I joined last year hoping to find some deals in the future, like hiking boots and a winter coat. They were having a sale on coats and I looked at every rack since I had to drive a while to get there and found nothing I would spend that much money on with no assurance that it was going to be warm enough to wear at 0 degrees F. Anything that was looking like it would do the job was $300, on sale. I didn't buy anything. Same as the last time I went there. The time before that I bought some hiking boots that I returned because they really weren't going to work out for me.
I think that REI relies on a lot of hype to charge super high prices and I am not thrilled with them after joining.
The workers on the sales floor were always nice, they just couldn't help me find something they don't have in the store. I was polite with my brief protest and assured them that I knew they were not personally to blame but I was not a satisfied customer and bid them "good day".
I wasn't angry just disappointed.
I went to the the other nearby big city in the other direction last week and was even more disappointed in the place I went to shop., and a little creeped out. It's a store where a mass shooting had taken place about seven years ago, the retailer went out of business but the property owner didn't knock down the building. I had held an event there during one of my last jobs before the shooting and had I not driven for 90 minutes to get there, I would not have gone in. Turns out the store I had shopped at for decades had been bought by a corporate entity and shopping there wasn't really pleasant at all but I did look around to see if anything I went there to buy was available. It wasn't, nothing I wanted was there on the shelves. I used to buy from a catalog and ordered on the phone but you used to be able to place a catalog order at the store if you could get to one. Not anymore. I had to come all the way home, buy one of their store credit card things and order online. At least they accepted it when I placed the order. I hate this online shopping business.
I hope the workers get what they seek, organizing is about the only way to protect yourself if you are a wage earner.
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