So this elderly Scottish lady comes in with a list of things she wants to advertise for sale.
When she’s gone our designer brings me the list and says “hey – there’s an ‘Air-cooler’ here- says as new – for R350.”
Knowing our offices (the designer’s in particular) get very, VERY hot I said “Go catch the lady and ask her to bring it in – maybe we can buy it if it’s suitable.”
The lady and her husband brought it to the counter about ½ hour later, I was talking to someone else in the reception area at the time so I turned to take the thing as her husband lifted it over the counter, suggesting that they leave it with us so that I could test it.
She was most distraught at the idea.
“That’s ridiculous,” she brayed in her deepest Highland accent, “I told you it was brand new. Why on earth do you need to test it?”
Quite thrown by her angry outburst I turned to the guy I had been talking to and asked him if he would excuse me for a second or two. I had a good look at the ‘cooling machine’ - it was covered in dust and not in any box or anything – though it did have the instruction booklet taped to the top. It certainly hadn’t just come ‘off the shelf’ – unless it was the shelf at the back of her garage.
I carried it to the designer’s office and quickly glanced at the instructions – When I read ‘Unscrew the back panel and place ice in the tray, then open the water hatch and pour in water…” etc etc I realized this wasn’t a quick job. So I went back out to the reception and once again said to the now-seething lady –
“Please, we would like to test it – then if it’s ok and does the job we’ll buy it. Can we call you later?” Her husband (sensing a storm?) nodded in agreement, but she strutted out the office saying loudly to him that we were being totally unreasonable and inappropriate.
I couldn’t believe how upset she was that we wanted to test the thing – it’s second hand for goodness sake!
So we did the unscrewing of back panel, put in ice, added water, plugged it in and a faint, cool breeze emanated from its belly…. But that’s how it stayed, very faint…. And just a little bit cool. We closed the office windows and doors and left it on for ½ an hour, then went back in and… no difference. Closer study of the machine (we had to be doing something wrong) found the words ‘humidifier’ at the top. Actually we should have seen it earlier – it was quite big – but perhaps our brains had been befuddled by the Haggissual outburst.
We read the instruction book again – but no, we were obeying even the small print (for a man that’s quite a victory).
So being the man of the office I bravely instructed the designer to phone the lady, suggesting that she be diplomatic and merely state that the machine wasn’t suitable for our office.
This is how the conversation went.
Designer: “Hello ma’am, I’m calling from The EDGE. We have tested your machine but I’m afraid it isn’t suitable – perhaps our offices are too big for it to be effective? Any way, we won’t be buying it.”
Woman: (in a Northern Gaelic dialect) “So you’ve used it?”
Designer: “Er yes, we tested it. It worked ma’am, but it’s just not…”
Woman: “So you’ve used it, you turned it on….now what? We were selling it as new – now it’s used isn’t it?”
Designer: “Well we TESTED it. We had to TEST it and it ISN’T Suitable”
The woman slammed the phone down.
Hang on… they’re here. This story is running live!
Ok, a few seconds ago she and her (poor, poor, poor, poor) husband came to fetch it. Our designer tried to meet them at the counter but found it impossible to stifle her laughter, so she blurted a quick “bewithyounow” and rushed to call me.
She (the designer) had done the phoning so I thought I would handle the ‘hand over’. As I lifted the machine over the counter – explaining (again) that it wasn’t quite suitable for us - the Scotswoman (still visibly seething) waited until her (poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor) husband had it in his clutches before she went in for the kill.
“Aaah Wooood Jis leeek ta tal ya thut aah feel yuh huf teekin advuntuge o’ us,” she said (I would just like to tell you that I feel you have taken advantage of us).
“I beg your pardon?” I said, raising my right eyebrow quizzically (I’ve seen Steve Austin do it in ‘Bionic Man’ – it works well for those ‘I know I’m not going to believe your answer’ moments)
“It wis
She continued “The fact (now you see why I didn’t want to write in Gaelic) that it doesn’t work for your office is not our fault!” she hissed “You can’t buy something from a second hand shop then take it back when you’ve tested it.”
“Er actually ma’am, I think you are being a little unfair,” I answered (not very butch I agree, but she is a shade older than me) “If I buy anything second hand, I will test it. That’s what people do, It’s common prac…”
By this time her husband was sort of half humming half muttering a non-committal mmm mmm mmm thing which I believe he hoped I would find sympathetic and she would find to be in full moral support of her anger. He was also trying to edge towards the door, though his eyes being firmly focused on the ground made it difficult to find the way, so he kept walking into the window like one of those remote control cars hitting an obstacle over and over again.
She wasn’t finished. “Oh I see!” She blurted, sensing imminent victory, “So your telling me if you buy a second hand bed or something, you’d test it? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Er, yes. Actually I would. I’d lie on it .. I think,” I answered.
She launched into a long diatribe about thanking her lucky stars she wasn’t married/connected/joined at the hip to me – or something, and she left .
There is no quirky end to this tale. No rounding off conclusion. It just happened. Today.
All I can say is that though we have always known Sedgefield has more than its fair share of strange people… I hadn’t realized they were IMPORTING THEM!
