Special Snowflake Stories

[heartmug]

How did you keep from shouting "Are we really arguing about 90 cents?!"

[Cami]

How did you keep from shouting "Are we really arguing about 90 cents?!"

When I worked in the bridal salon, I had a MOB have a melt down over TWO CENTS. The poor bride was so embarrassed by her mother, who was screaming and yelling so much about it, that she wasn't hearing the clerk tell her, "It's okay, we'll just write it off the bill. No problem." Finally, I went over and handed her two pennies from my petty cash drawer and told her to give them to the clerk. "BUT IT'S THE PRINCIPLE!" she shrieked, slamming her hand down on the desk. I then told her, "The principle is this -- we have your mother of the bride gown. If you want it, then eitiher give the clerk back those two cents or listen to her when she's telling you that we'll just wipe out the two cents on your account." I finally told her to go outside to calm down and come back when she was ready to listen. Which she did. The bride looked at me and then giggled, "You just gave her a time out!"

[Tea Drinker]

How did you keep from shouting "Are we really arguing about 90 cents?!"

The problem with saying "are we/you really arguing about 90 cents?" (or "15 cents," or whatever seems like a small amount in that context) is that it goes both ways: the person saying it is making exactly as much of a fuss about that 90 cents as the person they're talking to. If you think that 25 cents more or less for a cup of tea is trivial, you should be willing to accept the smaller amount (if you're the store) or be willing to pay the larger amount (if you're the customer). The shopkeeper who says "but if I gave everyone that discount it would cost me significant money" is matched by "but if I paid that much more for everything I bought, it would cost me significant money."

[mmswm]

How did you keep from shouting "Are we really arguing about 90 cents?!"

Back when I was still working loans/lines I had a banker call in for a customer.  The banker knew what was up, but the customer was being belligerent, so she was just calling to appease him.  Anyway, the issue was that there was an interest charge on a line of credit.  The customer's overdraft protection had kicked in and he had paid it back the next day.  Now, most lines of credit, unlike credit cards, have no interest free  grace period.  Interest begins accruing the day the customer takes out money against the line.  The total amount of interest this customer had to pay was five cents.  This guy spent more money in gas driving to the bank to complain about it.  He got nasty about it, yelling at people to the point where I could hear him clearly even though by that point the manager had taken him to a closed office somewhere else in the branch (the banker had kept me on the phone to ask about a real issue with another customer's account).  Unfortunately, the phone call ended when my banker told me he was going to have to hit the panic button because of the original customer's behavior. Over five cents in legitimate interest charges.  The funny thing is if he had been nice about it, the banker would have probably waived it.

[Barney girl]

A few years back I bought some meat from a butcher at the market. The price was £x.99 and he kept my 1p change saying he had no change and needed it more than I did. I asked how he came to that view, but left it at that.
He has of course lost a customer for the sake of that 1p whereas if he had given me 2p back I could probably have found another 1p in my purse.

[Belle]

An Australian University apparently got fed up with all the people who insisted that they should not have to pay a parking fine, because their situation was speshul.

The excuses we commonly get and why they won't work

I try not to be snowflakey, but if the parking division at that university is anything like the one at mine, I have sympathy for the drivers. It's impossible not to occasionally get a ticket at my university, even when you're legitimately trying to follow all of the posted rules and signs (e.g., they've ticketed people for being in the wrong lot on days when the university is closed and, according to the parking dept.'s own rules, parking is not enforced). And there are no exceptions for people driving cars for university business (one of the center column excuses) - twice this year I've had to persuade somebody to run business errands with me just so I can leave the car running with a driver in it rather than park. I had to make roughly 20 stops all over campus in areas where there is no available legal parking. My options were to park illegally, walk 5 miles+ in below-freezing temps in business attire, or beg somebody to drive me.

[/rant]

Luckily, my university now waives two tickets per year, no excuses necessary. Probably cuts down on them having to deal with all of the snowflakey excuses!

[siamesecat2965]

How did you keep from shouting "Are we really arguing about 90 cents?!"

Back when I was still working loans/lines I had a banker call in for a customer.  The banker knew what was up, but the customer was being belligerent, so she was just calling to appease him.  Anyway, the issue was that there was an interest charge on a line of credit.  The customer's overdraft protection had kicked in and he had paid it back the next day.  Now, most lines of credit, unlike credit cards, have no interest free  grace period.  Interest begins accruing the day the customer takes out money against the line.  The total amount of interest this customer had to pay was five cents.  This guy spent more money in gas driving to the bank to complain about it.  He got nasty about it, yelling at people to the point where I could hear him clearly even though by that point the manager had taken him to a closed office somewhere else in the branch (the banker had kept me on the phone to ask about a real issue with another customer's account).  Unfortunately, the phone call ended when my banker told me he was going to have to hit the panic button because of the original customer's behavior. Over five cents in legitimate interest charges.  The funny thing is if he had been nice about it, the banker would have probably waived it.

Oh I could totally see my friend's DH arguing about this! He is cheaper than cheap, have never ever carried a balance on a credit card (where you'd have to pay interest), and paid cash for the ONE car he's ever owned.

Before they were married but living together, they got a joint cc, with a period of no interest. Which ended after so many months. Well, he didn't pay attention to when it ended, they had a balance, and got charged interest. He had a coniption!  screamed and yelled, and carried on, and was told, hey, you agreed to the terms, so its your responsibility to make sure you pay it off, if you don't want to pay any interest.  He was not happy, but paid it. And I think it was less than $10.

For some people, it is the principle, but they also obsess over stuff. Esp stuff they have no control over, such as gas prices, and so on.  Her DH is one of those.

[Midnight Kitty]

Who is going to invent a Snuggie with a wine bottle pocket?

