Kinko's (FedEx Office): the worst customer service ever.  EVER!

For those of you lucky enough not to know, FedEx Office (better known as Kinko's) is a store where you can make photocopies, work with image editing software or surf the internet in case you don't have a computer at home or something.  And good news: due to the fact that Kinko's has recently lowered their prices, the cost of using one of their computers for an hour is now actually quite comparable to buying a computer of your own (only 20% more. SWEET)! Kinko's even provides you the service of enlarging your photos!  Although, I don't think the word service is entirely appropriate here.  When you have a picture that you drew on an 8.5 x 11 size piece of paper and you want to have it blown up to poster size and it takes Kinko's two weeks to make the damn thing and after all that waiting Kinko's has the gall to charge you over a hundred dollars for the job, I doubt you'll feel like you've been adequately serviced.  Paper has got to be the cheapest product in history, ink to print with doesn't cost much either and it takes about five minutes total to scan in a picture, re-size it and then print it out.  So how do you justify the waiting time and the expense?  You can't.  Unless you're Kinko's of course.  Their markups are so high they make scalpers feel embarrassed. But the absolute worst thing about Kinko's isn't their shitty products, it's not their shitty prices either, it's their shitty employees:   Okay, so let's say you go to Kinko's and you actually find their Xerox machines to be in working order (stranger things have happened you know).  You got your photocopies done, but now your real problems begin: you still have to pay for them.  That's because, even though Kinko's might have a good fifteen employees in the store at any given time, they never seem to have anybody working the cash register.  You can always wait by the register until the Kinko's employees stop pretending you don't exist and one of them arrives out of their own free will to help you, but frankly, I don't think a human being can live that long.  So you're forced to track somebody down and MAKE them help you.  Waiting to get served when there's a line-up is understandable, waiting to get served when there is no line-up and there are fifteen available employees hanging around you, now that's just redefining customer service. Once, when I went to Kinko's, I asked two different employees if they could help me pay, but both of them just brushed me off and one said that she could help me when she finishes what she is doing.  I asked her how long that will take and she said "No more than five minutes".  Gee, thanks!  Thanks for doing me the great personal favor of actually allowing me to pay for what I am purchasing.  I'm not worthy! So if Kinko's employees are going to give you this much trouble whenever you go to pay them for using their services, I can think of only one logical conclusion: Kinko's doesn't want you to pay. Just like any other brilliant scientist would, I decided to test out my hypothesis with some in-field research.  Here was the game plan: Go to Kinko's every day of the week, use their facilities, leave without paying and see if anybody notices. On the first day, I decided to play it safe.  I spent a good couple minutes making photocopies, but when I took my copies, I hung around for a while afterward trying to look inconspicuous as I inched my way towards the door.  I left and nobody noticed anything.  The same process was repeated on the second day and with the exact same results.  I mean, I changed my clothes (and maybe even took a bath... maybe), but that's it.  By day three, I just walked in, made my copies and literally ran right out of the store. Looking behind me as I ran, I noticed that one employee had lifted her head to see what all the commotion was about, but then she just looked back down and ignored the blatant act of theft that was going on right before her fool eyes. On day four, I went to use the Kinko's computers.  I printed out a good forty bucks worth of useless flyers.  I logged off and walked out the door with my expensive, stolen flyers in hand.  Nobody noticed.  After I left, I threw the pricy flyers in the trash.  Boo-yah!  Of course, this epidemic of juvenile delinquency could have been avoided if only Kinko's had bothered hiring a competant staff. I planned on going again, but spending time at Kinko's was becoming too depressing.  On the last day, after leaving Kinko's I considered going back inside and yelling at them over how poorly they are running their store, but then I decided against it since even with all that noise going on, they'd still probably be too busy to notice a mere mortal like myself.  I think even their security cameras forgot to notice me. If people built churches to incompetence then Kinko's would be the Vatican, or more suitably, the Turdican.  Now, Kinko's isn't exactly the worst store in the world. . . it's more like the worst thing in the world!  Going to Kinko's is just terrible, as bad as sticking a needle in your eye, as bad as bar food even.  Even they know they suck.  Why else did Kinko's change their name to FedEx Office?  Obviously, they're pretending they're somebody else.