By Kyle Cupp

On Wednesday, two of my colleagues and I drove around to three office stores in the area to assess and purchase a new desk.  We’re soon to have a new employee at our office, so I’m moving offices to make room and have need of a place to shuffle papers.  Upon entering each of the stores, we received a polite greeting or at least a gesture of acknowledgement, but in none of the stores did a representative come over to us to help us make a decision.  In the one store that we had some questions, the cashier had a difficult time finding someone who could assist us.  Had the absence of a sales professional been noted at only one of our stops, I would have taken it as an aberration, but to happen at all three stores suggested to me a systematic problem.  Also of note: these big name stores we’re pretty much empty of prospective customers.  I was not in the least surprised.