Ooooooo!  Good idea!  We should make sure it has pockets for wine glasses and wine keys as well.

No! Do NOT put pockets in your Snuggie for wine glasses! That will make plopping down on the couch very uncomfortable.

[Midnight Kitty]

...   From graduate school today:  I spent most of last week 10-12 hours a day working on a presentation.  My partner made a smartboard activity.  We presented it today. Immediately upon finishing the chick behind me asked the teacher if she could have a copy of our project "so I can reference it when I work on mine."  ...

I'm curious.  What was the teacher's response?

She was like "only if they want to"   

She encourages sharing, I don't believe in sharing.  I figure if I can put in the work, so can everyone else.  But this chick wants a copy of everything everyone makes for this class.  I will continue to refuse

I don't know if the following story belongs here or in the Brain Hurt thread.

I was attending community college taking a night class in mechanical drawing (drafting).  Our teacher was a real estate salesman moonlighting as a teacher.  He was in the back office on the phone with clients during most of the class time. He told us to "help each other."  There was another serious student (in addition to myself, of course) in the class and the rest were slack-jawed losers who showed up to class stoned.  The other Serious Student and I helped the other students when asked, but it took increasingly more time from my own class work.

Halfway through the term, the teacher announces he's going to grade on a strict curve.  There are 20 people in the class & the top 10% (2) will get "A"s.  I'm trying to get the best GPA I can so I can transfer to a good 4 year university.  The other Serious Student and myself looked at each other and, in one glance, decided that student tutoring was over.  We proceeded to concentrate on our own work and yanked the curve out of reach of the rest of the class.

[Cat-Fu]

Who is going to invent a Snuggie with a wine bottle pocket?

Ooooooo!  Good idea!  We should make sure it has pockets for wine glasses and wine keys as well.

No! Do NOT put pockets in your Snuggie for wine glasses! That will make plopping down on the couch very uncomfortable.

No, instead one of those camelbak reservoirs should be sewed on. Nice and squishy.

[Shalamar]

SiameseCat's story reminds me of when my dad got charged interest on his Visa.  He had never paid interest on it before, and his position was that he shouldn't have to pay it now, because the only reason it had accumulated interest was that a postal strike had delayed receiving the bill in the mail.    So, he called the bank - at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday before a summer long weekend.  Oy.  To be fair, though, he was very polite and non-SS on the phone, and he did indeed get the interest charge waived.

[siamesecat2965]

SiameseCat's story reminds me of when my dad got charged interest on his Visa.  He had never paid interest on it before, and his position was that he shouldn't have to pay it now, because the only reason it had accumulated interest was that a postal strike had delayed receiving the bill in the mail.    So, he called the bank - at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday before a summer long weekend.  Oy.  To be fair, though, he was very polite and non-SS on the phone, and he did indeed get the interest charge waived.

See that I have no problem with. The delay was due to something not in his control, and he politely asked, and was given his request.

My friend's DH will p*ss and moan about this and that. I reluctantly referred them to my mechanic. She has an old POS car which has seen better days. but he refuses to replace it until they can pay cash, and even then will only consider one car, due to price, even though its not really quite suitable for their needs.

Anyway, she had an issue with her car, with it not starting. She took it in, he fixed it, but as sometimes happens, it did it again. DH said he was going to call and scream at them. Um no, you are not (she did, but didn't scream). it was one of those things that sometimes happens and my mechanic is good, so if there IS an issue he can FIND, he will fix it.

[Virg]

Who is going to invent a Snuggie with a wine bottle pocket?

Ooooooo!  Good idea!  We should make sure it has pockets for wine glasses and wine keys as well.

I don't understand.  Why would you need these things?  Doesn't the butler handle all of that stuff?

Virg

[mmswm]

SiameseCat's story reminds me of when my dad got charged interest on his Visa.  He had never paid interest on it before, and his position was that he shouldn't have to pay it now, because the only reason it had accumulated interest was that a postal strike had delayed receiving the bill in the mail.    So, he called the bank - at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday before a summer long weekend.  Oy.  To be fair, though, he was very polite and non-SS on the phone, and he did indeed get the interest charge waived.

See, that's the thing, even when dealing with the "big, bad banks", you can often times get things waived, but you have to be nice and polite.  If the guy I talked about had said something to the effect of "Oh, I didn't realize that interest started immediately.  Is there any way to get that tiny amount waived this time?"  The banker would have probably said "sure thing!" without a second thought.  The bank is far more interested in keeping that $10 ODP fee the checking account charged than the pennies in interest the line of credit charged.  If waiving a nickle in interest will do that, then that's what the bank is going to do.  If, however, you get violent and belligerent, we're going to dig in our heels.

[siamesecat2965]

See, that's the thing, even when dealing with the "big, bad banks", you can often times get things waived, but you have to be nice and polite.  If the guy I talked about had said something to the effect of "Oh, I didn't realize that interest started immediately.  Is there any way to get that tiny amount waived this time?"  The banker would have probably said "sure thing!" without a second thought.  The bank is far more interested in keeping that $10 ODP fee the checking account charged than the pennies in interest the line of credit charged.  If waiving a nickle in interest will do that, then that's what the bank is going to do.  If, however, you get violent and belligerent, we're going to dig in our heels.

I think this is true with anything. I work in retail, and we are not supposed to do price adjustments for items that go "on promotion" only when they are full price, then marked down, the first time.

Yet we constatly get asked, and since we have "discretion" usually do it for customers. But if you are nasty about it, we will also dig our heels in and say no. Ask nicely, sure, we will usually do it. since it means returning and repurchasing. the return doesn't go against the employee who sold it as we aren't on commission, and we get the new "sale"