Friday, January 12, 2007

Customers are Smrt

Where I work we offer free trial subscriptions to five different magazines to customers as they come through the checkout. Approximately half the people that come through my line respond to my magazine pitch in this way, see if you can catch the mistake.

Me: With your purchase today you get eight risk free weeks of one of the magazines, which would you like to go with?
Customer: Neither.

... "Neither?" So you want neither of the FIVE magazines I've just offered you? From dictionary.com:
Usage Note: According to the traditional rule, neither is used only to mean "not one or the other of two." To refer to "none of several," none is preferred: None (not neither) of the three opposition candidates would make a better president than the incumbent.
And also today:
Me: There's $41.41 left on your giftcard.
Teen Customer: $41.41? That's ironic.
Me: [stifles rage]

WHY CAN'T PEOPLE LEARN THE MEANING OF IRONY? Irony is when the conveyed meaning is opposite from the literal meaning. Not when you have $41.41 left on your gift card.

People are fucking stupid. There, I said it.

For more smrt people, watch the one funny bit from the E show Starveillance:

1 comment:

Abby-Wan Kenobi said...

Irony is the most misunderstood concept in the history of everything. Or, the history of everything that annoys me. I vote you start punching people in the throat.

Want to know something that is an interesting coincidence, but not all the way to ironic? My laptop died a mere 6 days before the release of the shiny new version of Windows. Which I will now have the day it drops. Some may call this irony, but it is, in fact, good timing.