All prices are not created equal

Picture this: it's 7:30 AM on a Monday morning.

A customer walks in our area in the back that is specifically for people who come to PICK UP their orders. See...I am on a phone all day long helping people understand their system, their valve needs, and then TAKING ORDERS for valves. They can then elect to pick up the orders or have us ship it to them. This is not like Valve-Mart where people can come in and shop for valves. The process takes a little while. Is it customer friendly? No. Not so much.

So the guy walks into our warehouse with a valve that has been eroded with steam (I recognize that this sounds like a joke, but it's not). And yes, steam erodes metal. He wants his valve repaired right then. So the guy who does the boxing up and shipping of the valves (who is a temp and knows next to nothing about valves) comes and gets me to talk to him.

After explaining that his valve is not repairable, I offered to quote him the replacement valve and the thing that is mainly eroded. He doesn't believe me when I say that the valve is not repairable and asks the shipping guy if what I'm saying is right. Since the shipping guy knows nothing about valves, he looks at me, sees my nod, and then tells the customer that what I'm saying is correct. Um....that is irritating, but not as bad as the people that have asked me if they could speak to an engineer, not a woman. Which makes me want to shout that THEY ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE!!

As I'm getting the information for the quote, I ask him his name. To clarify his last name, I asked, "Is it Breeze like the wind or Brees like Drew Brees?" And he says, "Who is Drew Brees?" So that let me know that he is a turd and that I have bigger man-balls than him. *

I let him know that it will take a little bit to put the quote together -maybe 5-10 minutes. He sighs and says that he guesses that that will be okay - but wonders why I don't know enough to quote it right away. Umm...it's because we have about a million parts that have price changes often. He sighed and said that he would "let" me go check. Gee thanks, buddy. He only agreed
because we are located SO FAR AWAY he can't go back to his office. I asked where he was from and he said a suburb that is 20 minutes away. Poor you.

So as I'm walking away, he asks if we have a coffee machine. So I explain again (NICELY, might I point out) that we don't. Most of our customers call ahead so they don't waste a trip out here. Most of our customers can get their questions answered over the phone. Most of our customers are not cranky old men that are condescending jerks.

Anyway, because he was bummed that we didn't have a coffee machine for him, he actually asked, "Hey honey? Well then can you go ahead and fetch me a cup of coffee? Sugar, no cream. Thanks."

I wanted to suggest to him that he could go play a game of hide-and-go-fuck-yourself while he's waiting, but I didn't.

Instead I said we don't have coffee for him. I went back to my desk and marked up his order another 10% from what I would normally charge him.

Consider it my "asshole fee."

*Drew Brees is the quarterback for the New Orleans Saints. Something that most guys with the last name of BREEZE would know. I mean, Christ. If I have to know all of the Kennedys even though my name is NOT Kennedy, he should get to know the name of one of the top QBs.