These are a collection of recent Facebook updates… And the full story behind them.
“you do the secure shredding… it’s $.75/pound, what is a pound?” WTF lady. c’mon. “do you weigh it before or after you shred it?” SERIOUSLY?
So times are tough. We’re all feeling it in this economy, but most particularly, retail entrepreneurs. Daddy and I have put our heads together to try to get folks to come into the shop. We do SO much in the shop that, most of the time, if we can just GET someone in the door, we can find some way to sell them some kind of service. We put up a little sign at the front of the store and are running Monthly Specials.
So we offer secure shredding at $2/pound. If you’ve got more than ten pounds, it drops to $1/pound. The beauty of offering this service is that EVERYBODY has more than they thought they did. They haul in trash bags or boxes full of paper and they think it probably weighs 15 pounds. In truth, it tips the scales at 65 pounds and they’re both shocked and kind of proud. They just hauled 65 pounds of paper trail from their office, down the stairs, into the beat up Camry, across town, across the parking lot and heaved it onto our counter. So, yea… The idea of paying $65 to make a confetti parade out of their identities is not something people WANT to pay, but the shit has to be shredded and they’ll be damned if they’re going to huff and puff that shit back across the parking lot, into the Camry… yadda yadda yadda.
We’re offering shredding at $.75/pound. Not a huge savings, but has caused a few people to nibble. The beauty of marketing things that are under a dollar is counting on people not being good at math. If you’ve got five apples and they’re $1 each, it’s quick math. 1-2-3-4-5. Boom. But if you’ve got five apples and they’re $.75 each, you’ve got… well, two is $1.50… Two of those is $3…? Right? Oh fuck it, here. Just shred my shit.
What we do NOT count on when people are lured into our shop is for them to be fucking morons. This fucking woman came in, doing something else, then saw the sign. SCORE. Hooked one, Daddy. [invisible high five]
I guess maybe she thought that, during the shredding process, our blood, sweat and tears are poured into her bank statements… And you know, liquid is like… heavy. Heavier than air, right? What a fucking stupid bozo, man.
I wish I could have captured my dad’s face. You know you’re really stupid when my dad jokes about you after you leave the shop. He is like… The epitome of good business practices. Customer is always right, what can I do to help you, blah de blah blah. When she left, my dad looked at me, widened his eyes and cocked his head, ever so slightly to the side and said, “WHAT?”
Beautiful.
aw, sweet old lady. you’re very cute. but telling me, “my mouth is too dry to lick my envelope,” and then flapping your cracked mouth muscle all over the envelope is really fucking sick. i’m holding tape right in front of you. can i please just tape your envelope before you sever your parched tongue?
Oh God. This one was so fucking disgusting. And it was one of those things that starts to happen after you’ve let your guard down. You’re standing there, grinning sweetly to the granny with the Fall Leaves appliques on her sweater and the giant beige handbag and all of a sudden, from behind her sweet pursed lips, a demon serpent erupts from her mouth. It was flailing and flipping and retreating back into her mouth, desperately seeking some moisture to activate the adhesive on the envelope.
ACTIVATE, ADHESIVE! DAMMIT!
She must have done this in-and-out-the-mouth dance three or four times while I stood there at the counter smiling sweetly at her. I wonder if, when she looked into my eyes, she could hear the guttural howls from inside my chest… When she mentioned her parched condition, I thought for sure one quick close-up of the mouth would reactivate those aging salivary glands and cause a rush of rose-perfumed saliva to splash around her mouth. But no, it didn’t. I reached for the tape and sat it down on the counter in front of her, but unable to actually spit out the words, “Here, I can tape it for you.”
By the third time, my subconscious had retreated into my head… I was running over other memories of people who lick envelopes. Seriously, I should put this on my personal ad: “Must not like licking envelopes.” It’s got to be one of the grossest things EVER. And in this modern world of self-stick EVERYTHINGS, why are people still buying/selling envelopes that require you to take it to first base?
BARF. GAG.
There was this one time, this man came in to send a letter. Instead of putting his very mouth muscle on the questionable surface, he closed his mouth and pleaded with his moisture pockets to fill his mouth with goo. I watched him work his mouth, the flesh under his chin bulging out as his tongue did who-knows-what inside his mouth. And instead of licking the envelope — I expected this, I was prepared for this, it was going to be okay — he brought his thumb and index finger up to his mouth and appeared to drool into his fingers. He swiped them quickly over the shiny line of glue on the envelope but not quick enough. A long line of that drool stretched from his lip to his fingers and broke, landing squarely on his chest.
I can only imagine what MY face looked like in that moment. HORROR.
And the worst part about licking envelopes? After you have thorougly saturated your power bill with your DNA, you HAND IT TO ME. It is inevitable that somehow, my fingers will recognize the damp, cold sensation of your germs dancing around in a glue party. GAG.
Hand sanitizer is my friend. Hand sanitizer is my friend.
“i need to send this fedex” “ok, do you want to send it ground service or do you have a specific time frame that it needs to arrive?” “well, is it going to cost me?”……………….? um. YES. any way you send it, it… you know. costs money.
I think this one speaks for itself, no?
“Can I please get something for nothing? AWESOME.” What the fuck man? There are points of service — basic, bells and whistles and bedazzled. If basic costs you SOMETHING, you can rest assured that when you’re asking for superior services, yes, they’re going to cost you.
Also, while I have your attention, if you want a letter to get to California from the east coast TOMORROW, don’t scoff at me when I tell you that it’s going to cost more than $40. Do you understand how FAR it is to California? Do you understand how many people are going to be involved in getting your (late) mortgage payment to the bank?
Shut the hell up and pay the money for being late and needing it overnighted in the first place. In fact, you should be apologizing to me because you do this EVERY SINGLE MONTH when your mortgage is due. Pay your bills on time, dangit.
overheard at my job: “your package will come with $100 insurance. will that be sufficient?” “oh no, i don’t want to pay for insurance.” “ok, in the event that anything happens to your package, the contents are damaged, or it gets lost in transit, you will still be able to claim the value of the contents of the package …for up to $100 because it’s included.” “is something going to happen to my package?”
I wish you could have seen the face on my Daddy here.
It was something like this, only less fashionable and less… um… Jigga.
I wanted to step in and say, “Ma’am… You do have car insurance, right? Homeowner’s insurance? Health insurance? And even if you don’t, please, DEAR GOD, tell me that you understand the CONCEPT.”
/faceslap
My job really is awesome it’s just the customers that ruin shit.
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The buzz of the crowd…