Monuments put from pen to paper

[venta]

Note for Americans: I live in the UK, where customer service is regarded as (at best) an optional extra.

Today I was in the card shop, Scribbler, buying a birthday card in rather a hurry.

Did I want a bag, asked the lady behind the counter.

No, but I would quite like the loan of a pen if she wouldn't mind.

She didn't mind. She asked if I wanted her to dispose of the card's plastic wrapping, and handed me my unwrapped card with a nice pen and a useful clipboard to provide a flat surface to write on. The clipboard even had an attached bit of paper for practice scribbling.

So hurrah! Well done Scribbler on High Holborn.

Comments

[sammason.livejournal.com]

I'm impressed that this sales assistant could get away with what she did. So many shops require their staff to dish out carrier bags as proof of purchase, as if the till receipt weren't sufficient.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Are you still seeing this in shops? I think that these days, in That London the tide has definitely turned and more and more people are bringing their own bags rather than accepting placcy bags. Shop staff seem a lot more inclined to offer bags, rather than just assuming.

In some shops, anyway. Getting out of our local Tesco Metro without a carrier is quite a challenge.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Yes it varies between shops. The sales assistant is unlikely to have choice in the matter, but occasionally I've been told that it's a policy to insist on giving bags. Convenient for advertising the shop.

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

Many places would probably have offered to sell you a pen.

[venta.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I've never had a shop refuse to lend a pen (not that I wish to imply that I am a disorganised sort who frequently buys cards at the last minute). They usually agree with varying degrees of grudgingness. No one's ever disposed of my wrapper or cared what I was going to lean on before, though.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Not that it helps today but years and years ago (20+) I worked in Athena and it was our policy to lend pens, dispose of wrapping*, and - here's the catch - offer to sell you a stamp as well. I suspect the last point drove the rest, but I know people appreciated it.

* Though a lot of our cards were not wrapped, if you remember the layout. Finding the matching envelopes took up a lot of our time.

[deborahw37.livejournal.com]

A gold star for Scribblers

[venta.livejournal.com]

They probably sell those, too ;)

[lookbookstoreco.livejournal.com]

Great :) im impressed on this :)