the situation is worse than you thought

Oboma Voters!

Not everyone can have an above-average intelligence. And it's not her fault that she wasn't born brilliant.

Somebody has to work at a Starbux clone. She's not at the top of the food chain. My cats are.

They do tend to train us quite well, don't they. The cats I mean.

From what I heard, when ALan Jackson and Engvalls met... It was out there, he was selling stupid signs for two bucks apiece, two for five. People were payingt he five buck for two rather than buying them individually.

You have to excuse them though because sometimes marketing makes it that way, but that wasn't it at the time.

Yup.

Just tellum "Here's your sign".

I was in a store a few weeks ago buying ammo (.45ACP). I picked up two boxes of 100 ($40). The sales droid tried to tell me that the "super pack" of 250 ($111) was a better deal. Uh, OK, if you think so. I guess there is a reason he's working the floor in a sporting goods store.

I think you're assuming that he couldn't do the math. It's entirely possible that he could, but that he was hoping that you couldn't. Then he'd have made a sale of $111 instead of $80, with an increased profit margin thrown in.

Sylvia.

Possibly - or simply like a lot of sales people, he was just 'playing the numbers.' Say anything, and see what sticks. If he doesn't think at all, he conserves mental energy and attention - He knows that shoppers will buy what they want to buy regardless of what he says, and yes, if he can get you to spend more money. Plus, usually, the quantity buys ARE a better deal, per item. So he just went with that. And in a Darwinian sense, you don't represent any gain or loss to him. He's getting paid by the hour. Any attention to you is a loss to him. He is sleeping on his feet. In physiology terms, he is controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system - rest and digest. The sympathetic nervous system, thinking on your feet with adrenaline, is hard to buy for $9 an hour. Those guys are off making $25 an hour.

I see that all the time in the grocery... the "economy size" is almost always higher priced per unit.

I do this test all the time and the results are frightening...

Suppose you have a tab for $4.23

Hand the cashier a $5 bill.

He/she rings it up.

Then fish 23 cents out of your pocket and hand it to him/her.

Watch the panic >:-} ...Jim Thompson

and I have to give you the change it tells me to!

Maybe you should ask how her _manager_ got there, after all, she only tells you what she's instructed to tell you...

joe

I fully appreciate your comment. I believe the human brain has huge evolutionary advantages in its ability to strategize and reason abstractly. But somehow that ability becomes an achilles heel, as the brain can be programmed to be stupid, or locked into a semi-hypnotic state. Having to deal directly with reality helps a lot.

This is to be divorced from reality. This insight is the main insight of Buddhism and Hinduism. These religions, to varying degrees, try to undo the isolatonist-illusionary aspect of the mind. There are two types of religion: those that worship a god separate from you and those that tell you who you are.

There are some interesting stories in the history of zen. Zen today is practically extinct. It exists in only a few scattered places around the world. The samurai in Japan practiced it, for a reason which few know. They didn't care about enlightenment, etc., but Zen did one thing for them. In a sword fight, the Zen practitioner nearly always won. That's very motivating.

Sales droids don't give a damn about profit margins. It's likely their boss can't do the math, either (reality mismatch goes all the way to the manufacturer).

Almost always.

You should have got the hot water, then ask her to dump the water out for you. :-) Mikek

The shelf tag should list the price per unit, in addition to total price, and larger size is always cheaper so you're seeing things.

That's because he/she has to enter the total received from the customer. The time to fish for change is before they ring up what you give them and not after.

"I'll like a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast..." "...hold the chicken."

"super pack" of 250 ($111) was a better deal"

Who actually set the price though ? The owner or manager of the store should have adjusted the prices.

RichD wrote in news:8c27cccc-8570-4af8-a96f- snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Not an unreasonable policy. Customers who want an extra cup are probably cheapskates who are going to split a drink with another person or who are going to top up both with milk or who are likely to make a mess.

Customers who just want hot water may have a medical condition so shouldn't be discriminated against, and are likely to be buying other items.

Too high an IQ leads to frustration in that sort of job. Not good for anyone on either side of the counter.

That's really irrelevant. The price is what it is. The choice is which to buy (or not, of course).