![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This woman comes into the store today and starts off by telling me what a horrible little town this is and how she can't wait to leave it. I ask what I can do to help her.
She then rails about how people in Pagosa are just not interested in serving customers, how the U-Haul guy is closed on Saturday, how people are generally weird in this burg, and how it's nearly impossible to find shipping boxes in town. Then she spies our inventory of boxes and asks how much they cost. I tell her the price depends on the size of the box.
After rummaging around for a bit, she picks a box and asks "How much?" I tell her. She lets go of the box so quickly, you'd think it was on fire. "There's no way I'm paying that much for a box," she says. I put on my best commiserative face; lots of people suffer sticker shock when they find out how much new corrugated boxes cost. Heck, I'm one of them when I order the confounded things.
"I'm going next door to get some boxes," she announces, thinking that the liquor store will be a soft touch.
"Just make sure there's nothing on the box indicating that the contents might be liquor of any kind," I offer.
"Why not?" asks the woman.
"Because the post office will assume the contents are liquor, which cannot be shipped in the mail," I respond.
"Well," she says, "that's pretty stupid."
"Perhaps," I say, "but that's the rule." Saying that is easier than trying to explain why it sort of makes sense to assume that a box moving through the postal system with "whiskey" printed on the side might, um..., contain whiskey.
"Oh, I can't wait to get out of this town," she says, as she heads out the front door.
The woman returns later with a box of clothes. I weigh the box, take measurements, and give her prices for Priority Mail, Parcel Post, and UPS. The former is too expensive, she says, the second choice is too slow, and UPS is out of the question because they're incompetent. Perhaps, she says, it would be less expensive to divide the package into three portions and send three packages? The question turns out to be moot, as she would rather burn at the stake rather than buy any of our boxes.
I tell her that, in any event, dividing the contents won't decrease the overall price (indeed, it will increase it), whereupon she tells me that she's been sending packages around the country for 10 years in a tone of voice that clearly shouted "Sonny, don't teach granny how to suck eggs."
I try to hide my amazement (thinking: "You've done this for so long and don't know box label rules or simple rate logic?") but manage to smile, congratulate her on her experience, and admit to a mere 5 years of expertise in the racket, having handled only a few thousand packages at most.
I figure telling her we sell about a quarter million dollars a year in postage would've been a little over the top.
In the end, she leaves the shop with her box of clothes, muttering "I can't wait to get out of this town!"
It occurs to me she probably says that a lot, no matter where she is.
Drew suggests later that, upon her first saying how weird Pagosans are, I should have crossed my eyes and affected a severe speech impediment. In retrospect, I think he was right.
Cheers...
She then rails about how people in Pagosa are just not interested in serving customers, how the U-Haul guy is closed on Saturday, how people are generally weird in this burg, and how it's nearly impossible to find shipping boxes in town. Then she spies our inventory of boxes and asks how much they cost. I tell her the price depends on the size of the box.
After rummaging around for a bit, she picks a box and asks "How much?" I tell her. She lets go of the box so quickly, you'd think it was on fire. "There's no way I'm paying that much for a box," she says. I put on my best commiserative face; lots of people suffer sticker shock when they find out how much new corrugated boxes cost. Heck, I'm one of them when I order the confounded things.
"I'm going next door to get some boxes," she announces, thinking that the liquor store will be a soft touch.
"Just make sure there's nothing on the box indicating that the contents might be liquor of any kind," I offer.
"Why not?" asks the woman.
"Because the post office will assume the contents are liquor, which cannot be shipped in the mail," I respond.
"Well," she says, "that's pretty stupid."
"Perhaps," I say, "but that's the rule." Saying that is easier than trying to explain why it sort of makes sense to assume that a box moving through the postal system with "whiskey" printed on the side might, um..., contain whiskey.
"Oh, I can't wait to get out of this town," she says, as she heads out the front door.
The woman returns later with a box of clothes. I weigh the box, take measurements, and give her prices for Priority Mail, Parcel Post, and UPS. The former is too expensive, she says, the second choice is too slow, and UPS is out of the question because they're incompetent. Perhaps, she says, it would be less expensive to divide the package into three portions and send three packages? The question turns out to be moot, as she would rather burn at the stake rather than buy any of our boxes.
I tell her that, in any event, dividing the contents won't decrease the overall price (indeed, it will increase it), whereupon she tells me that she's been sending packages around the country for 10 years in a tone of voice that clearly shouted "Sonny, don't teach granny how to suck eggs."
I try to hide my amazement (thinking: "You've done this for so long and don't know box label rules or simple rate logic?") but manage to smile, congratulate her on her experience, and admit to a mere 5 years of expertise in the racket, having handled only a few thousand packages at most.
I figure telling her we sell about a quarter million dollars a year in postage would've been a little over the top.
In the end, she leaves the shop with her box of clothes, muttering "I can't wait to get out of this town!"
It occurs to me she probably says that a lot, no matter where she is.
Drew suggests later that, upon her first saying how weird Pagosans are, I should have crossed my eyes and affected a severe speech impediment. In retrospect, I think he was right.
Cheers...
