A lot of people think there’s bound to be a great benefit to befriending staff of a store where you want to buy something.

But there often isn’t. It can be quite a rude awakening.

Read this story to find out why computer shopping may disappoint you.

Sure, I’ll give you my employee discount!

I worked at an electronics store that had an employee discount based on profit margins.

I worked in the computers section, where margins are either incredibly small or nonexistent.

They come in so hopeful!

Computers are not cheap, so occasionally I’d have customers that would try to get every discount they could on them.

Haggling, no. Coupon codes, nope. Price matching, negative.

Then there are those who will lean in and surreptitiously ask “Hey, can I use your discount?”

Sure, absolutely, no problem, anything for the customer!

And they leave either disappointed or amused.

I’d hit the total and they’d be puzzled because the amount looks the same as before because we got nothing off on computers.

Luckily most people understood and laughed when I explained.

But my manager has been called a couple times when people legitimately thought they were about to get a hefty discount that I “promised” them.

Let’s see what people are saying.

I wish people would understand this and leave electronic sales people alone!

People love denial and hate math.

True. It’s just not worth much, so they need to understand that.

Well that gets the message across! Not sure it’s appropriate to be snarky, though.

An interesting business…

Do your research before shopping. And do some math, too.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.