My Corner

As I write the introduction to this post, I am sitting in a small courtyard behind A&J, on my last break for the day. I’m on the clock until 10pm, meaning that I have three hours left to go in what has been a rather busy day.

Among other things, we have been selling a lot of alcohol in the last few days. There is a large resort/conference center/hotel in town, Skamania Lodge. It used to be Dolce Skamania Lodge, but it was recently sold by Dolce. At any rate, when the sale became final last Wednesday, the liquor license that the lodge had (required to sell any type of alcohol) became invalid, for legal reasons I don’t understand. Depending on who you ask, either they simply dropped the ball, or the new license got lost in the mail, but at any rate, they are unable to sell liquor at all. So they’re sending all their guests down to A&J to buy alcohol. The guests don’t tend to be too happy about it, but then again, the alcohol we sell is probably a bit cheaper than the prices there.

We’ve also been short staffed due to two people that have become ill, one with a back injury, the other with a head cold. And the outrigger canoes were in town this weekend, so I’ve come home from work more or less exhausted, and not done much of anything else. But my break is over now, so until later,

–Nathan

I got a call today, below*.

“Hello, Mr. Oliver, this is name forgotten with Popular Science. I have a few questions for you. Are your magazines reaching you on time and in good shape?”

“They are.”

“Good. Are you enjoying your subscription?”

“I am.”

‘Good. The publishers sent out the renewal form with a price of $28, but we would like to offer you the price of $14.95. Since you are a preferred subscriber, and have been with us for some years, we would like to give you a discount. So we can give you this price of $14.95 for four years. No matter how much the subscription goes up to, you will still get this price for four years.”

“I don’t think I want to do that right now.”

“Let me assure me that you will not be billed until your current subscription expires, and that you won’t receive double issues, or anything like that. You keep your current subscription…

“I’m not going to renew right now.”

end of conversation

*Not an actual transcript, but the gist of things.

Within five seconds, I had located, on my floor, one of the many renewal/subscription cards that come in a magazine. It offers the price of $15.95/yr for one year, or $21.95 for 2 years ($10.98/yr).

Apparently, a “preferred subscriber” is someone they think has been subscribing for long enough that they will renew at any price.