That reminds me - I was speaking to a retail manager at Orange the other day, on a train. I thought retail manager meant she was in charge of the shops side of things for the region or summat but it really means she gets told how to run a shop and then does it.
I asked if she was the one responsible for people in mobile shops haranguing you as soon as you walk in and she explained that when that happens in a shop, it is usually a a fail criteria of the mystery shoppers (head office spies) if you don't approach a customer within 15 seconds of them entering the store.
So in future I'll try explaining to staff that I'm not a mystery shopper, show them my staff ID for elsewhere or whatever. As we know, there's no good reason at all to do any more than greet a customer you make eye contact with - asking if they are ok is harassment and if they are capable of entering their pin or signing a cheque, they are capable of asking for help from you, stood ready to help them a discreet distance and staying the hell out of the customer's way.
Reminds me of the time after I moved to Hull where a new phone was needed and I headed into 'Phones For You' (no, I'm not spelling it the chav way). I was looking for either a Samsung D500 itself, as this was the model I wanted, or simply a magazine with the vital statistics in. Kid comes over, asking me if I am alright. I wasn't aware that I didn't look alright, but there we go - Hull's idea of alright has not frequently coincided with my own. I asked him to see a Samsung D500 and he said they did not have a display model as it was too new. I said "that's fine, I'll just take a brochure then - I'm only having a little look today and I'll buy in a week or two with my wife, who is contributing as a birthday treat". He asked when my birthday was and I told him it was due in two weeks. This was a problem, apparently - the amazing offer they were currently doing could not be guaranteed to still exist in a fortnight and they had, so far as he knew, the last three D500s in town - everyone had been coming in asking for them as other places had sold out. Oh dear. I'd better buy one then, hadn't I? I looked at the package they were offering. I usually make about 30 minutes of calls and send about 30 texts a month. The only package they 'could' sell me the D500 in was alas offering me 200 'free' texts and 300 minutes per month. I hda no idea there even was three hundred minutes in a month. I had to look it up when I got home. So... I reiterated that I was just looking for a brochure to discuss it with my partner (we like shopping for tech, us two) and I'd not be buying today, and he rattled of another bunch of stuff, primarily that they weren't doing brochures anymore so I couldn't have one. He asked me to wait there for a moment, and returned to the comfy little interrogation booth he'd brought me into with the manager. It was like Ant or Dec walking onto the stage with Samuel L. Jackson instead of their usual foil. This guy was a baaaaaadass mutha with a strong pitch and a deep, booming voice that threatened uncoolness if I didn't take the offer and buy the phone. I pleaded spousal autocracy and apologised most profusely at my inability to redeem myself in the eyes of my peers and sign the line on that contract of ultimate cool he had printed out for me, just in case. His final gambit was
"Are you saying there is no way I can sell you this phone today?"
I replied in the negative - he [i]could[/i] sell me the phone, but not a contract. And it would have to work on Virgin Mobile where I'd been up to this point. Off he went, leaving Ant or Dec to ask me if I would exchange my number for one of his business cards. I was impressed - I thought he was just a spotty herbert in a bottom-rung sales assistant job. Clearly not - he had business cards. One should never judge another on appearances. So yeah - he got my number, with the last three digits changed to 666, because that's whose backside he can kiss if he thinks I'm going to buy a phone from him. And not three days later I walked into the O2 shop and purchased an Ericcsson S700i instead, what with the D500 being sold out across the nation and that. The S700i is the same spec with a larger screen and memory stick support. Runs Opera mini like a charm and becomes a useable camera when it needs to, as opposed to being a phone with a camera on it. I was after both and at the time 1.3 megapixels on a phone was like 1.3 million pretty girls with red hair on my sofa. Lovely.
Moral of the story being that if you've bought a contract from Phones For You in the last couple of years, you were probably a gullible fool who deserved the ripping off that inevitably happened. Even if you got a good deal, you are still going to hell for validating and empowering such an insidious, humanity deprived void-church of sales bullshit with your custom.
...and while you mull that over, you might also want to consider changing that bloody mp3 of a popular tune that flutters and rattles its way out of your insubstantial phone speaker every time one of your friends calls you. It sounds rubbish and is too loud and even if any proper people liked it (which they don't, because it is Coldplay or something) they are going to be so sick of it soon thanks to you and your misguided idea of what will make other people hate you a little less. Be a decent human being and have a phone type noise on your phone. I have a gradually increasing Tardis sound on mine - it doesn't become loud too quickly or too slowly and feels like a ringing noise, albeit a strange one.
