On Potentially Unscrupulous Caveats
I am by no means a designer, but I managed to knock together a logo for a friend’s organization, and received in return a $25 gift certificate for Dick’s Sporting Goods. These holidays make for relatively light work volume for me, not least due to how convenient an excuse they provide to blow off legitimate labor to be undertaken, and the certificate was due to expire at the end of the year, so I took a “lunch break” and made my way to find something worth taking home.
I’m not in the pro shop crowd, and I don’t have much microfiber or camo in my closet; but I have been considering a part-time career as a petty thief (it’s the best kind of thief, really), so I thought I might find some implements of nonlethal intimidation among the hunting knives and crossbows. Excited as I was to find them, however, I passed up the selection of semi-realistic AirSoft firearms for a pair of sturdy gloves to keep Danielle’s dainty fingers safe from the perils of the shipping warehouse and the only other thing I could find in the neighborhood of $10-$15, a pair of 8x binoculars.
Resigned to such an underwhelming return on my Illustrator wrangling, I made my way to the counter for what I expected to be a token exchange with the cashier. Here, slightly paraphrased, is the conversation which ensued:
Cashier: Hi, will that be all?
Me: Yes, thank you.
[The diligent if intrinsically befuddled customer hands the cashier a $25 gift certificate.]
C: So, that will just be $0.01.
M: Um, what?
C: Well, I can’t discount it 100%, so it’ll just be $0.01.
M: I don’t get it. How much was the total?
[An expression of revisited annoyance snakes across the cashier's pasty face. It is obvious that this is not the first such conversation, at least for the cashier.]
C: Your total came to $21.98.
M: So, I have a $25 gift certificate, and I am buying $21.98 worth of stuff. What am I missing?
C: Because I can’t discount it 100%, I made the total discount $21.97. So, it’ll just be $0.01.
[The intrinsically befuddled customer appears lost in thoughts of violence and ice cream.]
C: Diane, can you help me?
[Diane, with all the wit and compassion of a Hun, weighs in.]
Diane: It says somewhere on there that the minimum purchase has to be $25. Technically, she’s not even supposed to give you the discount if you’re not buying $25 worth of stuff.
[The intrinsically befuddled customer eschews remarking that few things in the store are, in truth, worth anything close to $25.]
C: So, that’ll just be $0.01.
[The diligent but intrinsically befuddled customer slides a dollar bill across the counter, salvaging some measure of dignity by forcing the cashier to return $0.99 in coins.]
I’m pretty sure my friend received said gift certificate from a business acquaintance of his as part of a business-building venture on behalf of Dick’s. If I had, instead, had a customer-purchased gift certificate or gift card, I’m certain that the exchange would have played out differently one way or another. I can appreciate the business angle, and I can appreciate the fact that I basically got “$22 worth” of stuff for $0.01; but that notwithstanding, it serves Dick’s business-building interests to prepare their staff for what has to have been a pretty frequent conversation. It’s my fault that I didn’t read all the fine print, sure; but, then, it’s not really a “gift” certificate if there are such obtrusive strings attached.
I suppose, though, to be fair, that’s a more attractive option than naming them “Certificates Intended to Get Warm Bodies with Cash into the Stores So They Buy Things What We Put on the Shelves For Making Money on Them”.
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