Saturday, February 27, 2010

2/22/2010


What I've got in store today isn't really a rant, but I definitely found it amusing enough to mention. On this past Monday, a co-worker, "Katy," had the service desk covered, so I was on a regular register for most of the day.

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~ An older woman came up to my register with just two, large items in her basket. All she had was a bag of plant fertilizer and a roughly 2ft x 2ft, sturdy, glass-topped lawn table. After scanning I'd scanned both items, the woman looked at her total with shocked surprise. Upon inquiry, we found that the table had rung up for far more than she expected. The price it rang up for was $20.00 while she stated that a sign by the stack of tables, from where she got her's, displayed that it should have only cost about $6. The supervisor Monica was nearby, so I went out on a limb and asked if she'd check into the discrepancy for me. To my relief, she accepted the mission and headed off to the gardening area to find out what was going on. In the meantime, the woman paid for the fertilizer and moved off to the side so that I could check out other customers while waiting for my supervisor to return.

When she got back, Monica had with her the sign that the older woman had been referring to. It had, in fact, been propped up near the $20.00 tables and also displayed the price $6.98. Because of this, my super decided to go ahead and give the woman the table for the amount on the incorrectly placed price sign. During this time, I was still in the middle of checking out a different customer's items, so Monica led the woman to the customer service desk to quickly pay for the table there. Apparently, along the way, my super took a second glance at the sign she was holding and realized that it didn't have a decimal on it. The price it was displaying wasn't $6.98, but actually $698.00. The older woman was not dissuaded by this information and insisted that she still be given the table for $6.98. Since it was an honest enough mistake made by both of them at first glance, Monica relented and still agreed to still discount the table for her.

The epiphany over the price on the display happened during their walk up to the service desk, so my co-worker there still had no idea of what the situation was. Monica placed the sign on the counter as they arrived and reached for the table to make it easier to scan. Before anyone could explain what was going on, Katy looked down at the display price and said, "$698.00 for a table?!" That was apparently the final straw. The customer threw her arms up in the air, exclaimed, "Forget it! I just don't want the table anymore!" and left with only the fertilizer.

I found out the rest of the story because I noticed the table was still at the service desk when I returned later to send Katy on her lunch break. The sign that was the cause of all the fuss was most likely from one of the larger lawn sets that the store has available. All in all, the woman really should have known the price she thought she was getting the table for was too good to be true. Even my honey agrees that you'd be hard-pressed to find a glass-topped anything for under $10.00.

3 comments:

Garf said...

That was an LOL.....

You and your posts remind me of my friend who used to discuss work life with me the way you post them. He used to work at a BPO and had so many incidents to share..
Life is good when your platter keeps full.

The Guy's Perspective said...

Yes, when it's too good to be true, it usually is. Although, just last week I got a drum set for free! Well, I had to donate a bit to a charity, but essentially for free with no strings attached. And a really nice vintage one. I'm still pinching myself. But now the Karmic balance is off, so I've been scouring my house looking for things to give away. So far I gave away a new pair of tennis shoes that didn't fit right. I've only got about ten more things to go!

Come visit us sometime.

Sally said...

I'm glad you are enjoying the blog. Life -is- good, but sometimes I wish my platter -wasn't- so full sometimes >.>

And I wish I could get a drum set for free! I can't play for anything, but I could definitely put it on Ebay >.>

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