So, I work in a sign shop. My primary position is as a graphic designer, but I also serve as a secondary salesman. Our shop is set up so that when people come into the show room, they encounter the two primary salespeople. I sit in a section in back where I can see the show room through a window. If there aren't enough people up front, I step up to help with customers, either in person or on the phone.
Every so often we get somebody that comes into the shop that is nearly beyond help. I had one of these today.
Our showroom has a pretty wide variety of the kinds of signs we make. For instance: there are samples of all the different A-Frame signs we make. These samples have the prices clearly printed on them. So, when this one lady came in asking about the A-Frame prices I politely pointed to the signs and pointed out that the prices for each sign were listed there. The lady proceeded to walk over to one, point at it adn ask "So how much is this one?"
Ah, one of those.
English was obviously her second language, so I could understand a bit of a communication barrier there. But it wasn't so bad that I didn't think she couldn't understand what I was saying. I told her that the sign was $x, just as it said on the sign. She pointed at another one and asked how much that one was. I told her, still as polite as I could be, that it was $n, just like it said on the sign. She then went into relating a tale of wonder and woe to me that she had called earlier and asked about the price of a sign and whoever she had talked to said they were around $37 or so, and why was the price I was giving her now so much different from what she was told over the phone. The way she was talking about that conversation suggested to me that prehaps whoever she had talked to on the phone may have misunderstood what she was talking about, so I, in turn, suggested the same to her.
Just one other saleperson and myself were at the counter at the time, and she asked if it was either one of us that she had talked to. We quickly established that it wasn't, and maybe the guy she had talked to was at lunch. She then demanded to know why he would give her a price that was so inconsistent with the information she was currently being given. I stated that not having been party to their conversation, I could only suggest, again, that perhaps they other salesperson had misunderstood what she was asking about. It happens. Simple mistake.
She went back over to the signs that we had already determined by spoken testament and by the printed text on the signs themselves had cost $x and $n respectively, and she repeated her request for the cost of each sign. I repeated that, just as the signs said, they cost $x or $n, or perhaps even $q if she wanted extra options. She repeated the story about the phone call, then demanded to know where our wayward salesperson may be off to, and why had he given her erroneous information.
This went on for a while. Finally, satisfied (or not, as it were) that the prices weren't what she expected and weren't apparently going to change anytime soon, she wandered off. I went back to my desk.
Then she came back in.
The other salesman got to deal with her this time. I tried to stay out of her sight just so I wouldn't have to deal with her, though, with her powers of observation, there wasn't much risk of her noticing me, even if I was standing on her head.
I have a hard time fathoming how it is that people like this have successful business careers. Is it luck? Is it the fact that people get so annoyed with them that they just give up and give them what they want? It's people like this that make me feel that we have too many safety laws in this country. We have almost completely managed to do away with natural sellection, and people like this are allowed to breed. We need more chlorine in the gene pool! Darwin must be rolling over in his grave. Maybe if their was a higher chance of death inherent in our lives we would learn to enjoy life a little more and not focus on all the stupid bullshit.
Or maybe people would scrabble even harder to get their stupid, greedy, little hands on everything in their reach.
Either way, there would surely be shorter lines at the DMV.
Happy Jenday!