I See It’s On Sale

I’m standing near a table folding, and a woman comes up to me asking, “Everything here, it’s on sale, right?”

Usually such a question is rhetorical, but here she points at a sign on a bench, then waves at a table near it. (Just so you can understand, there is a larger table where the main product is placed, and then there are lower benches near or around the table–like satellites, or moons around a planet.) One bench has a sale sign, and it’s half-hidden by the higher, larger table–so all you can see is the top of the sign, which says, “Sale”. You can see 3/4ths of the word.

I try to tell her the bench is on sale, but the table is not, otherwise a sign would be on the bench and the table. I show her what I mean by placing the sign on the table (which also says, “Sale, Select items”), saying, “This would mean the table is on sale.” Then I put it back down on the bench and say, “This means the bench is on sale. And it says select items anyway.” She keeps arguing with me, saying, “But I can see the sale sign from here! I can see the sale sign from here, that means everything is on sale.”

First, while her jaw is going ‘blah-blah-blah’, I’m thinking, “Okay, the sign is a little big, but it isn’t even on the same table. Well, actually, it’s been there for a while now, and she’s the first person to get confused in over a week, making problems, and getting weird about it. You know, some people live their lives causing this kind of trouble for themselves. They just create stupidity.”

Then, I’m thinking, “If a wall nearby says sale, it doesn’t mean everything in the area is on sale. You can’t point and say, ‘Well I can see the sale sign, that means everything is on sale.’ Who says that, other than this woman? Even when a window says sale, it doesn’t mean everything in the store is on sale.” We’re just arguing semantics, and a customer’s ability to demand stupidity. I tell her everything on top of the table is going to ring up full-price, because it is full-price, but the sale items on the bench, they’ll ring up on sale. It’s not like I can change that fact.

Yet, she goes on about being able to see the sale sign; that it’s misleading marketing; that I was trying to trick her into buying something that’s not even on sale; that now she doesn’t want to buy anything at all. I’m sorry, you caught me in my dirty tricks; I wanted you to take something to the register and think its on sale, as if you would not whine and cry when you get there saying, “I can see the sign!” I am left to assume such threats and insults work to scare someone into changing their mind, saying everything is on sale? I just shrug and say, “Okay, but if you change your mind all this stuff on the back bench is REALLY cheap.”

I remember telling my boss about the dumb, fat woman, saying she’s a size-12 and she wanted a new pair of denim on sale, because she could see the top of a sign nearby. My manager replies, “She’s not that fat!”
“Well, because she’s so dumb,” I tell her, “That makes her fat-ter.”

Customer Types: Big Baby, The Blind, Capitalist, Don’t Kill the Messenger, The Dumb

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“I saw it in the window!”

A frequent customer comes up to me asking about a promotion that ended yesterday. I tell her it is no longer on sale, and she replies that the sign is still up in the window. I go and look, lo and behold, it is still up! No one took the sign down! This is not entirely surprising, as I say, “We need to work to share responsibility more than pass the blame.” The key is sharing responsibility for the store.

I ask someone to take the sign down, while I continue to help the customer, “Well, I guess you’ll be the last person getting that sale. Haha.” I hope we’ll be laughing together, but of course, she totally misses the wit in my statement.
“No, I saw it in the window!”
“Yes, I’m telling you that you’re getting the sale price.”
“I saw it in the window. I want it for that price.”
“Why are you disagreeing with me when I’m agreeing with you?”
“But I saw it in the window.”
“Yes, and I’m giving it to you for that price.”
“So I’m getting it on sale? Because I saw it in the window.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to pay full-price, because it said it was on sale. I saw it.”
I blink, I have nothing else to say.
“Can you hold it for me, I have to go and come back in an hour.”
I blink again, wondering why we like frequent customers so much.
“And I’m still going to get it for that price, right? Because I saw it in the window. Don’t forget!” Oh I won’t forget, how can I forget? You never bought the item while it was on sale for a week. You waited until it was no longer on sale to desire it, and seeing that we made an error, you’re still getting the sale price, but you still want to wait to buy it? Yeah, I’m not going to forget you.

Customer type: Disagreeing to Agree