PixabayHaven’t we all jumped to conclusions based on looks? Sometimes it’s the only thing we have to work with when we don’t know someone. While thin-slicing (to make a quick, generalized inference of someone’s outward appearance with minimal amounts of information) is an important skill to have, it’s shallow and often stands as a guide not a rule. With the following stories as examples, you’ll see how wrong it can often go!
It’s important to give people the benefit of the doubt at first, because assumptions can and have proven to be deadly, and can make you look foolish if your approach is off. Just like when a car salesman wouldn’t take a scruffy looking young man with greasy hands seriously until he was able to provide a check for a substantial deposit. Or when a young hairdresser was tired of being treated like an idiot. After working in the industry for years, and dealing with people’s snide remarks regarding her training, knowledge, and experience, she happened to mention she would be going back to school – for accounting. Suddenly, everyone treated her like she’s smart. That, and they started to include her in more scholarly conversations with topics including, politics, world issues, and more.
How’s that for changing a tune?
The saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover” comes to mind, and yet, we’ve all done it at one point or another. Read these stories, and maybe you’ll change your mind about who you encounter next and how they appear on the surface!
32. His Birthplace Had Every Adult’s Attention
Pixabay“In my 24 years of life, I have lived in a total of six countries.
I grew up in Monaco (10 years) and consider the city/country as home. Monaco is known as one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
Being black in Monaco, I was considered a unicorn.
I was actually the only black kid at my high school until my little brother joined me.
When it was time to prospect for universities, I came to the U.S for admission orientation. I clearly remember my orientation for U.C Berkeley as if it was yesterday.
My admission orientation group contained around 20 individuals, a mix of students and parents. We were all waiting in the room for our tour guide to show up. Being a social person, I attempted to small talk with the families around me. Most of the families gave short answers, some even looked a little irritated from my small talk efforts.
Basically, they weren’t a social bunch. The tour guide showed up and we did a little ice breaker exercise before heading out.
Each student was asked to respond to four questions: 1. What’s your name? 2. Where did you come from? 3. What’s your favorite dish? 4. What’s an interesting fact about yourself?
This is where things got interesting. Everyone started giving out their answers, most of the students came from around the U.S. There were only two international students, myself and a student from Mexico. When it was my turn to introduce myself to the class.
As soon as I mentioned the country I was visiting from, everyone perked up incredulously.
The tour guide exclaimed, ‘Monaco as in Monte Carlo?’ I corrected her, Monte Carlo is actually a division of Monaco and not the whole country. She proceeded to ask me additional questions, some of the parents and students even joined in the conversation.
Once the tour started, my mom and I suddenly had our own entourage.
At least half of the parents engaged in small talk with us. They laughed at our jokes and agreed with our comments. Many parents insisted I exchange contact information with their children. I’m still friends with one of them. All in all, it was ridiculous to see adults try so hard to gain my attention.” Source
31. His Car Gave Off A Very Good First Impression
Pixabay“The city I live in experienced a flash flood. My vehicle was, unfortunately, affected.
When I called to file a claim, I discovered that I hadn’t opted for car rental insurance. I was mildly annoyed since I had comprehensive insurance and I thought it would cover everything. When I asked how much the car rental insurance was, I nearly lost it. It was a measly $7 per month. If I knew about it earlier, I would have opted for it.
I offered to pay for it now and, of course, they refused.
I ended up being without a car for almost a month. A car is necessary in Houston if you want to be able to get around without spending an arm or a leg (Uber) or taking a lot of time (limited public transport).
At that time, I had started my own digital marketing consulting firm and I approached small businesses offering my services.
Getting to the businesses was a challenge. A friend of mine that has several vehicles kindly lent me his 2015 BMW M3. It’s a beautiful vehicle and it was extremely fun to drive. I borrowed two other cars. (BMW 335i coupe and a Mini Cooper S Convertible), but the M3 was the best by far!!!
To put this story in perspective, I typically drive a 2010 Honda Accord Coupe.
Now that I had a car to get around, I continued my business to business visits.
I mostly target strip mall businesses since the owner is usually running the shop. On average, it takes me 20 visits before I get a business owner that is interested in talking to me.
When I pulled up with the BMW instead of the Honda, my conversations suddenly increased – 1 in 10 business owners would sit down and talk to me (I would actually purposely move the car to park in front of every business I entered).
Almost all of the business owners that talked to me mentioned the car.
I ended up signing 4 new clients over the 2 week period I didn’t have my own car.
This was huge for me. I had been in operation for 4 months and I had 7 consistent clients. That’s almost a 60% increase.
I guess the BMW gave them a perception of success that the Honda didn’t.
While driving the car, I felt like a celebrity. Random people would give me thumbs up. Some approached me and asked what I did for a living. I received approving nods from my fellow motorists as well as better treatment from the business owners I visited.” Source
30. He Knew His Stuff Better Than The Teacher And Textbook
Pixabay“The best one I ever heard of was from my grandfather.
