Tidings of the Post-Holiday Season

Jan. 1, 2008

To: All Employees

From: J. Fred Muggs, Merchandise Coordinator, B.S. Pulley Department Stores

Re: Reducing merchandise returns

Thank you all for your suggestions on cutting down returns of holiday gifts by our customers. I wanted to give an update about the steps we'll be implementing, effective immediately.

1. In order to make the returns process less pleasant, the returns desk will be moved from its current location next to the chocolate counter to alongside the maintenance department. Maintenance will be moved to a leaky warehouse across town.

2. Despite an alleged math crisis in this country, many customers are able to calculate when — due to sales tax, rebates, in-store promotions and seasonal price changes — we've under-refunded them by 10 cents. We cannot out-math these people, but we can use numbers to make them deface their receipts, effectively voiding them. Starting immediately, all sales slips will have Sudoku puzzles lightly printed over the transaction information. (Note: This supersedes an earlier suggestion of having customers write the square root of each item's SKU number on their receipts.)

3. Anyone attempting to return merchandise must undergo a 24-hour waiting period, which will give them time to consider whether they really want to return the item. Any minor attempting to return an item will have to obtain parental consent. And if the item was received jointly — as in a gift for Mr. and Mrs. Smith — the non-returning partner must provide an affidavit attesting he/she agrees to return the item as well.

4. We've identified a class of merchandise returner we're calling “social queuers.” These people don't actually care about bringing items back; they just like the social aspect of waiting on a line. They're the people who, despite not having children, snapped up all the Hannah Montana tickets — and half of them thought they were on line for the bathroom. To combat this phenomenon, those waiting to return items will be placed in isolation chambers, where they will wait for their numbers to be called.

These new policies should provide a start toward a very merry first quarter. We'll update this for President's Day, when we'll be asking customers attempting to return gifts to recite the order of presidential succession, starting with the vice president and going straight to the last of the cabinet secretaries.

For more of Richard H. Levey's Loose Cannon columns, visit http://directmag.com/opinions-columnists/loosecannon/index.html.