Anthony B.

I've been both in the store and online with them, and I've always been satisfied with them. Of course online you have access to more books than they could ever stock in store, especially the more "controversial" volumes that I'm not going to list here but leave to your imagination. You can even use your membership discount online if you have it and you always get your tracking number so you always know where and when your package gets checked in.

This is a comedy site. I wouldn't ever go to it to actually look up "facts". Also it's a certain kind of comedy that appeals to certain people. For example, those who are easily offended by profanity shouldn't read it. Personally, I find it entertaining. There is a way you can sign up to actually submit your own articles, but the last time I tried it, they had done such a poor job of explaining the process that I gave up on it. They might've improved it since though.

The site offers a catalog of software designed to create 3D and 2D games for the Windows operating systems. Whether you're just starting out or have a little experience, you can do some amazing things with what they offer. Some of it is "point and click" but the real meat of the action is their editor where you program your own stuff. It's based on the Basic programming language. It's not the strongest programming language, but it's among the easiest to learn.

You can actually get a free version of it and get started today. Your computer must be Windows and have DirectX installed (also free, offered on site). You cannot make games for consoles here.

If there was one weakness that bugged me with the software, it's that you can't design your own characters, though other sites offer software that can and can be imported into Game Creators programs.

Also, the company itself I believe is actually in England. I made a purchase from the States and my bank actually seized my account for twenty four hours because the transaction was flagged as suspicious. It wasn't anyone's fault, and the matter was quickly remedied, but don't be surprised if this happens to you.

Most of your auto parts retailers (Auto Zone, Advance, Carquest, etc) will have your basic paint chemicals like quarts of lacquer based primer, a few generic colors, and some basic clear coat as well as a few aerosol cans that "match" factory colors.

O'Reilly's has them too, but not a lot of people know that behind the counter (you have to ask for it) there is a whole catalog of paint chemicals and supplies and a handful of stores even mix their own paint if you can provide a paint code off the car in question.

Chemicals, sanders, paint guns, safety gear. Primer, sealer, reducer, paint, hardener, clear coat, activator. Lacquer, acrylic, urethane. They can get their hands on some amazing things... but make sure you're selecting the proper combination of chemicals (make sure they all have the same base).

It has an extensive library ranging from Christmas songs to classical music to tv show theme songs. It also covers a surprising range of instruments, not just piano and guitar, but also less popular ones like organ and mandolin. There's even an android app (not sure about Apple products, don't have one) that will synchronize with your account so you can review and play your sheet music right off your phone. The only downside seems to be that you are charged multiple times to reprint your music, so when you print your music, photocopy it and keep it safe! One thing you should always do before visiting this site, though, is to check and see if other sites offer the sheet music you want for free... why pay five bucks for Moonlight Sonata when other sites just give it to you?

Facebook is good as a tool for marketing, keeping in touch with otherwise unreachable people in your life, and broadcasting the occasional "how are the roads" when it snowed the night before and you're debating on whether or not to go to work today... but anytime I spend more than ten minutes at a time on Facebook I get tired of seeing people posting memes (as if a picture of a Minion somehow affirms what it is they're trying to say) pictures of kitty cats, posts complaining about their relationships, and pictures of the food they just cooked. Your mileage may vary, obviously...

I used to work for Auto Zone. I was a low level manager for a time in Raleigh, North Carolina. Although sitejabber seems to be fairly happy with them, I've seen a million bad reviews on Auto Zone from different websites and I thought I could give one from the other side of the counter. I'm going to condense many of the complaints I've heard together to try to address as many as I can.

A big complaint flying around is that the employees generally don't know anything about cars, whether it be talking about them or actually putting their hands on them. Also there have been efforts to point out on other sites that there are an unusual number of Hispanics working in the company... These complaints are absolutely true.

One thing you have to understand is that Auto Zone is a business; and just like any business the point is to make money. Obviously Auto Zone wants people who can do that for them. Specifically, Hispanics are often employed simply because they speak Spanish. A Spanish speaker opens the door for customers who do not know English. I can't tell you how many bilingual people I saw gain employment despite being completely incompetent. Actually knowing how cars work? That's not important. In fact, there's an unwritten motto behind the counter... it's "We are salesmen, not mechanics."

And I totally agree with these complaints. Auto Zone is advertised as a place for reliable information. It even says on the sign outside the store: Auto Zone. Auto Parts. ADVICE and very few employees really know a lot about engines.

