Enjoying Your Orange Juice Cheapskate?

[dragonflygrrl]

We've only done this once, and it was during Hurricane Charley. Between no power, no landline phones/cable, etc, and the piles of crap that we moved to the interior of the house in case the front doors blew in (we had to hold them in), the car chargers got lost. I live in Orlando, and we went to Tampa 2 days after the storm to take me to school. We stopped to get me a cell phone, and my dad plugged his into the store charger because driving with no cellphones is dangerous - especially just after a storm. It's an exception, but a good one I think

That is totally acceptable, and I hope nothing was too badly damaged and no one was injured. People with an ACTUAL emergency such as yours, are totally welcome to partake of free power. "I forgot to pay my light bill and my phone is dying," is not an emergency.

I just had one earlier today that was eating at the Pizza Hut next door, and came in thinking he could put his phone on one of our chargers and leave it charging on our counter while he ate his lunch. Um, no.

[Imogene]

Depends on which store you purchase it from. My chain and several other drug store chains will accept cosmetic returns.

Usually? WalGreens, and again, I'd be too mortified to even try to return it and explain it had been used when I bought it... that sounds suspiscious even to me, and I lived through it.

[Seanette]

My fiance's company used to give every employee a frozen Butterball turkey every Thanksgiving (not terribly useful, since it was given to us still frozen rock solid on the Wednesday, but still a nice gesture, I guess). They had to stop because certain people would go to the truck and just load up their cars with frozen turkeys, leaving none for the night shift. I mean, who really wants more than maybe two turkeys in the freezer at any one time?

What one company I used to work for did was to issue tickets, distributed to employees by supervisors, and surrendered when holder picked up his/her bird.

[chainedbarista]

it's cheap and selfish; they think they're so special that someone else should foot the bill for their beverage/food/*insert item here.*

yet another shred of faith in humanity is destroyed...

[Barefootgirl]

I just had one earlier today that was eating at the Pizza Hut next door, and came in thinking he could put his phone on one of our chargers and leave it charging on our counter while he ate his lunch. Um, no.

Why on earth didn't the idiot ask someone in Pizza Hut to put it on charge for him? They have power outlets in PH too, and given that he was a customer there, it wouldn't have hurt them to let him charge his phone there for a bit.

Oh, duh. He didn't actually have a charger of his own. OK, i get it.

*is slow today*

[pbmods]

Phone Charging Stories

I went to a Verizon store a long time ago (at least a year ago), and they actually had a counter where you could go to have your phone charged (I think it was officially the service & repair counter?). Anyway, they were very nice to me, and had I remained a Verizon customer, I would have shopped there in the future (What can I say? Pay-as-you-go became too expensive, and T-Mobile was offering me a *free* RAZR for switching).

Admittedly, (and I guess, as I illustrated above) not everyone that you're nice to comes back. But you *do* gain some extra business with these 'freebies'.

The one mistake I've *never* made, however, is feeling entitled to free phone charging. I went into a T-Mobile store the other day after running over my charger with a vacuum cleaner, and they refused to charge my phone. So I said, "Ok, sorry to bother you. Thanks for your time." And I walked out (I had already ordered a replacement phone charger online; I just wanted some peace of mind until it arrived).

[Ezrockspants]

oh yes, people can be very cheap. one woman comes into our shop every afternoon to look at the "reduced to clear" section in our coolers, to see what ridiculously cheap things are on offer today because they go out of code tomorrow.

She never buys anything at full price, she doesn't even go near the company-wide scheduled promotion section!!! I think we ought to be able to ban such people as this. She will sometimes clear us out of everything that has been reduced that day in one swoop! You'd think we would be happy for this maybe, but its the fact she does this every day that pisses us off, and we make a loss every day by serving her. She's a horrible, horrible woman, terribly overweight, my manager hates her for doing this. He'd rather throw the out of date food in the bin than let her buy it. Its such a sucky thing to do.

Sometimes i'll just be starting to put reduced stickers on the goods i have found to reduce, when she'll walk in, and i'll stop, take my stickers in the back and watch her on camera until she's left. But she comes back later, we just make her wait

I have a guy like that at my store...
Every Saturday morning, at about 7.30am, he will come in, grab a basket, spend 10 mins at the reduced stand, pick one thing and come to the checkout. But what annoys me the most is that he leaves his basket in the most stupid place at the counter (where other customers, or even myself, could trip on it) when he doesn't even need it in the first place!

