Sunday, July 22, 2007

CVS Pharmacies Really Dropped The Ball with "Deathly Hallows"

I find it really funny that the local CVS is adamantly denying that they sold Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pretty much all day Friday in complete disregard (or ignorance*) of the directive, and then, when word got out on Friday morning, had the gall to declare, most indignantly, in a newspaper article that day that the rumors were absolutely untrue and that they did indeed abide by the rules, completely.

Oh, local CVS, give it up. I was there. So was my friend Cathy. We were BOTH told by the clerk that "someone opened the box this morning and we've been selling the books all day, and now we're out." Besides, all the people who bought their book in the middle of the afternoon know the truth, too.

Bad move, Bedford, Indiana CVS. Just admit it and take the consequences from Scholastic.

As for the Bloomington, Indiana CVS that only ordered six copies of the book and sold all but one of them to a gaggle of giggly teens who came running in at the stroke of midnight and pretty much said "tough beans" to the people who had been waiting for an hour or more for the clock to strike 12:01. . . . you suck.

Bad PR moves, CVS. Bad marketing. Bad customer relations. Bad CVS. Bad choice of employees. Bad policies. Bad handling of the truth. Bad bosses.

Especially, bad bosses.

Note to the young woman at the Bedford CVS who had the balls to tell Cathy and me the truth: You rock. That had to be humiliating, and you could have tried to cover it up like your bosses did the next morning, but you chose to tell us the truth and I appreciate that. I hope you still have your job; people who tell the truth often pay severe consequences for it, especially when the big bosses decide that lies are better for the corporate image. Note to the bosses: wrong.

*Ignorance is the worst of all possible excuses for anything.