The Buckle Challenge

Growing up in Nebraska, I find that Nebraskans take a lot of pride in things that are distinctly Nebraska.  But there's one thing that has become the ugly step child of Nebraska...The Buckle.

The national clothing chain started up in Kearney, NE and the headquarters still reside there.  Unfortunately a large number of teenagers in NE wear Buckle clothes religiously.  But that's besides the point.

You may or may not have heard of The Buckle Challenge.  It's a game that I was introduced to in my teen years.  Since The Buckle has an incredible customer service standard, the goal of the game is to walk through the store, touch the back wall, and walk out without any clothing salesman talking to you.

I've played this several times over the years and have beat the challenge, but believe me, it's no easy task.  In fact, it's near impossible.

The point of this blog is to talk about the overbearing and ridiculously invasive customer service the Buckle has installed.  I was in The Buckle not to long ago to take advantage of a gift card I had, to buy some new pants.  Upon walking in the store I had two employees approach me and asked me several times what I was looking for.  I said nothing and they left me alone...or so I thought.  Within two minutes a guy sneak attacked me from behind and whispered to me "Yo man, whatcha lookin to buy today?"  I wasn't down with this bro all up in my business so after 5 minutes of failing to explain that I was just browsing, I said jeans and walked away towards Emily.

Emily and I found a pair of pants for me to try on and I was headed to the changing room where the bro intersected me and gave me 5 pairs of "Mikey Bo" pants.  I kindly took them and pretended to be interested.

After trying on a pair of pants and stepping outside to show Emily the door creaked so LOUD that the bro raced around the corner to check out my new duds.  He was shocked I wasn't wearing one of his pairs.  After about the third pair of pants, and him racing around the corner, I had had enough.

I looked at Emily and our eyes both said to get the heck out of this place.  I did end up getting the pants but I will take every opportunity to avoid The Buckle at any cost.  No matter where in the country, every Buckle I've been to has been this annoying.

I don't mind having good customer service.  I've been on the opposite end of bad customer service.  But if you take a good thing too far it turns dangerous and creepy.  The Buckle needs to learn that an aggressive Mikey Bo is not a good Mikey Bo.