Payless Shoes

Unbelievably poor service. I left the store shaking with anger (albeit with a great pair of shoes).
Here’s what happened. I started at another location, trying to find some shoes to match a particular dress. Shoe A fit perfectly but I needed it in silver, Shoe B was in silver but I needed another size. My current store had neither, but advised me that Shoe B was in the right size at the AZ Mills store. A search on the Payless website informed me that Shoe A in silver was also there. So my very friendly associate called ahead and had them hold Shoe B for me (I wasn’t too worried about Shoe A, I figured I’d look for it on my own time).
I arrived at this store and it was chaos: children running everywhere, only one employee in sight, and very noisy. I found my section and decided to look for Shoe A while I waited for the cashier to help me with Shoe B. Happily, I found the Shoe A box on the top shelf! I grabbed it, opened it, and was confused to find Shoe B in the box. Well, weird, but I was looking for that shoe too, right? So I tried it on. When the associate made her way over, I asked her if she had Shoe A somewhere, because see, it was a different shoe in the box. A shoe I wanted, yes, but I want Shoe A also.
She spent several minutes searching the shelf I just perused before finally asking me for my name. I told her, and she shouted «you should have told me your name to start with!» I told her that yes, she has some shoes on hold for me, but those are Shoe B… I’m looking for Shoe A. In fact, I already found Shoe B, see? It’s on my foot. She repeated that I should have told her my name to start, and took off to get the held shoes. She came back a new box, and an «I told you so» tone, and pulled out Shoe A! I told her that was strange, considering I’d asked Shoe B to be held for me. Too weird. the previous associate had no idea I was looking for Shoe A. She took my inventory paper from the previous store, and proved to me that the lot number matched the box she was holding, and that clearly the other lady had asked her to hold Shoe A for me. She repeated YET AGAIN that I was at fault for not giving her my name up front.
We then spent a confusing several minutes arguing about which shoes I wanted and which ones she should take away right then because she still didn’t understand that two pairs of Shoe B had emerged at this point. Meanwhile, I noticed that the box she’d held for me, that had contained Shoe A, was labeled Shoe B! I showed her the mistake, trying to clear my good name in the misunderstanding… that the shoe she held for me was not the one I’d requested, it was just in that box. I repeated that it was fine, I wanted both shoes in the end, but she needed to stop blaming me for the confusion. It was just a huge coincidence that those two shoes that I was looking for got switched at some point since being delivered to the store. She shuffled the shoes around in different boxes, muttering how it doesn’t matter and «there you have it, everything is in its right box» and walked away.
When I was ready to check out (now the only person in the store) she was very intentional about taking her sweet time to get through straightening every shoe before she could come help me. When I thanked her for my change, she replied «mmhm.» The cruel irony is if I’d left the shoes in their wrong boxes, I would have paid $ 10 less.
Never again. I’ll go to Elliot and Priest, it is not that much farther.