- "Oh, no thanks. I get enjoyment just looking around and drinking your coffee." Response to whether customer wanted to receive our infrequent mailer.
- "Do you have a garbage can? My daughter just started her period."
- "Are these the only credenzas you have?" I think the word "credenza" is hilarious. Especially when it is made plural.
- "I could never work here. I'd spend my whole paycheck." This is not a new quote. People say this all the time. But it never gets less ridiculous.
- "Must be nice to be in a business with people lined up to get in." A woman said this to me when I opened the door 2 minutes before opening time on Sunday. What amazes me is that people get irritated that we generally stick to our posted hours. The staff's hours are carefully budgeted. If we started keeping the store open for kicks, we wouldn't last long.
- "Do the scales know carbs?" She was talking about kitchen scales for dieting. The notion that scales could sense what food is on them is absurd. There are other scales which might know carbs, though not in the way she meant . . .
Friday, January 29, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
ISlice vs X-Acto
For the past 18 months or so, our store has sold an As Seen On TV product called the ISlice, "The most useful tool you'll ever own." I hate it.
The little ear-shaped slicer has a tiny ceramic blade that too useless to cut anything big, but works well for cutting shapes out of paper, opening mail, and getting into difficult plastic packaging, like the stuff you must break through before you can use the ISlice. (Favorite customer joke: "What came first? The ISlice or the packaging?")
I hate the ISlice because it does not discourage the wasteful, exaggerated plastic packaging. Instead, it has made opening plastics "easy" and "fun." The product does work; I've tried it. I hate the idea, though, of this tiny blade floating around in homes, one use for one product, the tiny plastic thing for opening plastics. Also, because of the diminutive size of the ISlice, I imagine that it is quickly lost in many homes, thus leaving people unable to open all their gadgets and batteries and CDs without difficulty, tearing up junk drawers and pencil cans looking for that tiny tool they bought just for that situation.
The little ear-shaped slicer has a tiny ceramic blade that too useless to cut anything big, but works well for cutting shapes out of paper, opening mail, and getting into difficult plastic packaging, like the stuff you must break through before you can use the ISlice. (Favorite customer joke: "What came first? The ISlice or the packaging?")
I hate the ISlice because it does not discourage the wasteful, exaggerated plastic packaging. Instead, it has made opening plastics "easy" and "fun." The product does work; I've tried it. I hate the idea, though, of this tiny blade floating around in homes, one use for one product, the tiny plastic thing for opening plastics. Also, because of the diminutive size of the ISlice, I imagine that it is quickly lost in many homes, thus leaving people unable to open all their gadgets and batteries and CDs without difficulty, tearing up junk drawers and pencil cans looking for that tiny tool they bought just for that situation.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Happy new year...
I've decided this year to focus on stupid products rather than stupid customers, except of course when there is an exceptional one.
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