This JUST happened not five minutes ago.
Old guy - late 70's I guess - wanders in the door.
First asks what we charge for Ebay selling and what we sell. (we're about the only place left in a 20 minute radius that still offers the service for people - you can't make a living running an Ebay store any more) - give him the details, etc.
Then we have this conversation:
OM - Old man
Me - stressed out computer geek
OM - I had come in a couple of years ago to get something fixed and they told me it would be over $200 so I took it somewhere else and they fixed it for pennies.
ME - That's unusual... it's usually the opposite here.
OM - Are you saying I'm lying?
ME - (dude, really?) No... we're usually cheaper than anyone else in the area. It's unusual someone else would be cheaper. What was the problem with the computer?
OM - I don't remember... it was a couple of years ago.
ME - (yeah sure) Were you looking into getting a hard drive cloned?
(I thought it might have been the old guy from this story but if my goldfish-like memory serves correctly, it didn't look like him)
OM - No, I can't remember what it was for.
(slowly wanders to the door)
ME - Well, thanks for stopping by.
Seriously. We ARE the cheapest place in the area. Unless we SEVERELY mis-diagnosed someone's problem, I can't see how he'd end up paying "pennies" to fix a computer problem. And if we HAD mis-diagnosed him, call me up and tell me so. It won't offend me. If anything it helps us to become better technicians.
Whatever. Most of our customers aren't miserable old farts. Maybe I should have said "Yes, I'm calling you a liar because I don't want your pennies."
I'm too nice.
Old guy - late 70's I guess - wanders in the door.
First asks what we charge for Ebay selling and what we sell. (we're about the only place left in a 20 minute radius that still offers the service for people - you can't make a living running an Ebay store any more) - give him the details, etc.
Then we have this conversation:
OM - Old man
Me - stressed out computer geek
OM - I had come in a couple of years ago to get something fixed and they told me it would be over $200 so I took it somewhere else and they fixed it for pennies.
ME - That's unusual... it's usually the opposite here.
OM - Are you saying I'm lying?
ME - (dude, really?) No... we're usually cheaper than anyone else in the area. It's unusual someone else would be cheaper. What was the problem with the computer?
OM - I don't remember... it was a couple of years ago.
ME - (yeah sure) Were you looking into getting a hard drive cloned?
(I thought it might have been the old guy from this story but if my goldfish-like memory serves correctly, it didn't look like him)
OM - No, I can't remember what it was for.
(slowly wanders to the door)
ME - Well, thanks for stopping by.
Seriously. We ARE the cheapest place in the area. Unless we SEVERELY mis-diagnosed someone's problem, I can't see how he'd end up paying "pennies" to fix a computer problem. And if we HAD mis-diagnosed him, call me up and tell me so. It won't offend me. If anything it helps us to become better technicians.
Whatever. Most of our customers aren't miserable old farts. Maybe I should have said "Yes, I'm calling you a liar because I don't want your pennies."
I'm too nice.
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