My friend Aaron and his wife Dawn got back from a trip to Hawaii a couple weeks ago. He told me about their skydiving their and it sounded pretty exciting. I asked him if he did anything else "big" over there and he nonchalantly mentioned a helicopter tour. Even though skydiving is pretty safe, I thought to myself that the helicopter tour must be a little safer, overall. I bet 9/10 of the people asking about his trip ask about the skydiving first.
Well, it turns out he'll probably be talking more about his helicopter trip. Compare their photo
With one of a tour helicopter that crashed today, killing four
Yeah.
Here's Aaron's short take on it.
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In other, non-near-miss-accident stories, I got called a bad salesperson at work yesterday!*
Yep, it's true.
I don't consider myself the best salesperson ever, but I think I am honest -- I've saved people $150 by telling them they can use their digital video camera as a webcam, instead of having to buy one (of course the irony is they are now going for $300 on ebay) and I've talked people down from expensive computer models to something that better fits their needs. I also almost never say "I don't know," but instead hop on Google and see if their program will actually work on the computer they are interested in.
So, this guy walks in, and pretty early on you can tell how serious people are about getting something. One thing that suggests a lack of commitment is they will ask a question, you will start to answer, and they will interrupt you halfway through your first sentence. In everyday conversation this would be considered very rude, but it happens all the time. In fact, Aimee had a little boy *during* one of her programs yesterday that did very same thing. Maybe he and my customer are related.
He goes on to ask if we have any discounts. I ask if he is a student. He says yes. I say we have a student discount. He asks if he needs any kind of proof. I say yes. Says he doesn't have anything with him ("it's spring break") -- he's probably 24 years old, not what I would call the college type -- he could be a student, but more likely he's trying to get the discount without being one.
We move on and he asks what other kind of discounts we have. I mention we will occasionally have demo computers marked down. He asks if we have any "first time buyer" deals, which honestly I have never heard of, but he says Sony has some really good ones.
I say no, we don't have any first time buyer sales.
At this point we've barely even talked about the computer. But he goes on to say that if I can make him a deal right now he'll buy a computer otherwise he's walking out the door.
"Sorry, we don't really do any kind of deals."
Immediately, he starts to walk out: "You just lost a sale. Terrible salesperson. I'm out of here. Bad job." He trails off some other really rude comments that I don't really want to repeat because it would further the case for the world being full of really mean spirited, ignorant people.
"See ya!" I say as he leaves. Don't know if he heard me. I'm pretty sure he was just in there to waste someone's time and I got the bad luck of the draw. Sometimes you ask someone if they need help and out of the blue you meet someone who needs some unique help and is really friendly about it. Other times, you *really* regret asking the person.
I hope he enjoys his Sony.
*Remember, you don't know where I work and I can't say
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How the world really shapes up - exaggerating the world map based on consumption.
Minority Kart - best animated gif ever?
The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids - or: How I became a terrible salesperson?
Matt Haughey interviews MeFi's own Adam Savage.
Penn Radio is done. I used to download this Podcast pretty often for my commutes, it was good stuff. Check out the Matt Stone and Trey Parker interview towards the end of the shows.
Posted by alangage at March 9, 2007 02:35 PM
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