Saturday, March 10, 2012

10 Percent Off

Today at work, I told a customer I could ring her up at a register and she came forward with her shopping cart full of items. The first thing she did was hand me a candy bar. "I want a discount on that," she said. I looked at the candy bar, and then looked back at her - I'm sure confusion was written all over my face. "It's cracked. You can feel it. It's in two pieces." Again, I looked down at the candy bar in my hand, where I could feel that it was indeed cracked, and again, I looked at the woman with what I would imagine was an even more confused look on my face.

I said, "Well, we take ten percent off of items that are damaged. I don't really believe this candy bar is damaged. You can still eat it."  (I just want to add that, in case it isn't obvious, the ten percent is used in instances like scuffed furniture or a spot on a blouse.)

"But it's cracked," she insisted. We both looked at each other. Neither of us spoke for a minute; I was still trying to figure out why this was even happening. I finally broke the silence.

"This candy bar is $2.00. You want me to take off 20 cents?"

She looked at me like I was the insane one and then gave a very annoyed: "Yes."

I figured, what the hell? I wasn't going to get into a fight over 20 cents. I gave her the discount for the $2.00 candy bar and then rang up her $100.00 purse.

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