Tweet
Every year for Christmas my parents get me a "gift membership" to Sams club (a wholesale store where you buy items in bulk at a supposedly lower price than a grocery store - like a 4 pound loaf of salami (uncut) at $3 a pound or 3 pound package (cut) at $4.350 a pound as opposed to what you want at $5 a pound at the grocery store). I normally use it during my next visit.
Well, over the years the "next visit" got pushed further and further back and last year it was a generic gift card so it got renewed in April.
Well, my next visit was a few days after Christmas. I get to the checkout counter and I let the cashier know that I wanted to renew my membership - thank god it wasn't busy and no one was behind me.
She explained to me that my membership wasn't up until April and I didn't need to renew it. I showed her the gift card and explained it to her. (I figured since I'm going to continue with the membership I might as well use the card now).
She didn't know if the system would allow a renewal this early so she called the front end supervisor. Of course he didn't know either so they had to call someone else.
While waiting I suggested - why not just scan my card and add on the renewal to see if it'll work.
They both gave me a blank stare for a few seconds then looked at each other - the sup suggested "why not try it?". She did and it went though and worked.
The sup left and the cashier apologized for the wait, she said that most people renew it late, let alone early and no one ever renews it this early so she didn't even know if it would work.
I told her it was no problem. I normally didn't renew it this early but since I had the card and needed to go then I decided to use it.
I can see where some people would get annoyed to maybe even angry over this but I look at it this way:
They didn't know the outcome so instead of guessing (until I suggested to try it - thus I'm letting them know it is OK to try) they decided to take the safer route to just check to make sure it was OK.
Well, over the years the "next visit" got pushed further and further back and last year it was a generic gift card so it got renewed in April.
Well, my next visit was a few days after Christmas. I get to the checkout counter and I let the cashier know that I wanted to renew my membership - thank god it wasn't busy and no one was behind me.
She explained to me that my membership wasn't up until April and I didn't need to renew it. I showed her the gift card and explained it to her. (I figured since I'm going to continue with the membership I might as well use the card now).
She didn't know if the system would allow a renewal this early so she called the front end supervisor. Of course he didn't know either so they had to call someone else.
While waiting I suggested - why not just scan my card and add on the renewal to see if it'll work.
They both gave me a blank stare for a few seconds then looked at each other - the sup suggested "why not try it?". She did and it went though and worked.
The sup left and the cashier apologized for the wait, she said that most people renew it late, let alone early and no one ever renews it this early so she didn't even know if it would work.
I told her it was no problem. I normally didn't renew it this early but since I had the card and needed to go then I decided to use it.
I can see where some people would get annoyed to maybe even angry over this but I look at it this way:
They didn't know the outcome so instead of guessing (until I suggested to try it - thus I'm letting them know it is OK to try) they decided to take the safer route to just check to make sure it was OK.
Comment