When I worked at a private tutoring center in L.A., we had a lot of students with famous parents. One father was an extremely well-known and powerful guy in Hollywood-- and he was also completely crazy. He would do things like do a full-on cardio workout in the middle of a meeting with the director about his child’s progress or go around the room whispering the score to the Lakers game to all males in the room during an open house presentation. But one time, he did the craziest thing ever and I was the only witness.
I was sitting in the employee break room scoring some tests one morning when he came bursting in. “Oh my God, I’m SO HUNGRY!” he shouted. He grabbed a box of cereal (the center director’s personal box) off the employee fridge, ripped it open and proceeded to shove several handfuls into his mouth. Then he ran out, leaving me jaw agape.
Obviously, you can’t actually know who is and who isn’t reading a thread.
In this case, however, the OP said, in the thread:
To which I replied:
This occurred in addition to an exchange of emails between the OP and myself that made it clear to me that because the responses s/he was getting were pissing him/her off, s/he was not going to be participating in the thread.
From your point of view, you can probably assume that the OP is reading (whether or not s/he actually is, is a metaphysical point we needn’t address), unless there’s a post from a moderator like this:
In this case you should follow a mod’s request.
BTW, this is why it’s generally a good idea to finish reading a thread before you respond. Remember, you can hit the “plus/quotemarks” icon as you’re reading. Using this icon drops the post (or posts!) you want to respond into the “post reply” box when you use that after you’ve finished reading, as opposed to using the “quote” button as you’re reading, which sends you to the response box immediately.
Yeah…Pittsburghers will be familiar with a place called Eides; a kind of one-stop alternative-media joint. Legend, which is the operative word, has it that if they catch you shoplifting, instead of calling the cops, they take you in the back and slap you around. The idea is that they can’t afford to press charges and go through all that rigmarole, so they take matters in their own hands. But, as with all urban legends, no one’s ever had it happen to them, and they were never around when it happened to someone else. So it may never have happened at all, but the story is a deterrent in itself. A security system that costs nothing.
Heh. I got aggressively panhandled on my way into a local coffee shop a few years back. The owner (a rather burly guy) asked one of his busboys (also a rather burly guy) to step outside with him. Apparently, the owner had already asked the panhandler to leave once that day, and he’d been nice about it. My server said that the owner would get his point across in a physical manner. This place is in an…interesting…neighborhood, and while most of the panhandlers will be polite, others, like the one I’m talking about, get pretty abusive if the woman (and they only bother women) they accost doesn’t feel like making a donation to the cause. The panhandlers leave if they see a cop car, so calling the cops isn’t an option.
I didn’t see it happen myself, no, but this behavior apparently happens in waves, it builds up until the owner reminds the panhandlers that he doesn’t appreciate them bothering his customers.
There are only two major retailers that I’m aware of here that will honour cheaper prices within a set period of time after purchase.
Lately a lot of them have been pretty… unhelpful with their price match policies too. “Competitor X (well-known, reputable, usually with adequate stock levels) has this item for $50 cheaper. Here is their current catalogue to confirm that.” “OK. Let me call every branch in a 30km radius to see if they have it in stock. If they don’t, no price match.” Look, it’s very simple. You can match the advertised price of a competitor and have a happy customer, or you can dick them around until they get sick of the bullshit and leave.