In order to receive a promotion at the company he worked for, he was required to attain a master’s degree. He was an engineer, of sorts, shall we say.
This was the 1960s, and there was my grandfather sitting in a classroom with a bunch of 22-year-old hotshots, while he was 50 years old. For 6 weeks, no one spoke to him, he wasn’t called on, the professor ignored him, and whatever assignments he did, received an average grade.
One day, a singularly difficult real-life engineering problem was presented in class from a local company called JPL. When none of the students could correctly answer it, the professor asked if anyone had any ideas.
My grandfather raised his hand and answered it. The professor told him he was wrong. Mr. Professor then told the class the answer. Grandpa then interrupted the professor and informed him that the answer given to the class turned out to be incorrect for that particular alloy, and that the week prior, my Grandpa’s team had found that with a 2% increase of cadmium, the answer was as my Grandpa said.
The professor then asked Grandpa to come to the board and explain it in writing. He did. The professor then asked him who he was and what his job was.
After the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Manhattan, and other projects were thusly discussed, Grandpa never sat down in that class again. Or any other. He taught the class as one who actually did these things.
At the end of the semester, Grandpa received an ‘A,’ and the professor informed him that he had received average grades before because his work just seemed too different than the textbook answers.
The professor called a meeting of the department, and after a 60-minute interview they gave him his master’s degree and offered him an honorary doctorate if he would teach there. He declined.
Six months later, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
Every July 21st for 20 years, a new offer was sent to Grandpa to receive his doctorate and teach. He wasn’t ignored anymore.” Source
29. He Looks Young But Means It When He Makes A Deal
Pixabay“When I was a high-rolling software consultant back in the mid-1980s, I used to spend my Sundays working on my car, my motorcycle, my friends’ cars, and old cars that I’d buy to fix up.
I had bought out the tools from a garage going out of business near me, so I had a fairly fully equipped shop at home, and my friends would join me – we’d putter around for a few hours and usually end up with beer and a pizza and maybe a movie on the VCR or LaserDisc.
Naturally, it was a dress down day, and I had a greasy, torn set of overalls that I would wear over an old T-shirt – my 3-piece suits were strictly for use on Wall Street during the week, of course.
Anyway, one Sunday my friends mentioned that the new Ford Probe was supposed to be coming out and that there was going to be a limited release trial (I think he saw it as a rumor on some Ford BBS, or alt.ford.something-or-other on Usenet or similar). So I decided that I wanted to be the first one on my block, etc., etc., and I jumped in this Datsun beater that I’d just got running and drove over to the big Ford dealership on the highway nearby.
I’d probably used goop to clean my hands a bit, but I was still all greasy and dirty from tuning up the motor and fixing the Datsun’s brakes.
I guess I should also mention that I started working as a computer consultant at age 16, after graduating high school at 15, and at this time I was 21 or 22, definitely not over 23 – I was a kid in a greasy old mechanic’s outfit.
Of course, I couldn’t get the time of day from most of the salesmen, only some of whom were busy with customers, and when I asked to speak to the manager, I was told that he was also ‘busy.’ One salesman overheard this, though, as he was coming out of the back room, and he came over to speak with me.
I must add-not parenthetically as will be seen later- that he was the only African-American salesman in the showroom, and seemed to be the only one in what was otherwise a lily-white, suburban New Jersey establishment.
He wore a brown 3-piece and an over-tight necktie, and he was sweating profusely in the summer heat, but he spoke nicely to me.
I told him that I’d heard that the new Probe would be in a limited trial, and asked if his dealership would be able to get one. He acknowledged the rumor, seemed surprised when I confirmed that I didn’t want a used car, and said that he would check.
It took some time in the back room, and I suspect that he was being given a similar runaround by the haughty manager, but eventually he returned and allowed that they probably could get one, but that they would need a ‘substantial’ cash deposit before trying to place the order, and that they wouldn’t guarantee that they could get it, or the precise combination of model and color even if they could.
I accepted that and asked him how ‘substantial’ the deposit must be. He seemed embarrassed and told me that he guessed that I would need to bring in $5,000.
I said fine and told him that I wanted the GT Turbo model, and asked what colors it came in, and what other options I could order. He told me that he didn’t know, and was hesitant to find out, but I pressed him a bit, and he went into the back to find out the details.
At one point, he came to the door of the back room, looked at me, and mouthed, ‘Five thousand?’ with a query on his face. I nodded my head, and waved my hand to say, ‘No problem.’
Eventually, he came back with a brochure, and as he walked out to me I could see that one of the other salesmen made some comment I couldn’t hear, but caused my fellow to stiffen up with an embarrassed expression on his face.
