaluation. Your comments are definitely welcome and they are taken very seriously. I have taken the liberty of forwarding your feedback to the appropriate parties for review. We continue to be committed to providing you and all of our guests with the highest standards of service in this industry. Guests such as yourself are truly important to us, and deserve the best of what we have to offer. If there is anything else we can assist with, please feel free to call the number listed below or just respond to this email. Thank you again for contacting PetSmart. We value your business and look forward to serving you in the future!"

Do you see an actual reply to my inquiry in there? No? Me neither. Maybe it's hidden between all the B.S.

Who's the genius in the PetSmart marketing department who okayed an ad for a product they don't even sell? It all sounds pretty PetDumb to me.

Charlotte Local News Story - WSOC-TV

This morning on WSOC-TV Channel 9 news in Charlotte, NC, I caught the tail-end of a story about something happening overnight at the Student Union at UNC Charlotte. It was either a fire or a gas leak or something. There were fire trucks shown parking outside the Union in the segment that I missed.

Since I missed the entire story, but wanted to hear what happened, I went to the www.wsoctv.com website to hopefully read an accompanying article. However, there wasn't one.

I sent an email inquiry to the station, asking why there wasn't an article, because I felt there should be some consistency in their stories.

My response from Robin Whitmeyer, News Director was:

Our website (wsoctv.com) is not, nor will it be, a direct copy of every news item that we broadcast on television. We have to make editorial decisions on what the "web user" needs and not every news item will be posted. Since there were no injuries or health issues involved, this was not viewed as an item to be posted. Every day the editorial judgments are different- based on weather, news and traffic items.

Ouch. It sounds like Ms. Whitmeyer needs some customer service training. What crawled up her ass? Nor will it ever be? An interested viewer contacts the station looking for information about a news story that was broadcast and that's the kind of response one gets? If the "story" was important enough to warrant a broadcast on the morning news, including film footage, wouldn't it be important enough to put on the website, too? Obviously not.

This "web user's" needs were not met, so I guess there's no need for me to even visit the site unless I'm looking for information about an injury or death. For your information, Ms. Whitmeyer, there are other news stories of equal value and importance.

UPDATE: Thankfully, News Channel 14 was happy to post information about the incident on their website.