I asked if she was the one responsible for people in mobile shops haranguing you as soon as you walk in and she explained that when that happens in a shop, it is usually a a fail criteria of the mystery shoppers (head office spies) if you don't approach a customer within 15 seconds of them entering the store.
So in future I'll try explaining to staff that I'm not a mystery shopper, show them my staff ID for elsewhere or whatever. As we know, there's no good reason at all to do any more than greet a customer you make eye contact with - asking if they are ok is harassment and if they are capable of entering their pin or signing a cheque, they are capable of asking for help from you, stood ready to help them a discreet distance and staying the hell out of the customer's way.
Reminds me of the time after I moved to Hull where a new phone was needed and I headed into 'Phones For You' (no, I'm not spelling it the chav way). I was looking for either a Samsung D500 itself, as this was the model I wanted, or simply a magazine with the vital statistics in. Kid comes over, asking me if I am alright. I wasn't aware that I didn't look alright, but there we go - Hull's idea of alright has not frequently coincided with my own. I asked him to see a Samsung D500 and he said they did not have a display model as it was too new. I said "that's fine, I'll just take a brochure then - I'm only having a little look today and I'll buy in a week or two with my wife, who is contributing as a birthday treat". He asked when my birthday was and I told him it was due in two weeks. This was a problem, apparently - the amazing offer they were currently doing could not be guaranteed to still exist in a fortnight and they had, so far as he knew, the last three D500s in town - everyone had been coming in asking for them as other places had sold out. Oh dear. I'd better buy one then, hadn't I? I looked at the package they were offering. I usually make about 30 minutes of calls and send about 30 texts a month. The only package they 'could' sell me the D500 in was alas offering me 200 'free' texts and 300 minutes per month. I hda no idea there even was three hundred minutes in a month. I had to look it up when I got home. So... I reiterated that I was just looking for a brochure to discuss it with my partner (we like shopping for tech, us two) and I'd not be buying today, and he rattled of another bunch of stuff, primarily that they weren't doing brochures anymore so I couldn't have one. He asked me to wait there for a moment, and returned to the comfy little interrogation booth he'd brought me into with the manager. It was like Ant or Dec walking onto the stage with Samuel L. Jackson instead of their usual foil. This guy was a baaaaaadass mutha with a strong pitch and a deep, booming voice that threatened uncoolness if I didn't take the offer and buy the phone. I pleaded spousal autocracy and apologised most profusely at my inability to redeem myself in the eyes of my peers and sign the line on that contract of ultimate cool he had printed out for me, just in case. His final gambit was
"Are you saying there is no way I can sell you this phone today?"
I replied in the negative - he [i]could[/i] sell me the phone, but not a contract. And it would have to work on Virgin Mobile where I'd been up to this point. Off he went, leaving Ant or Dec to ask me if I would exchange my number for one of his business cards. I was impressed - I thought he was just a spotty herbert in a bottom-rung sales assistant job. Clearly not - he had business cards. One should never judge another on appearances. So yeah - he got my number, with the last three digits changed to 666, because that's whose backside he can kiss if he thinks I'm going to buy a phone from him. And not three days later I walked into the O2 shop and purchased an Ericcsson S700i instead, what with the D500 being sold out across the nation and that. The S700i is the same spec with a larger screen and memory stick support. Runs Opera mini like a charm and becomes a useable camera when it needs to, as opposed to being a phone with a camera on it. I was after both and at the time 1.3 megapixels on a phone was like 1.3 million pretty girls with red hair on my sofa. Lovely.
Moral of the story being that if you've bought a contract from Phones For You in the last couple of years, you were probably a gullible fool who deserved the ripping off that inevitably happened. Even if you got a good deal, you are still going to hell for validating and empowering such an insidious, humanity deprived void-church of sales bullshit with your custom.
...and while you mull that over, you might also want to consider changing that bloody mp3 of a popular tune that flutters and rattles its way out of your insubstantial phone speaker every time one of your friends calls you. It sounds rubbish and is too loud and even if any proper people liked it (which they don't, because it is Coldplay or something) they are going to be so sick of it soon thanks to you and your misguided idea of what will make other people hate you a little less. Be a decent human being and have a phone type noise on your phone. I have a gradually increasing Tardis sound on mine - it doesn't become loud too quickly or too slowly and feels like a ringing noise, albeit a strange one.
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