I've been doing a few shifts in the shop of late: I usually do Friday afternoons anyway but the manager, Anne, had asked me to do the Saturday afternoon as well, downstairs. Upstairs is pretty quiet, but downstairs is where the action is, so I was fairly busy.
We were winding down to shut-up the shop when I got Angry Customer of the Day. He picked a book that, in retrospect, he must have had his eye on for a while. It was an old Penguin paperback that was priced at £6.99, which, I agree, was steep. What I didn't like was that he wanted to pick an argument and I wasn't in the mood. It went something like this:
Mr. Angry: "The price of this paperback is £6.99"
Me: "It is, sir"
A: "All the other paperbacks are £1 - £2, so do you think this is a fair price?"
Me: "I can't possibly comment on the pricing, sir"
A: "Is the person who does the pricing available to discuss this?"
Me: "Not today, sir"
There was a few more equally frustrating moments of conversation (for him: I was having fun), but it had to end.
A: "If I come back in a few days time, will the prices have changed?!!"
Me: "I couldn't possibly say, sir, but, in my opinion, the odds would not be good"
A: "Should I put this back on the shelf then?!!!!"
Me: "If you would, sir"
At which point he stormed off in, what I took to be, an air of frustrated self-righteous indignation. One of the student volunteers was watching all of this and she seemed a little awestruck by what had happened, which gave me a bit of a lift. The Great British Public: always there when you need them.
No comments:
Post a Comment