potpourri: February 2005 Archives

I've gotten into the habit lately, whenever I'm at the office late (a phrase which is rapidly approaching the status of self-evident redundancy), of phoning ahead an order to some place on my way home and just picking up take-out. Tonight I stopped at a sandwich place, and grabbed a Sprite to add to my order. So far, so good.

The woman rings me up, and it's the same price quoted to me over the phone. Oops, I say, did you forget to add this on? Oh! So then she subtracts it from my price, invoking the seldom-used Sprite discount, I guess. I've already handed her my money, and she starts to make change.

"No no no, I think you accidentally subtracted my drink. Just add it on twice."

Oh. My. God. Confusion ensues, and I stand there for five minutes, explaining it to her twice, doing the correct math in my head (with sales tax), and assuring her that she shouldn't be giving me as much change as she thinks she should. Finally, she brings over another cashier, who just rings it up right the first time.

It's not like it was a big deal: a few minutes, a couple of bucks, whatevs. But the weird social awkwardness of persuading someone to give me less change? I should have just taken the Sprite discount.

That is all.

And this is the just the tip of the iceberg. There's one school of thought that says you're not "official" until you've weathered your first crisis. Me? I like to think that "officiality" comes from the distribution of details: things like nameplates, directory listings, decrees of snack food preferences, and yes, brand spanking new business cards.

However, I am disappointed to report that I still had to officially request that the word "Email:" not appear before my email address. Tempting as it was to play Business Card Exposition (and request that instead of deleting "Email" they add "Name:" in front of my name and "ZIP Code:" in front of 13244), I opted instead for the path of least sarcastance.

The mildly perplexing part: it cost us as much to remove the word "Email" as it would have to add the word "Name." Changes are changes are changes, it would seem.