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The customers—young women, white collar jobs, probably outfitting a first house if my sales instincts are working—give him a collective not-sure-we-want-to-spend-the-money look. “The thing is,” says one of them, “we’ve just bought our first house”—called it—“and so we’re a bit… We want it to be nice but we’re also a bit…”
“It was very expensive,” says the other lass. “With stamp duty,solicitor’s fees, furniture, white goods, aDyson. It’s all adding up really quite fast.”
The first one elbows her partner and gives her a sharpAlliewhich I’m pretty sure is code forAllie, why are you talking about our personal finances in front of a man who sells showers.
“It’s alright.” The lad nods. I swear he’s just got three percent more South London. Sometimes a working-class accent makes people trust you, because it makes them think you’re too thick to have an agenda. “This is just me,” he says—it’s not just him, it’s a well-rehearsed bit—“but if you want some free advice, there are things you skimp on, and things you don’t skimp on. And something you’re going to use every day that will last you ten years, that’s something you don’t skimp on.”
They look at the Nexa by MERLYN 8mm Sliding Door enclosure with a mixture of desire and apprehension. “Do you have one at home?” asks Allie—it sounds like she means it as a gotcha but we get this all the time.
“I got the next model down,” he says, “but I’ll be honest, I wish I hadn’t. It’s fine, but I look at this every day and thinkif I’d just put down that couple of hundred quid extra.”
They’re this close to treating themselves. And the lad’s right, this isn’t something you cut corners on.
“Delivery?” asks Allie.
“Free. Installation’s a bit more but we can work something out.”
Work something outis code forcharge exactly what we intended to charge, but be friendly about it.
The customers exchange glances and squeeze each other’s hands in a let’s do this kind of way. And the lad is just about to close the deal when JonathanfuckingForest steps in like a smarmy badger. “Sorry to interrupt,” he says, “but my colleague here seems to have forgotten to tell you about our protection and service plan.”
The sales lad looks at him and then, when he realises that’ll do no bloody good he looks at me. And though we’ve never met, I know exactly what he’s thinking, because it’s exactly what I’m thinking. Which is that you do not under any circumstances try to upsell a couple of twentysomethings who are a harsh word and a loud noise away from running out the showroom without spending eight hundred and eighty-five pounds plus installation on a walk-in shower.
“Is that…something we’ll need?” asks the one who isn’t Allie.
“You can find,” Jonathan says with a confidence that he most certainly has not earned, “that with this kind of unit—if it’s not treated carefully—problems can build up, seals can go. It’s all minor things but by buying our protection and service plan now you can save yourself much more in callout fees for small maintenance work.”
He is blowing this. He is fucking blowing this. And worse, he’s doing one of his own fucking team out of commission on a sale that’ll be nearly a grand by the time they get it through the till. The tall lad is looking at me like I don’t know what and since he can’t say anything on account of not wanting to get fucking fired—
I step forward like a deer stepping in front of another deer in the mistaken belief it’s immune to being hit by cars. “Can I let you in on a secret?” I ask. And to myimmensegood fortune Jonathan Forest is too stunned to tell me to shut up immediately.
“Sorry,” asks the one whoiscalled Allie, “who are you?”
“Oh, don’t mind me,” I tell her. And like the tall lad I’ve gone just three percent more regional. “I work at a different branch so it’s not my place, but the thing about this extended warranty malarkey”—to be clear, I very seldom saymalarkeyin everyday life—“is that when you think about it, we wouldn’t sell it to yez if we thought you’d need it.”
Allie and not-Allie hover in confusion just long enough for Jonathan to say, “Sam, I don’t think—”
But I ignore him. And fuck does it feel good. “What I mean,” I go on, “is that this is a good product. I know he might have made it sound like it’s hard to take care of, but it’s not. You just give it a bit of a wipe down when you’re done, spritz it with some grout cleaner every now and then, and it’ll cause you no trouble. If you’ve got the cash spare, and you want the peace of mind, the protection and service plan can be a load off, but I’m not going to sell you anything you don’t need, or anything that won’t last you, or anything I wouldn’t use myself, and neither would any of my colleagues.” I gesture to Jonathan and the tall lad who is looking as relieved as he can given that I’m still only half convinced I’ve saved this.
Not-Allie still seems a bit unsure, and says she’s unsure. I used to be better at this, but I’ve not been on the sales floor for a while. In some ways I miss it—not in an always-be-closing, thrill-of-the-chase kind of way, but when you do a sales job right you really feel you’ve helped someone. Management’s more like washing up. Any sense of achievement is fleeting.
“Well, tell you what,” I say, “how about you have a talk with”—I turn to the tall feller—“sorry, I don’t actually know your name.”
“Liam,” he tells me—his mam must’ve been an Oasis fan.
“You go have a talk with Liam here, and he can run you through some options, and I bet he can find something that works for you.”
A lot of the time, what the customer really wants is for somebody to give them permission to do what they were always going to do. Allie and not-Allie nod gratefully, and Liam takes them aside.
Jonathan doesn’t even wait until they’re out of earshot to start bollocking me.
“What thefuck,”—he isn’t keeping it down that much, buthe whispers the wordfucklike he doesn’t mind people seeing him lose his rag as long as they don’t hear him say a bad word—“was that all about?”
“You were tanking the sale.”
His eyes narrow. He definitely overuses those eyebrows. “I wasnottanking the sale.”
“You were, mate.” I shouldn’t call him mate, but it just slips out. “They were worried about spending the money, and you made it sound like the product would be hard to live with.”