I realise that in many cases the retailer would prefer not to make the sale because they don’t want to lose margin, but I’d argue that in 99% of cases the few dollars “saved” by not price matching a genuine price from a well-known competitior are wiped out by the ill-will generated by being stingy and pissing off a customer. I think most people can agree retailers shouldn’t have to sell items below their cost price, but there’s a difference between “Sorry, that competitor’s price is below our cost and we can’t match it” and “We don’t want to match the price because we want to make more money”. Especially when so many stores have “Best Price Guaranteed!” and “Nobody Beats Our Prices!”-type signs up all over the place, too…
When I worked in a copy shop, a guy came in and said he wanted to make some copies. The place was self-service, clearly advertised as such on the outside and with posters all over the walls saying so. He stood looking at me. I asked if he wanted colour or black and white. Colour, he said. OK, did he need help with the colour machine? Yes he did. So I came out from behind the desk to show him how to work the machine. All the machines had the prices written on them in huge letters, as well as the prices being on the window and the front of the till. He made a few colour copies, then decided to notice the price and started freaking out about how I’m stupid and he can’t afford that price. Not sure how this made ME stupid, I gave him a meter for one of the black and white machines, and read the built-in meter on the colour machine. He made some black and white copies, then came to the desk. I got up, went round him to the machine he was using, pulled out the meter he should have brought back with him (I had told him this when I plugged it in for him), and rang up all the copies. So he started shouting at me again about how stupid I am and how he’s not paying for the colour copies and he should get the b&w for free to because I was so unhelpful and stupid. I said fine, he can leave the colour copies, I’ll throw them in the recycling, and he can just pay for the b&w. No, he’s not leaving his colour copies, they’re his. No they’re not, until you pay for them. So he started walking out, taking all the copies with him, stealing from the (small, family-run) shop, but as he went he dropped his passport in the doorway. I quickly came round the till and picked it up, and called after him, “Hey, you might be stealing those copies but you’ve left your passport”. He turned, ran back into the shop, and started hitting me and grabbing me and trying to say that I’ve stolen his passport. Fortunately a couple of other customers saw everything, including him dropping it, and one of them went round the till, picked up the phone and started calling the police because this guy is still hitting and grabbing at me (while I stood there in such surprise that I couldn’t think to do anything except hold on to the passport and say, “You’re assaulting me! You’re assaulting me!” over and over as loud as I could). At this point my boss came out from the back, a big, tall, heavy, muscular guy (which I am not), picked him up by the back of the collar and ripped into him about what a cunt he is, assaulting his workers when they were trying to do him a favour by returning his passport when he’d just stolen from the shop, and by the way what’s he going to do about the theft he just committed? The guy ended up paying roughly 1000% of what the copies should have cost in exchange for us not calling the cops. But what a cunt.
They do this because they can’t afford to price-match loss-leaders. If none of the competitor’s stores in the area have the item at the advertised price, then it’s pretty much a bullshit price that was never intended to be honored for any reasonable time or volume.
Only if the stores with the super-low price on Very Popular Item never had any in stock at all/kept putting out ads claiming it was in stock and advertising super-low price without having any/same said ads didn’t mention limited stock in stores. It’s why stores can get away with “doorbuster” deals on Black Friday; the ads note that supplies are very limited.
When I was working at Kmart, IIRC, it had to be so much of a difference for us to price match. Over or under a certain amount and we wouldn’t do it.
My aunt did this a few years ago and I STILL cringe when I think about it. She was out Christmas shopping at either Wal-Mart or Kmart, I can’t remember. And apparently, they weren’t playing Christmas music, which royally offended her.
So she went up to the service desk and gave them a lecture about this – how could they expect her to get into the Christmas spirit while she shopped if they weren’t even playing Christmas music? And she was extremely disappointed and didn’t know if she could shop there again.
She tells this to my mother the next time they were on the phone, expecting my mother to agree. My mother was horrified. I really, REALLY wish I had been with her that day to talk her out of it, or at least appologize for her. (I’ll bet they burst out laughing the minute she walked out the door)
My aunt is actually a very good person, and she’s not really an asshole. She IS, however, a complete and utter airhead. :rolleyes:
I’ve worked in retail for entirely too many years so I know how it works. It’s just that when I was in the industry, you price matched competitor’s advertised prices (as long as they were above cost) regardless of whether the store you called had any in stock because A) Most stores have many branches and one of them will have stock and B) The customer has come to you and not them. If you send them away they may not come back.
Like I said, I totally understand not selling items below cost. My issue is with "We’re still making a profit on this but don’t feel like honouring the “Best Price In Town Guaranteed- We Match Advertised Prices!” signs located prominently throughout the store.
Look, it’s very simple. You can match the advertised price of a competitor and have a happy customer, or you can dick them around until they get sick of the bullshit and leave.