“I once worked in a cellphone department at a retail store, and we were supposed to sell a certain amount of phone insurance plans every day to meet our quota. There was this one lady who just bought four of the latest iPhones for herself and her family. I offered her insurance plans, and she basically said there’s no point because she would just buy new phones if anything happened. This was in 2018, so four new top-of-the-line iPhones were about a grand each.
I tried to push the insurance plans a bit because 4,000 dollars in sales with no insurance or add-ons hurt my numbers, and 4,000 dollars is a huge investment.
So my pitch went along the lines of, ‘What would you do if the phone broke or you cracked the screen?’
She got so irritated that she bought four more phones as replacements just to prove she didn’t need insurance. Then she proceeded to berate my selling skills, and laughed in my face about being a broke college student, working to pay tuition (this had come up in conversation with a coworker, and she overheard). I wouldn’t have been upset about any of this up until this point.
However, after I finished setting up her new phone, she went over to a non-carpeted section of the store and dropped her brand-new phone, shattered the glass screen. Then she came up to me and told me to set up her new one. I felt really disrespected, but I had no choice. I couldn’t refuse the request of a customer who just spent 8,000 dollars at our store. Retail is truly a horrible place.”
