JCPenney

We had an appointment for 10:40 to have portraits of our kids (1 & 4) taken at their photo studio. Full disclosure, this is a terrible idea, because my 1 yr old usually takes his nap around 9:30 and expects lunch at about 11:00. Even so, we showed up at 10:30, as did another couple and their 10 mo. old son. There were two employees there to help us all, a man and a woman. The man quickly set the first couple up and showed them how to assist with shooting their son, and they did. After they were done, we got called back, and the woman started trying to shoot us. She took three or four shots and then realized that it wasn’t showing up on the screen like it should. To shorten a long story, she ended up calling technical support and by the time she was ready to shoot, the man was done with the other couple. So he came in and was helping her. He had OBVIOUSLY had more experience with this than her by quite a bit. They spent about ten minutes shooting and then put pressure on us to leave with little nudges, but anyone paying attention could tell what was going on: her technical difficulties had eaten into our photo time and had put them behind in their schedule. We were hoping to get pictures on a disk so we could get them printed elsewhere to give some to my dad for father’s day, but they didn’t give us the disk, saying that we’d have to pick it up with the other photos more than a week later.
There’s another place in the same mall that gives you the disk the same day, and they’ll spend an hour with you if you’d like at the same price point as JCP.

I went to this JC Penney with my out-​of-​town friend who wanted to see a swatch and sit on the style of couch she was thinking of ordering online. What a debacle. I would NEVER shop here. I would advise you not to, unless you have a previous appointment with Jimmy.
When we arrived, my friend talked to the associate, Linda, whom she had talked to the day before to see if they had the sofa in the showroom for her to see. Linda was on the phone or helping someone, so we were waiting. Another associate, Jimmy, approached us to see if he could help, and my friend told him what she was looking for. He showed her the swatches and the sofa. But when Linda got off the phone, she told Jimmy in front of my friend that she wanted/​deserved the commission because she had the contact with my friend. THIS SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED IN FRONT OF A CUSTOMER! Jimmy, the true professional, said it didn’t matter, he just wanted to help out.
Then the true ridiculousness began. Linda did NOT know how to use the computer system to order the sectional components my friend wanted, so Jimmy had to help her. The entire time, she kept asserting that SHE would get the commission. But he had to help her with every aspect of the front-​end ordering system. He told her exactly what to enter at every screen, read her the inventory numbers, told her which components my friend wanted (even though she was present when my friend was choosing what she wanted), instructed her on the code, etc. EVERY SINGLE ASPECT. It took ages to get the pieces ordered because SHE had to do it, but she couldn’t without his help. Finally, it was done (more than 30 minutes later), and then they had to put in my friend’s information for delivery.
This was when our eye-​rolling turned to utter hopelessness. The software would not accept my friend’s ZIP code in Manhattan. Even Jimmy couldn’t get it to go through, so he had to call JCP support, which took ages as well (seriously? You have a front-​end system for your sales associates you don’t support?!). He came back and asked if she had a new ZIP code, we looked on a ZIP code map and gave him some nearby codes because he said the physical address was more important than the ZIP, but it would not accept any of them. Finally, Linda pushed something that wiped out EVERYTHING that had been entered (all the component codes, color choices, everything). She answered a phone call, so we just walked out. We didn’t have two more hours to spend on repeating this whole ridiculous debacle just to hit the software ZIP code dead end again.
During the unpleasantness, another employee returned from break and told Linda in front of us that she didn’t know how they were supposed to sell things if their system was unworkable. Indeed, but I didn’t think we needed to hear that.
Needless to say, Linda won’t be getting that commission. My friend was practically begging to spend money with this store, and she could not be accommodated. She’ll probably still get that couch, but not from LInda.