Let Us Install It!

So I went to the Big Box 'puter store. I was buying an external hard drive. I knew what I wanted and basically walked in and directly to the item I wanted and went to the desk to pick it up (they had them in the back and you had to bring an empty box to them). Conversation with sales dork as follows:

Sales Dork: Will that be all for you today sir?
Duffy: Yes, thanks.
Sales Dork: Do you need this professionally installed?
Duffy: ...
Sales Dork: Sir?
Duffy: It's an external drive
Sales Dork: Right and we can dispatch a tech to make sure everything is installed properly so you don't have to worry
Duffy: (thinking: I'll play along) And just how much is that going to cost me?
Sales Dork: We're having a special so we can do it for $29.99
Duffy: So, $30 to "install" an external hard drive. Does anyone say yes to that?
Sales Dork: (somewhat deflated) Sometimes...(looks around to see manager has departed) sorry, we have to do that with almost everything.
Duffy: No problem. Can we get this over with?

I feel for the poor guy. He's required by his manager to insult his customers in an attempt to charge them unnecessary fees.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Duffy, I work in retail and we have to ask every customer if they want an extended warranty with any eligible product they buy. Sometimes it's a good idea to get them, sometimes not, but if we don't ask, we hear about it from the boss.

Don't really like it but I gotta pay the bills.
1:49 PM
The Last Ephor said…
Anon,

I sympathize. It's dumb but the boss doesn't give you a choice. The boss should be a bit smarter and either offer an incentive thing for people who upsell or give some customers the benefit of the doubt.
4:02 PM
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