It’s our village Millennium this year - one thousand years since some noblewoman gifted a piece of land and the houses thereon to a monastery. As one of our many celebrations we’ve had a football match this afternoon, the present village team versus village players past and present. It’s been like a fete complete with ice-cream van and burgers and so on.
As my house backs onto the playing field, I was asked to run a power lead out for the burger-van man to run his fridge etc from. Not at all a problem - it’s only a few pence worth of electricity, and I wouldn’t care if it was a few pounds for a village event; many have given more in time and money.
Except…
Towards late afternoon I moseyed on over and ordered a burger and a sausage in a bun for my two boys, intending and expecting to pay full whack for them. And then, to my surprise, the burger-van man charges me… half price.
It’s only later that the humour of the situation strikes me - I mean, I don’t know what it’s been worth him in turnover to have mains electricity on tap, but - half price? And I’m like, see the title of the post.
Anyone else been the recipient of less than truly munificent generosity lately?
I’m not sure I understand your post. At first you said that you expected to pay full price, and were surprised when he only charged you half price. So far, so good. But then in the last couple of sentences, you seem to change direction, as if a 50% discount isn’t good enough for you.
So which is it? I’m sure it adds to the confusion that “Don’t beggar yourself” isn’t a phrase in common use on this side of the pond, So I don’t really understand where you’re going with this.
It seems to me that the vendor was trying to show his appreciation to you for providing electricity by giving you a (fairly substantial) discount on your purchase. If you were buying three sandwiches, the amount of the discount probably far exceeded your expense in providing electricity. And you said that you expected to pay full price, anyway.
I’m not complaining, or this would have been in the Pit. Two sandwiches - I didn’t order anything for myself. “Don’t beggar yourself” = “don’t give so much away as to make yourself a pauper”. It just struck me that a discount was neither one thing nor the other - as though he wanted to make a generous gesture in exchange for my help but couldn’t quite bring himself to say “it’s on the house”. I wasn’t unhappy with the deal, just, in looking back, faintly amused. And I still am, and quite unoffended by the question.
I’m familiar with the term - it doesn’t seem that uncommon to me.
I agree. Without you to give him free electricity I’m thinking he can’t set up shop and he has no income at all. He could have given you free sandwiches.
Give him an estimated bill for the electricity - say 25 pence… then magnamoniously write “50% off!” and only charge him 13 (note the half pence “round up”… a nice touch!)…
nahh! Pettyness in repsonse to pettness is never a good option …
Again, I’m not complaining nor looking for validation - just wondering if anyone else had stories to share about people trying to be generous but not quite able to do the deed.
I once spent a Sunday afternoon at a customer’s house sorting out his PC. I’d sold him a phone and he was having trouble linking it up. When I got there to help him with it, his PC needed a whole lot of work. Eventually I got the PC sorted, then got the link-up working and he thanks me with a £5 pack of cheap beer. With the price still attached. Oh. Gee. Thanks.
I’d seriously have been happier with a sincere “thank you” and a handshake. If you’re gonna thank me atleast don’t do it while claiming my time is worth less than £1 per hour.
There was a coupon for a local pizza place in a newpaper.
One small pop with each order of two large pizzas, totalling $17.50 or more, delivery extra.
Also on the coupon were other conditions (time of day limitations, delivery range, subject to availibility, offer may be with drawn at any time with out notice, etc.).
The whole thing came across as if the proprietor really hated to give you that extra small pepsi. The profit mark up on Pizza is incredible… That $17.50 order probably generated at least $8-10 profit, and probably more.
It just came across as cheap, bothersome and that you were likely as not to get your “free small pop” if you attempted to actually redeem the coupon.
