Alive and Well

This incident always made me giggle. When I worked at the copy center we had to up-sell. Up-sell, up-sell, up-sell. If you don't know what up-sell is let me give you a basic description:

"Would you like that Super-Sized?" It's when you try to push the customer to buy something extra or upgrade their purchase because you're forced to.

At the copy center an "up-sell" was showing all the different things we could do. For example, if you ordered business cards, we were supposed to take one of those business cards and make it into a magnet. This just shows that there is so much more that we could do that you may not have known about.

Our manager, Jazzy, wanted every order to have an up-sell gift. We would take every order and give them free address labels or color prints. I loved to up-sell because I love to be creative. Working at the copy center helped me to master all of the different Adobe software programs. Those programs helped me to up-sell.

I had to print out a poster of a smiling woman on a large canvas. It was a simple job but I needed a way to up-sell. I had the brilliant idea to take the picture of this happy woman and place her in front of a beach backdrop to make post cards. I placed her on the beach with a smile and sunglasses against the words "Wish You Were Here..."

The postcards were beautiful and I was very proud of them. The customer came to pick up the print and I had to explain the up-sell.

Working Girl: Your print is all done.
Customer: Thanks. It looks beautiful.
Working Girl: We can also do other types of services just in case you wondering. For example I made you up some postcards. I placed her in a beautiful beach with sunglasses. These postcards are yours to keep but if you are ever interested in something else we can definitely do it.
Customer: Uh, thanks. This is nice but I don't think I'll need it.
Working Girl: Oh it's free to keep. It's just an example of what we can do here. You could hand out the post cards to people to show them what we can do.
Customer: The postcards are very nice and I appreciate them it's just that...this poster is for my grandmother's funeral.

There was a look of complete shock on my face. I "Weekend At Bernie's"-ed this guy's grandmother. I put sunglasses on her, I put her on a beach and I gave her the thought of "Wish You Were Here" from beyond the grave. I was so embarrassed. I was just trying to up-sell, I wasn't trying to offend anyone especially not in his time of grief.

I apologized numerous times and it actually put a smile on his face. He said it was no big deal and there's no way I could've known that the picture he gave me was of his dead grandmother. The story makes me laugh now because I can't believe it happened but if I was able to at least make that guy (and hopefully the rest of his family) smile during that difficult time, then I did my job....just in a really messed up way.