this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
1022 points (98.6% liked)

Memes

44912 readers
3050 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 102 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I worked there in college. I had to straighten these all the time because people tried to reach up and take one... Instead of the nicely folded ones that were within arm's reach.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 8 months ago (1 children)

We were hoping they hadn't been pawed over by the unwashed masses

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I wipe my ass with nice store towels.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Technically that counts as washing

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Oh, I guess I wash my balls.

Today I learned!

[–] [email protected] 66 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No. No. That's not true. That's impossible!

[–] [email protected] 46 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

Nooooooooo!

[–] [email protected] 52 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

Where is this? (Sorry, I'm an European, on the edge of the map)

[–] [email protected] 40 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Bed Bath and beyond, a piece of shit home-goods store

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

May they rest in peace.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A soon to be extinct retailer called Bed Bath And Beyond. Watch the Adam Sandler movie 'Click' for a full rundown of the brand.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

My understanding was that overstock.com bought them for their brand only, and then changed their own name to Bed Bath & Beyond. So the old BB&B is now extinct, and overstock.com is now masquerading as BB&B.

If you go to overstock.com or o.co, both actually redirect to Bed Bath & Beyond now (which is presumably just a re-skinned version of the old overstock.com?)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

I second this question, where is this?

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago (1 children)

At first glance I thought these were towels on some rooftop and now I have the hardest time unseeing that

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 29 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Well there goes my dream of quitting my job and living in a towel fort at Bed Bath and Beyond

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Sorry, but your dream also died when they closed all of their stores earlier this year.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Hey! No spoiler tag!? Some of us are still getting caught up on the last two seasons of reality

[–] MrBusiness 4 points 8 months ago

Not all yet, the one with the ridiculous mark ups near me is still open somehow.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Like the fake Marshall amp stacks at concerts.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Or the fake lifeboats on cruise ships.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Hey wait a minute

[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Wait till you hear about the plastic and play-dough "food" they use in advertisements and the glamour shots on a restaurant menu or order board.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Watching a video that showed how they do cheese for pizza makes seeing those commercials absolutely hilarious to me knowing its basically nothing but glue.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's why you never go beyond

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

If you ever go Beyond, and find the Fell Beasts, just remember the Words of Power to banish them:

“Bed, Bath, and BEGONE!”

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

I wonder if there are some good practical reasons though. Like if they were to do this with real towels it could potentially be heavy and dangerous. If a bunch of towels did fall, it would be significant work to put them back, and now they'd be dirty from the floor the public has been walking all over.

Also, the fluorescent lights fade stuff pretty quick so if they didn't cycle inventory fast enough you'd see fading, and they'd fade at different rates due to being exposed for different lengths of time and look weird.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 months ago (7 children)

but whats the point of pretending to be a dangerously overstocked warehouse? they would have done better with just a gigantic poster of ferris bueller in a towel.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (2 children)

It demonstrates they have stacks and stacks of towels and that they are to be fully trusted as your local towel authority.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

Honestly, it did kind of psychologically have that effect. I remember thinking "Damn, these people have a shit load of towels. People must be buying a lot more towels than I do. Maybe I should be replacing my towels more often."

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

Fuck towel authoritarians!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I have seen a doc about Home Depot (not the pictured store) some time ago. Apparently the overstocked facade was a big deal because those big stores want you to think they have everything that can possibly exist in their inventory so you only always go there and make no further stops.

Of course, it's smoke and mirror and a lot of stores adopted the big warehouse style for the same reasons. Some stores have legit empty boxes filled with crap all over. If you ever went into one of those store looking for something very specific tho, it is pretty apparent that they only overstock a few profitable items and the rest is no better, or worse than smaller locally-owned shops inventory-wise. Only exception around here would be Costco, which is a.legit warehouse.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I would say that they're worse than local hardware stores. Not only is it really difficult to get help in a Home Depot, but they rarely have any even remotely specialized. Lets say you need a specialized gasket to fix your bidet. Home Depot probably doesn't have it, and if they do, they'll make you search for it for an hour, and then make you buy 12 of them for $10. The local hardware store will have a little white haired dude who knows exactly what you need, exactly where it is, will explain how to prevent it from going bad again, and will sell you one gasket for 37 cents.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (3 children)

At least near me, I've found ACE Hardware to still be like this, despite being a big name chain.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

I think they are all locally owned though. Every ACE in my area is like this, smaller but with helpful knowledgeable staff who either take care of you or tell you where to go if they don’t have it.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

My guess is that you never had the (dis)pleasure of shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond or Linens & Things.

Both stores featured stuff like this. A relatively small footprint for a "superstore", that did a lot by drawing your attention upwards to generate a sense of space. Every "department" had stuff like this, showing inventory 10-20 feet off the floor on very high shelves. Meanwhile the floorplan was rather claustrophobic and not somewhere you want to be on a busy shopping day. But if you needed to outfit a kitchen, bathroom, and a bedroom all on one trip, it was the the place to go.

Anyway, it's no surprise that there was stuff like this going on purely for show. Makes sense, actually. You wouldn't want staff restocking on ladders half the time.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's probably just marketing, the super high stack is visible from far away and advertisers many available colors. If one catches your eye, you then have to walk through a bunch of other aisles to actually get to the towels. It's like putting the milk at the back of the grocery store.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago

It's real? Bro

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Instead they just have hundreds divided by 5.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

They have twenties of them

Edit: Scores, they have scores of them

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (6 children)

I'm 40 and I just found out right now!

I prefer it tbh, less waste this way.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

I worked at K-Mart in the towels section when Martha Stewart started her line. Trust me when I say there were hundreds, there were. I was in a very busy store at Green Acres mall in NY Queens and people loved to mess up my wonderfully folded towels.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

why yes I'd like to buy all of your towels

....sir, um.

now I'd like to sue you for fraud!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Real towels would certainly flatten over time and look really unappealing anyway. But it's a good reality check for sure!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Is this an Ikea reference? I'm not trendy enough to get it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No. Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›