In all fairness though, efforts are made to educate their employees on certain car systems through computerized presentations and tests, although labor is so cut back, any test taking is often interrupted because the employee needs to help up front (more on that later) and anything learned is often forgotten. What's worse is that in a lot of these cases, an entire store's worth of education is actually done by the store manager because he can't spare the hours it takes for everyone to do their training. Bottom line: money comes first, knowledge of the craft second.

A lot of people seem to have a problem with the quality of Auto Zone's parts. First let me clarify something: Auto Zone and Duralast are the same thing. Duralast is an in-house brand. Personally I have a number of Duralast parts in my car right now, and I typically don't have a problem with them. However I know very well that no retailer can have a 100% success rate with their parts... which leads me to my next point: labor claims. Most stores are separated into two departments: DIY (Do It Yourself) which is simply the store that you walk into and buy products, and the commercial department which deals with delivering parts to local shops like Precision Tune and Firestone.

A labor claim is when a commercial client receives a defective part and is reimbursed for having to install the part twice after the part is replaced. It is actually a very complicated process and most of them get denied anyway. In reality, it's only ever actually implemented to cater to the highest paying commercial clients to keep their business. But DIY? A walk-in customer like you? It's unheard of. DIY labor claims do not exist under any circumstances. So the Duralast timing belt you bought broke and the pistons bent your valves? You're wasting your breath and time going after Auto Zone. Honestly, you're not giving them enough money for them to entertain not letting you walk out the door. Unless you're prepared to take them to court, forget it.

More than a few people have commented on the length of time it takes to get certain parts. Based on what I've read, I'm fairly certain they're referring to Vendor Direct Parts. Certain products can only come from vendors because Auto Zone doesn't stock them in stores or warehouses. The complaints usually say the part is supposed to arrive in about three or four days, but it ends up taking two weeks or more. I've seen it happen a million times, but that ETA that they quote you when you originally buy the part? Yeah, that's a FedEx estimate; Auto Zone has nothing to do with it. So if you're ordering a part in North Carolina, and the part is coming from Ohio, and an earthquake hits Oregon, it's a safe bet that your part is going to be late... it's all about how FedEx works. How many times have you sent a package via UPS or FedEx only to have it arrive late because of a holiday or weekend or inclement weather? The real problem is that the employees aren't trained to explain this to you, the customer; they are trained to always guarantee you that "we have the right part (literally)!"

Long lines have appeared a number of times also. Let me cut to the chase: the shifts are so shorthanded that if one person gets sick and calls out, the whole system comes down. Bad labor coverage was a plague the whole two years I worked for them. With very few exceptions (mostly HUB stores and truck night), most stores are only manned by two people at a given time: a manager (gray shirt) and a low level red shirt. And this is what is going on at any given time: there's a manager and a red shirt. The red shirt is outside changing a battery... He will be indisposed for at least twenty minutes... IF he knows what he's doing. There are four people waiting in line inside. The phone is ringing. The guy on aisle two is stealing. The manager is supposed to have two planograms and online training all done by the time he leaves today. Online orders are coming in. Yep, sure enough, the guy on aisle two just walked out the door and the theft sensor went off... There's no time to go after him. The labor shortage is all about cutting costs just like any other retail store in the United States of America. And speaking of the phone...

One review I've read in particular noted the excessive importance of the phone. He's right and let me tell you why: corporate management has created a strict script (yes, a script) that they want all calls to be handled by. They enforce this by having district managers call stores of neighboring districts (so nobody recognizes their voices) pretending to be customers and grading the store based on this call. Rule #1? The phone must be answered within two rings. Take too long to answer the phone and you automatically fail and get chewed out. Put that call on hold and you automatically fail too. The importance of the phone became so great when I was there, that some employees resorted to giving fake names over the phone to make it harder to reprimand them if they didn't follow the script exactly. Expect no less from a company that thinks reciting a script qualifies as good customer service. So picture this: you've been waiting in line for a half hour (because of the aforementioned labor shortage), and you finally get to the counter. You just get done telling the employee what kind of car you have while he enters it into the computer, and then the phone rings. The employee has to answer it. As he takes the call, he hits the New Customer button and wipes out all the information you just told him. Three minutes later, the call ends and you have to tell the employee what kind of car you have again... and then the phone rings again. Rinse and repeat.

Allow me to give you a few tips in helping dealing with this company. For those of you who want to submit a complaint to corporate office, you have a few options. The most obvious of which is to simply go online or call the customer service number on the receipt and issue a complaint. Less well known is the sign that is on or near the door to every Auto Zone store. The sign is read from the outside and has three phone numbers on it. The first of which is the store manager, and for the record, the phone number next to the store manager's name is the phone number to the store. In many cases this is actually the most effective. A store manager will be more sensitive to the customers in their own store. The downside is that usually these complaints go undocumented.

