kokopellinelli | (no subject) (Reply)

The radio station I work for is putting on a Home and Recreation Expo next weekend. Basically, we called a bunch of vendors (insurance, electronics, taxidermy, photography, rec equipment, clothing, construction, plumbing, food, plants, skincare, etc) to bring some of their wares and set up shop for two days, all in the same space. This way, people can come through and take at look at what these various vendors have to offer (and hopefully buy some crap from them) without having to go to individual stores. In years past, the show has gotten traffic of maybe 300-600 people over the two days (not including kids - we keep track with admission tickets).

Several of our vendors are representatives of larger companies (think like...Mary Kay or something similar, where you shell out a certain amount of money to receive a "starter kit," then receive a commission on the stuff you sell). Sometimes, such reps can get their admission fee for the show refunded at least partially by the company they represent.

One such woman (a rep for a company that sells pre-packaged "gourmet foods") called the office a couple weeks ago to see how many visitors the show usually gets. My boss told her what I said above, that in the past the show has gotten an average of 4-5 hundred people through the doors, once as many as 750 or so. The lady said that she was trying to get part of her entrance fee (about $175) back from her company, but in order to do so, 1000 people need to pass through the doors.

Boss: We've never had that many people. About half that is usually what we get.

Pretty simple, right?

Nope.

Since then, the same woman has called twice (and talked to my boss again and one of my coworkers, saying the same thing - "They said there need to be 1000 people through the doors" and gotten the same answer - "Nope. 300-600.") and come into the office 3 times, and talked to me all three times. Finally, she came in today and asked if I could email her something saying "Usually, we get an average of 300-600 customers through the doors," so she could forward it to her company and hopefully get some of her money back. It looks like her company is finally caving and going to allow her to scrape by with that many instead of the requisite 1000.

What was so exasperating was that she kept coming in and coming in (she was nice about it, but it was still annoying) expecting the answer to change. As my boss said, "I'm not going to lie and say we get more people than we do. I can't pull 500 people out my ass."

She gave me a piece of paper with a note written on the back to my boss, asking for someone to send her the email. I did, then turned the paper over. It was an email from her company that she'd printed out, saying they'd accept something from someone at the station with the "approximate" numbers, and stating that we wouldn't be "held responsible" if that number of people didn't pass through the doors. That email was apparently in response to one she'd sent to them, saying something along the lines of "Well, fine. If you aren't prepared to compensate me, I guess I'll just pay the full fee myself or ask for my money back and withdraw my application."

I'm glad she didn't go that route because it's much too late for her to get her money back now.

I have no idea if any of that made sense.

x-posted to my