[varmintjane]

what's so bad about buying reduced price food? It's not like she's bartering or whatever. If she doesn't buy it, then it will spoil and be thrown away. WASTED. Even if she's buying only the reduced stuff, at least she's buying something. I'd rather somebody buy it than have it be thrown away. There's no rule that says you have to buy stuff at full price. If they don't want her doing it, they shouldn't have the bin anymore. But it is called the REDUCED TO SELL bin for a reason.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Whenever we have senior citizens' days, we serve juice and cookies during the morning.

We'll have people come in, take a bunch of cookies, and walk out the door. Somebody even took an entire bottle of juice.

[Kiwi]

oh yes, people can be very cheap. one woman comes into our shop every afternoon to look at the "reduced to clear" section in our coolers, to see what ridiculously cheap things are on offer today because they go out of code tomorrow.

I dont understand whats wrong with that? isnt it better that you sell the expiring product then let it spoil?

I dont understand how that can make you take a loss when youd recieve the same amount if 15 other people brought the same thing in smaller chunks.

If she was rude I could understand you not wanting her around, but it saves you the extra work of throwing the stuff out at the end of the day.

When I was backpacking in the USA I went into bakerys and delis just before closing to snap up the unsold sandwhiches (they usually mark them 50-75% off in the last hour) to get rid of them before they have to be thrown away. That way at least they get the cost back on the ingrediants. I got an extra month of travelling out of buying cheap food. Forget Rachel Rays $40 a day, try $14!!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

what's so bad about buying reduced price food? It's not like she's bartering or whatever. If she doesn't buy it, then it will spoil and be thrown away. WASTED. Even if she's buying only the reduced stuff, at least she's buying something. I'd rather somebody buy it than have it be thrown away. There's no rule that says you have to buy stuff at full price. If they don't want her doing it, they shouldn't have the bin anymore. But it is called the REDUCED TO SELL bin for a reason.

I interpeted her post as saying the really rude thing is to take a basket when you only but 1 item and don't need it, and then just throw the basket someplace when you are finished shopping.

There's nothing wrong with buying reduced price food. I wish we'd set up some kind of system where food that is close to its expiration date gets marked down a little. It seems a lot of our grocery items don't sell very well, so we have to toss them when they expire, take a hit on shrink for all that food we threw out, and then order some more.

I don't have a problem with shopping for clearance. I do it all the time. But it can be problematic if shoppers fight with each other over the same item, or hide items to purchase later.

[Mixed Bag]

Like others say, better to get what you can for what's expiring--but if you think maybe people are waiting for the discount and would buy the food at regular price if the discount wasn't available, you can always try it that way and see what happens.

[Canarr]

There's a charity system in most larger German cities, called "Die Tafeln" - the tables. They pick up food close to expiration from restaurants, supermarkets, grocery chains... and transport it to local homeless shelters. Helps the people who can't afford food otherwise, and companies can deduct the donations from their taxes.

[varmintjane]

I interpeted her post as saying the really rude thing is to take a basket when you only but 1 item and don't need it, and then just throw the basket someplace when you are finished shopping.
\.

Oh, I was talking about this:

Originally Posted by Crafty1289
oh yes, people can be very cheap. one woman comes into our shop every afternoon to look at the "reduced to clear" section in our coolers, to see what ridiculously cheap things are on offer today because they go out of code tomorrow.

Not the post by EZpants. I think it sucks that a lot of food goes to waste even when it is reduced. I think it's a good idea for stores to do that b/c most people are not going to be able to subsist on reduced-items only and it eliminates some of the waste. I don't see why a manager would be pissed off about someone actually buying it. Most people won't because either the reduced items are not something they would eat or b/c they don't want to seem cheap. And not to get too off-topic but Crafty, does she do other things that make her a SC? The only thing you mention about her in the post is that she's "horrible" and is "overweight". Being frugal doesn't make her an SC unless she is rude to staff or snatching the clearanced items from other customers.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Well, we had another senior citizens' day yesterday. And in addition to the guy who took the entire bottle of juice, we now have the Cookie Monster.

He headed straight for the refreshments table and began shoveling cookies into his mouth hand over hand, just like Cookie Monster. He ate 2 whole trays of cookies in one stop!

Then, he went to the pharmacy to buy something, came back to the refeshments table, and took a bunch of cookies and placed them in his bag from pharmacy to take home!