My husband is 39 years old, I am 32, and we are expecting our first baby. My husband has been planning on fatherhood years before we met in 2010. My husband is incredibly active when it comes to doing research on baby products. In January, we took a weekend field trip to Babies R Us and Buy Buy Baby. We wanted an opportunity to price a few higher end baby items and check out our preferences as well the brand quality. We shook cribs to test stability, pulled strollers from the shelves to test how easy it is to set up and fold down, and even examined pack and plays to find one that would best suit our needs. Babies R Us had more reasonable prices and more of the items we thought we would need to help us better serve our newest family member and navigate what may be considered as our greatest challenge. We first registered online. No, let me clarify, Matt registered with Amazon, giving me permission to be the secondary person and to add to the registry. I took the easy way out and had a friend with a 15 month old add stuff for me. This list was later altered when Matt went online and registered at Babies R Us, moving nearly all the items from one list to another. Matt is the primary person on this account and as a secondary person, I am not even searchable.
Strike 1: In June, Babies R Us calls Matt's phone and leaves a message. His name is clearly pronounced on the voicemail, not mine. The store employee left a message for Patricia VanArsdale about expecting a coupon for 15% off all the unpurchased items on our baby registry. Let's recap, Matt is the primary account person on the registry, his phone number was listed on the registry, and in case we are not sure, his voicemail clearly gives his name and not mine. Matt was and is still furious and a phone call I made to corporate seems to have done very little good.
Strike 2: We went in the store to add a few additional items to the registry and purchase a few things with an awesome coupon. Matt sat down at a table just inside the door while I stood behind him and off to the side. I gazed in the distance at diaper bags (our latest mind-boggling buy) while Matt asked the employee for the gun, saying the baby registry was under his name. "It's under your name?" she asked him looking at me. I confirmed for the employee that my husband is in charge and is the primary person on the account. She looked confused as she looked between the two of us. Has she never met a man so eager to be a father that he took over the baby registry? Matt was once again frustrated and unhappy with the actions of a store employee. How difficult is it to smile, apologize, and actually listen to what a person is saying? Heaven forbid we toss in the fact that the employee could have made small talk and say that few expecting fathers are as proactive as he is in getting a baby registry ready. I feel as though I am justified to say this because I work with the public and when I make mistakes, I apologize profusely and do whatever I can to encourage the person to come back and see us. Did I mention I work at a library? A place that exchanges no money for services? Oh course, I will also toss in that I have excellent customer service and letters from parents and teens to prove it. We are not done with our registry or Babies R Us and hope (for the sake of my husband who is eager to finally meet his offspring), I hope the store has more polite employees on our future visits, because my husband is fighting the urge not to yell and scream at the employees. And you know what, I think they would deserve it, maybe not as much as he wants to yell, but they would deserve it.
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