If you're not getting results (or if the store manager is the one you have a problem with) you may try the next number: the district manager. First off: good luck trying to get this guy to answer his phone. If you simply have a "rudeness" complaint, most likely he will just document it and assure you he will look into it and really do nothing. It will take a number of complaints about the same store before he will really do anything. The third number, the regional manager, is even worse. This guy is in charge of upwards of a hundred stores in multiple states... He doesn't entertain a million calls about low level employees being rude. If you want his attention, your complaint better not be anything short of "your employee sexually harassed me". He only listens to the most extreme of grievances.

Another common issue seems to be the honoring of warranties. The warranty database is shared company wide, so no matter what store you bought the part from, you should be able to access that warranty at any other store nationwide. The greatest tip? When you buy the part, make sure EVERYTHING is accurate. People don't get to cash in their rightful warranty because they change their phone numbers, a woman gets married and changes her last name, they move and change their zip codes, things like that. There has been more than one time when I had to get creative and dig deep to find out that the customer's name was misspelled. When you get the part: Make. Sure. Your. Information. Is. Right... and then remember when you change that information. The best thing you can do is take your receipt and scan it into a computer, preserving all information including a transaction number.

Not satisfied with them still? Wanna make them mad? I'll give you a tip: walk in the store... and buy a soda. Seriously. You see, Auto Zone is just another one of those corporate retail chains that care more about their shareholders than their customers and employees. And every year the managers at the top have to explain to them the status of the company, and of course they want to hear good things. Basically the executives have come up with a series of ridiculous numbers to track growth in the company. In reality they're manipulated numbers meant to distract the shareholders from a potentially dismal bottom line. One such number is "average ticket". It tracks how much the average customer spends by dividing the total day's sales by the number of transactions done for that day. So if the total money (you know, the whole reason a business is a business) is not up to the right projections, the executives distract the shareholders by telling/whining to them that "the average customer is spending twenty percent more than they were last year." So what do you think walking in and buying an item worth a dollar and fifty cents does to that ticket (when the goal is usually about $20 to $25 average ticket)? What do you think it does when you turn around and walk right back in and do it again? Store managers would rather have that soda grow legs and walk out the door than ring it up by itself and actually make the dollar it's worth.

Allow me to leave you with an anecdote from my experience: we had a low level manager who was caught stealing four hundred dollars (that's how much she was actually caught with at least). Was this manager fired? No, not even demoted. She was transferred. Rumors have circulated that Auto Zone didn't want to risk a potential lawsuit or having to pay her unemployment benefits so she got transferred to another store where the manager is going to be hard on her in the hopes of making her quit of her own free will... That's the kind of company I worked for.

For about six months I was fairly active on their guyq board. On this board, users ask questions that other users answer and sometimes even staff members participate. The board is divided into various categories depending on the nature of the questions asked there. There's about ten categories like health, dating, career, music, sports, and grooming to name a few as well as a "general" section for everything in between. To be clear: this site welcomes literally any question within reason. And that's good.

However, it is incredibly obvious that the dating and sex categories dominate the board's traffic. All other sections might make up twenty percent, and that's being generous. What's worse is that the majority of the questions asked in these two areas are repetitive, usually along the lines of "she dumped me, how do I get her back?", "I like her, how do I pursue her?", and "our sex lives are incompatible, what do I do?"

I actually applaud the staff for providing an environment where we can freely ask anything, but I am greatly disappointed to see that out of the infinite mysteries of Heaven and Earth and the human mind, all anyone wants to do is complain about their relationships.

The board is "lightly policed". The staff members are ever present, but they do very little to intervene. They seem to have a list of "deadly sins" that will get a user banned (heavy profanity, threatening, etc), but even banned users can simply create another user account and continue on the site. Despite the rules that are enforced, there's actually a lot of room for needless bullying and group shaming that nothing is done about.

So basically, a typical experience on askmen.com guyq is to log in, go straight to the sex category (because there's nothing new anywhere else), ignore the guy who wants to know if the girl who keeps touching his penis likes him, and answer the guy who wants to know if he has a chance with the girl who told him to go #### himself and lit his car on fire. Inevitably you get a backlash from other users (saying things they NEVER would say to your face) who don't agree with you, including that one guy who's already been banned twice but has nothing better to do with his life.

Askmen.com is too mature for it's *******@Once_ler