I hate this commercial. The more I see it, the more it annoys the shit out of me. For those of you without the capability of pressing play on a video, allow me to summarize. The guy pulls into a gas station and wants to use the squeegee. The gas station employee (I like to think he is more than just an employee, this guy owns the gas station), says that you have to buy gas in order to use the squeegee. “No gas, no squeegee.” The driver says he his car is a plug-in hybrid and then pumps $.86 worth of gas. He defeats the evil gas station attendant and declares triumphantly “squeegee!”
So why does it bother me so much?
Entitlement. The guy acts like he should get the use of the squeegee, which is for paying customers.He just pulls in and wants something free. Now, do not jump on me about how gas stations are going to be obsolete in the next X amount of years and they need to figure out ways to entice people to their location to purchase other things. That is not really the point of this rant.
Allow me to give you two examples from where I work. If someone orders a takeout meal, we give the person who picked it up a free cookie. We generally make sure to say “here is a cookie for picking up the order.” Do you know how many calls I get from people saying “you only gave us one cookie, we ordered three meals!” Yeah, you only get one cookie for the driver. It is just something nice we do.Or if we run out of cookies (haha, never happens, but just pretend that it did), people will call freaking out that they did not get the free cookie. I have had people say “well you should give me the money back for the cookie.” What??? Okay, I will give you zero because that is what you paid for it!
The worst though is a woman who comes in for a cup of coleslaw to go. If you come in and order a takeout meal (or if your food is not ready), we will give you a complimentary drink while you wait. So this lady will order the coleslaw, then ask for her complimentary cup of coffee while she waits. So the hostess up front will go get her a cup of coffee and then get the slaw. The lady then says “can I have a TOGO cup for the coffee?” And the hostess will generally give it to her because they do not want to deal with some old lady getting upset. And she wants her free cookie. Eventually I put my foot down and told her she could not have a cup of coffee to go since a cup of coleslaw takes about a minute to get. This lady was getting a free cup of coffee (a takeout coffee is $2) and a free cookie ($1) for a cup of coleslaw that costs like $2.29.
When I finally told her no, she had a fit. “Well they have always done this for me!” And I explained that it was wrong and the hostess was just trying to be nice. She went from annoyed to rage and started yelling at me. “WHY CAN’T I HAVE MY FREE COFFEE???”
That is the problem. Every business has some kind of perk for customers. A squeegee for buying gas. A cookie for ordering a takeout meal. A cup of coffee for waiting a few minutes. These things are just an added bonus. Do not try to game the system to get the free stuff. Do not get upset if it was forgotten or not offered.
Okay, rant over.
