Nearly all the grocery chains now have their own special "membership cards" you sign up for to get the prices they ought to be charging anyway. I suppose it's supposed to inspire customer loyalty -- but I personally believe the vast majority would either pick the nearest grocery store, or the one with the best produce. I don't think a membership card is going to put one over the hump.
In fact, my grocery card is a regular source of annoyance. I had to fill out a form when I signed up for one, providing my name and such. It's in their computer, so that every time I swipe it at the checkout, my name shows up on the receipt. And it's part of the spiel that every time the clerk finishes ringing up a customer, he says "thank you, Mr./Ms. So-and-so."
They never pronounce my last name right. It's part of the ritual; they hand me the receipt and then mangle my name horribly. The last clerk to check me out somehow managed to insert an extra syllable or two.
Why do they do this? I have to figure they get it wrong somewhere in the neighborhood of one-third of the time. For every "Smith" out there, there's a "Nahasapeemapetilon." You can test this yourself -- just imagine some circle of people you know. It could be a group of friends, the people you work with, whoever. Roll through their last names in your mind and imagine how many you honestly think someone would pronounce correctly if seeing it for the first time.
In short, are the number of people out there stupidly thinking, "wow, he knew my name!" larger than the number of people thinking, "here he goes, about to totally mess up my name again"?
You know, I don't think I'm going to let it slide anymore. Next time one of these grocery clerks messes up my name, I'm gonna make a buzzer noise, or say "not even close," or something like that.
It's my name. I'm taking it back.
4 comments:
yea, I've had the same issues. It's frustrating. I'm sure there is a vast majority of people out there that just enjoy the "design intent" of that whole marketing feature and just enjoy hearing their name spoken like they are somebody important (despite it being wrong).
I've had those cards for years and have never been to a supermarket where it says my name. With my luck, it'd probably say "Winters."
Though I do go out of my way to shop at the store three miles from my home that does not have a membership card. Prices are lower overall than the store that does (and is only half a mile from my apt.), and it's just a prettier store.
HA! I would love to see the look on someone's face if you said, "ENNNT, wrong answer. The correct answer was Lorentz. But we have some nice parting gifts for you."
As I'm sure many of you can imagine, I have never in my life experienced such butchery as when someone tries to say my married name.
For this, I gave up a word that is in the dictionary.
(Next time I have to sign up for a card like that, I'm coming to leave a comment on someone's blog and putting in my CAPTCHA as my last name. There, bitches. Choke on that.)
(If it was right now, it would be Kvropul, which I think would be delightful.)
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