Lowes Extensions


I was at Lowe's hardware store this morning. I picked out a couple of 8'
4x4's and was standing in line waiting to pay for them. But in front of
me this guy has a big blue cart full of enough plumbing supplies to
re-pipe an entire house. The cashier is this blonde high school girl
which means she doesn't know how to ring anything up. She scans a few
things, looks confused, gets on the phone and calls somebody to ask a
question. Then repeat. Wny do they hire blonde high school girls? I
don't know.

Anyway, at one point she gets on the overhead paging and says, "Plumbing
please call extension 251." I happen to know the phone number to Lowes
so I call it up and ask for extension 251. A second later the cashier's
phone rings and she picks up.

"Hi, this is Alex in plumbing," I say.

"This is Julie, a guy that I'm ringing up has a...." She describes some
kind of pipe thingie. Wants to know something about how it's rang up or
something.

"Could you read the barcode number to me?" I ask.

She does and I say, "Oh we're running a promo on those. Those are free
as long as he's purchasing at least $5.00 in other plumbing items. We
thank each other and she hangs up. This guy gets whatever that thing was
for free! At this point she's only half way through the guy's stuff so I
move to the next lane.

I was surprised that I wasn't heard by her or the customer since I was
just right behind them. So I pay for my stuff and take it out to the
car. As I'm walking back the store to buy a Pepsi from the machine I
call again and ask for extension 251.

"Hey Julie, this is craig from security upstairs. That guy purchasing
all the plumbing supplies is a con artist! He's going to try and pass
you fake cash or a fake check or credit card."

"Oh, he just walked out," she replies.

I was hoping to cause a little confusing and make her call a manager or
security over. Guess I was too late. So I say, "Oh! Okay I thought he
was still there. I'm going to run out to the parking lot and tackle his
ass!" and I hang up. Then I remember that there is no "upstairs" at
Lowes. Whoops.

Then I walk back into the store, past Julie. I was hoping she'd be
talking about the call but she was busy being confused by customers some
more. I take a walk around the store and wait for another extension to
be announced over the paging system. After a few minutes, someone
announces that they needs the garden section to call their extension. I
quickly call in and get on their extension.

"Yeah, I need to find out how much a..." she names off some kind of
fertilizer claiming that it won't scan into her register. I'm guessing
that she's probably also a blonde high school girl.

"Let me run over here and check for you..." I reply. A few seconds later
I say, "Okay it looks like that one is $49.95."

"Thank you!" she says and hangs up.

I'm assuming I quoted a little high on that one because less than a
minute later I hear her asking for Lawn & Garden to call her again. I
try but my cell signal has problems working in the back of the store so
I fail.

So that's my story. I know that it'd probably be easier to just stand at
one of the secluded store phones and dial the extensions directly. But
then you have to keep a lookout for employees wondering what you're up
to.

Unfortunately Lowe's doesn't have an automated system for punching in
extensions. So you have to get a real person and ask them for the
extension. After awhile I would imagine that person would get suspicious
and/or annoyed. But there are probably other stores that let you enter
the extension into their system and get transferred there automatically.

Next time you're at a store and have your cell phone handy, try it out.
It sure brightened up my morning.