AAFES

I hate AAFES. AAFES sucks sweaty, hairy ass.

The Army and Air Force Exchange Service has been commonly referred to as Always Ass Fucking Enlisted Servicemembers and the Asian American Female Employment Service. Here in Korea, they do both.

For example.

Today I go to purchase a calling card, so I can take care of some loose ends back in the States. A standard calling card costs 20 American Dollars. I go to the kiosk where the said calling cards are being sold, and nobody is there. I look around and there isn't a sign saying "Will be back in 5 minutes" or anything like that. So okay. Whatever - maybe I went there at a bad time. I figure I'll make productive use of my time and go take a whizz. I take care of business and I still see nobody at the phone card kiosk.



So I go inside the the BX and get $20 return from buying a Diet Coke. The Korean dude at the cash register is the same guy who always looks like he's recovering from a night of heavy Soju drinking, and chances are he probably is. Pound for pound I've seen more alcoholics in this country than all of guilt-ridden America put together. And I smell it seeping through their pores too, especially on these hot summer days. What takes usually less than a minute to ring up on the register, this guy takes 2 minutes to process. Hell, he's getting paid by the hour so he don't care whatsoever about quality customer service. Since this is the only BX around for roughly a 100 mile radius, it's not like we have anywhere else to go except E-Mart perhaps.

By this time I leave the BX and there's someone finally at the phone card kiosk. Some Korean girl perhaps in her late 20's. I tell her I need to purchase a phone card, and hand her the money as she gets me the card. In the middle of our transaction, the phone rings and she stops what she's doing automatically to answer it. She then starts to rattle off in Hangul to what I can only discern is a friend of hers, just calling to gossip. She's still holding on to my calling card and I want it! Fucking make a personal call on your own time, or at the very least after you're done taking care of my needs. After about a minute of this shit I tell her to give me the goddamned calling card politely but very strongly, to which she hangs up and hands it to me like it's a fucking chore. Sorry to disturb your, sweetheart. Your personal affairs are more important obviously.

This is just one of several incidents that happen here in the Base Exchanges throughout the peninsula. Kunsan, Osan, Youngsan - it doesn't matter. For some reason, all the Koreans on base think that because they're working for an American company, the same rules for customer service and courteousness their civilian counter-parts display is completely out the window. The Koreans off base are like Johnny-on-the-Spot when it comes to taking care of business - McDonald's, KFC, bars and night clubs especially - they know that your money pays their bills and without your support they'd have to go looking for another job, so they bend over fucking backwards and treat you the customer like you're royalty! So why the fuck izzit once they transition to a job with AAFES, they lose all of that drive and initiative?

I'll tell you why, and the problem lies within the employer itself. AAFES has been around for over 100 years and because they have a DoD contract with the military, they have the market cornered overseas. While they lose money hand-over-fist Stateside to places like Target and Wal-Mart, they make up lost revenue in places like Korea, Europe, and the Middle East where we have people deployed, AND THEY KNOW THIS. "We go where you go" is their famous motto, and all in the name of making a buck. Even Stateside their customer service is shitty, if not downright horrible. During the holiday season you will see lines careening down the shopping aisles, yet there are only 3 cashiers with open cash registers working, despite having 12 or more cash registers available. People are tired, their goddamned kids are screaming their heads off, and all you want to do is buy the goddamned tube of toothpaste and go home. If you're like me, you don't celebrate the commercially-driven holiday seasons and instead loathe the bastards that make it difficult for you to live a peaceful existance by preaching to the masses to buy buy buy. But because AAFES doesn't charge sales tax, people feel like they're getting a better deal by shopping there instead of driving 10 minutes to their local Cost Co or Sam's Club for the same items - chances are the money you save at the BX will equate out to the same amount you spend on gasoline.

What really irritates the shit out of me is how they've moved to this nickel and dime price system over here. This shit started initially back in 1997, and they said it was to save money by eliminating pennies from their cash registers. The prices on items are still in odd or even cents, but they round up or down depending on how close the number is to 5 cents or 10 cents.

Fucking kidney thieves are what they are, if you ask me. Let's use the following example to illustrate how bad it is AAFES fucks over their customers:

Diet Coke 16 ounce bottle $1.09
Bag of Sathers Orange Slices .59
X Box/PS2 video game 49.99
Bag of Hot Tamales candy .88
Playstation 2 Magazine 8.99

These are recurring items I purchase from the BX which is why I list them. Now I don't get a penny back for anything 5 cents and over, so they reap the profit. Anything under 5 cents, they round down to zero and they soak up the cost, allegedly. I can guarantee you that there are more items priced in the high-end of the cent category than the low end. Now think of all the transactions that happen in any given day - say 1000 - and each person buys only 1 item - that's $10 they just cleaned up on spare change alone. Now truth is, people buy all sorts of shit, so you can easily see how that $10 quickly becomes millions and millions in the long run. Never under-estimate the loss of a few cents here and there - someone somewhere collects.


(A video game nerd's paradise)

Now any respectable company would dump a percentage of that profit into buying better merchandise wholesale to sell to their customers. Being stuck remote at Kunsan, I don't see that money being put into anything of good quality, aside from electronic devices and perhaps entertainment goods like DVDs and video game selection. While I was one of the first people to snatch Doom 3 for X-Box off the shelf when it first arrived, the majority of DVDs, CDs, and video games don't make it here, and if they do arrive, you better grab that fucker off the shelf the moment you see it since chances are it won't get re-ordered any time soon. And in Korea, "soon" means "never".


(The best 2 aisles of music to choose from)

All of this has forced me to turn to internet shopping for what I really want. From clothing to music to movies to video games, AAFES doesn't carry what it is I like. Amazon, Sam Goody, and Infinity 1 rock n roll clothing have had more business from me this past year than perhaps any other patron since I'm always ordering something the BX doesn't stock. I hate rap music and don't want to wear FUBU with Fat Albert's face on my ass, so once again the BX sucks for quality. I'm still waiting for them to get the new Black Label Society album in.


(Grab 'em while they're hot - once they're gone, they're gone)

They fuck their customers over, while laughing all the way to the bank. They know we can't go anywhere else for what we want usually, and because there's no "real" competition, they take any customer complaints with a grain of salt. This same mentality is echoed all over the Army and the Air Force no matter where you go. What's even worse is that if you try to get an item for your uniform from a non-authorized vendor (read: anyone NOT AAFES), you're out of regulation and can face disciplinary action. As stupid and as bullshit as this all sounds, there was a big issue about 10 years ago when we were first authorized to wear Gore-Tex jackets about the rank insignia - because AAFES didn't have a contract with the DoD to sell these cloth over-lays, NOBODY could go off base and get one that had been made locally by the Koreans or anybody else. It could look sharp, professional, and really fucking awesome, but because AAFES didn't have their way on paper, EVERYBODY had to suffer.


(Dress like your favorite AFN commercial)

By now I hope you seriously see why it is I can't stand this chain of stores we're plagued in dealing with. Fuck you AAFES, you AND the horse you rode in on! Your stock is mediocre and we take your crappy service because we have no other choice!

Give me the music I want!

Give me the clothing I want!

Give me hard core bondage porn on DVD without delay!


Give me E-Mart, goddamit!