Saturday, October 31, 2009

it really does pay to complain

I wasn't the complainer in this story; I was behind her in line at the grocery store. As I was loading my stuff onto the line at the check out, I noticed that the lady in front of me was really complaining about there not being a bagger to bag her groceries as she was checking out. I guess he was a couple of isles down and would be there in a moment, but she was pretty mad that he wasn't there right then. The lady ringing her up was flustered, and forgot to scan her last few items before she totaled her bill and gave her the receipt. As she started to ring me up, I mentioned that the next items were not mine, and were probably hers. The cashier just bagged them up and handed them to bagger, who had now showed up and was helping her load up the groceries.

It kinda got me chuckling that the lady left in a huge huff, obviously irritated, and she didn't even realize that she had just scored free groceries. The cashier explained to me that she just didn't want to hear any more complaints. It didn't bother me, but I decided to try to use my kindness and charm to my advantage a bit... see, I had an old coupon for $2 off my next purchase. It had expired earlier that month, but it was still in my purse, so I just made small talk and tried to be nice to her since she was still obviously flustered by the previous rude lady. Then I slipped her the coupon before she totaled me up. She didn't even look at it and gave me my $2 off. Was I being just as bad as the lady before me? Aren't you were supposed to catch more flies with honey? :)

No comments: