Shira L.
Yelp
The Staples copy center guy almost made me cry! Boo.
I have been a loyal Staples-preferred customer for many years. This is in part because I like their clear neon plastic flag things and because for awhile, they were the only place that carried the retractable highlighters I liked. I also had better experiences with their copy services than Kinko's.
I needed some emergency business cards made on the same day. The reason was because I could not get the business-card-making thing on the website to work despite that I had been trying sporadically for a couple of weeks. I called this Staples store, and inquired whether same-day business cards was possible. A woman said sure. Because I didn't have a flash drive for my logo, she told me to e-mail it to a specific e-mail address. I asked her what to put in the email. She didn't seem to know of a protocol, so she just said to put my name in it. Ok, fine. I sent the e-mail and headed to Staples.
I head straight for the copy center, and there is a guy staring intently at his computer screen. I stand there a moment, and then he asks "May I help you?" in a sort of formal and slightly snotty tone. Trying to lighten the mood, I say I'm having an emergency business card situation with a smile, and he doesn't bite. Okay... I then say I had e-mailed the logo. He says "I don't see it in here." I say, um... I sent it, it's called logo.JPG. He asks when, I say within the last hour. He says, "well, it's not here," and explains that the e-mail is not always reliable. I reiterate that I had sent it. I ask if I can get it from my own email or from the internet, and he says no, they don't have internet access except access to the Staples mailbox. This strikes me as implausible - if they have a policy against it, fine, but tell me that and don't just make up stuff.
He sighs, decides to look again, and asks what the e-mail was titled. I said I didn't remember the exact subject line but I think it was my name. He then magically finds the e-mail, and says "this isn't a JPG file, we can only use JPG files." And I said, actually, it is a JPG file. He says, it will only open as an HTML file and when he right-clicks it it won't save as a JPG. I said that's kind of crazy, as it is a JPG. He then says it isn't, and they only take JPGs. He says he could possibly save it into publisher but then he'd have to make it into 600x600 and it would "become pixelated." I say, again, it IS a JPG, and well, all of this would have been very nice to know over the phone. He basically accuses me of being an idiot and downloading the JPG incorrectly from a website or something.
This entire conversation is being spoken condescendingly without apology or regret at all, even given the obvious misinformation I'd been given over the phone. I eventually say I'm going somewhere else and leave, really frustrated and slightly embarrassed, as he has been making me look like a fool in front of other customers.
I go to Kinko's, check the e-mail I sent to the Staples guy, and the ATTACHMENT WAS A JPG - I do not know what the hell his problem was, but I do know that it was not me who was the idiot. I am never giving Staples copy center my business again. I will explain my slightly strange but much more pleasant experience at Kinko's in a review of that business.