Gaming The System

The other day I was at my local coffee shop, and Kate, the adorable but too-young girl that works there, was telling me about how a customer was trying to take unfair advantage of the 60-cent refill deal.  A small coffee is $1.50, and a refill is only 60 cents.  This customer, apparently, came in with an empty cup from a previous day, and was trying to get a coffee for only 60 cents.  That’s just tacky, and Kate of the Delicious Dimples was having none of it.  And rightfully so.

This kind of low-class chutzpah seems to be cropping up more and more.  One Saturday a woman came into my picture framing store with a plastic photo frame that she had bought across the street at Goodwill, needing an easel back.  Well, just the fact that she had bought the frame from Goodwill instead of me put her off on the wrong foot.  In this case, the frame required an unusually small and circular easel back, the kind of thing nobody in the world carries.  Which I told her, but she kept insisting, so I went in the back and brought out my smallest easel back, which was the wrong shape and too big.  She seemed to think she could make it work, though, and I could tell by her body language that she was getting ready to go and expected this piece of merchandise to be free.  So I quickly said “that will be $5,” whereupon she exploded.  She flung the easel back at me and launched into a tirade, accidentally knocking her plastic Goodwill photo frame onto the floor and snapping it in two.  She picked it up and slammed it down onto the counter, muttering that I should throw it out for her.  As she headed for the door, still in her tirade, I couldn’t resist a parting shot:  “we charge $5 to throw your frame out for you.”

I'm not opposed to giving away the occasional freebie.  Sometimes someone would come in looking for a hook, or a wire, and I would often give it to them at no charge, even though if they went to a hardware store they would certainly be paying for the same item.  But it was my decision, not the customer's.  I usually did it when the customer was reaching for his wallet, and finding out the small item was gratis was a pleasant surprise.  If someone came in expecting me to give things away, however, like the plastic-frame lady, forget it.  See how the clerk at Home Depot handles it.

I really don’t know where this mindset comes from, but it isn’t limited to coffee or picture frames.  It’s destroying the music industry, where illegal file sharing sites are robbing musicians of their rightful income for producing the music we love.  People don’t seem to realize that, whether we are selling coffee, or picture framing, or writing music, we are trying to make a living at it.  We have bills to pay, food to put on the table, kids to put through school, and when people try to game the system the way these people do, they are stealing from us.