We spent a few minutes talking about options, and he took down the details of what I wanted, and I left, after taking down his name.
The next morning, on my way to my Wall Street job (after having phoned in to warn them I’d be late), I stopped at the bank and then went to the dealership. As I was in my custom-fitted suit, several salesmen vyed for my attention.
When I asked for ‘my’ salesman of yesterday, they took on a pained expression. One of them sneered, ‘Him? But he’s a ….’ Another one, quicker on the uptake, noticed the frown that was forming on my face at what was obviously going to be a racial epithet, and elbowed the racist oaf, cutting him off, and smarmingly suggested, ‘He’s out at the moment.
Perhaps I could help you?’
I thanked them, plunked myself down in a chair, and told them that I would wait for him.
It took a good five or ten minutes, during which probably every other salesman in the store tried to offer himself as a substitute. I told each one I was waiting for the one gentlemen (I wish I could remember his name, but it was 30 years ago!) until eventually he bustled in with a box of pastries and coffees and started handing each salesman’s breakfast order to him with a smile, until they convinced him to drop the donuts and walk over to me.
Clearly, he was low man on the totem pole, and the other salesmen were using him and thought him fit only to peddle trade-ins to poor people and run his betters’ errands.
He walked over to me and politely asked, ‘How may I help you, sir?’ He didn’t recognize me any more than the other salesmen had. I opened up my attaché case and handed him a cashier’s check for $5,000, and dropped a business card.
‘I’d like you to order that Probe Turbo for me.’
His jaw dropped. ‘Who…? That was YOU yesterday?’ I assured him that it was indeed the same me as the day before, told him I was in a rush, and asked him if he could fax any additional paperwork to me in the city.
He stammered that he could and he would, and then I reached forward, grabbed his hand and gave him a hearty handshake, while smiling nastily at the other, shocked salesmen, who seemed as surprised to see their ‘errand boy’ waving a cashier’s check, which he joyously did as I walked away.
I eventually got my Probe GT, and was invited to the press party at the World Trade Center when it was formally ‘launched,’ and had lots of fun with it. But I also derived immense pleasure from the handful of times that I pulled up at the dealership on a Sunday afternoon and took ‘my’ salesman on a joyride in the Probe, including the time I let him open it up on the NJ Turnpike, and most especially the envious looks of his fellow salesmen that I would take him out.” Source
28. She Didn’t Know Who He Was Representing
Pixabay“(It’s 2017 and here in Seattle because of Amazon and the general housing market, all the homes are worth 200% or more now.
So, feel free to multiply all the following numbers by 2 or 3 to get a feel of how I did at that time)
In 2005, I had just landed a very well known client who had signed for $50 million dollars with the local Major League Baseball team. Well, at least he was well known in LA, where he had just won the home run title the previous year…
He and his wife asked me to look for properties between $1 to $3 million USD.
It was definitely out of the range I was used to. I barely understood the dynamics for the average home sale, let alone multi-million dollar homes.
Regardless, I’m a fast learner and I was deadbeat on finding them a home. I did a quick search on the MLS and drew up a list of homes. I asked my clients which ones they wanted to see and started the rigmarole of calling all the listing agents and finding out when we could view their homes.
I got a mixed set of responses.
Most of them were quite normal, but then I called this one agent who seemed to show up on many of these very expensive properties. The first few calls I make to her number, I go straight to voicemail.
However, my clients really want to see one or two of the properties she represents. So, I press further and call her again a few more times.
On the 5th or 6th try, I finally get a live voice. She answers the phone with the stereotypical pretentious attitude one would expect someone who represented the rich and famous. Let’s call her ‘T.’
T: ‘Hello, this is T. F. of T.F. Luxury Properties.’
Me: ‘Hi, this is Brandon Na of Keller Williams.’
T: ‘This is who?! (with a screechy annoyed voice)’
Me: ‘My name is Brandon Na. I am an agent of Keller Williams.’
T: ‘Is there something I can help you with (said with more attitude than a stuck up teenager who was the frenemy of all the girls at school)?’
Me: ‘Yes, I was hoping to do a showing for my clients.’
T: ‘Are your clients wealthy? You know I represent only luxury properties worth $1 million or more.’
Me: ‘Yes, I know that.
They are looking for properties from $1 mill up.’
T: ‘Oh, I see. Have they been pre-qualified? Please have them send their paperwork and if they qualify, I’ll give you a call back and see what I can do.’
Me: ‘I don’t think they need to pre-qualify. They could probably buy one of the homes with cash…’
T: ‘(Interrupting me) I said, they need to pre-qualify and until that’s complete, they will not be able to see my client’s properties.’
Me: ‘OK, I’ll ask, but I’m telling you…’
T: (Interrupting me again) ‘Again, Mr.
Na, please let me remind you…’
Me: (Interrupting her) ‘OK, Ms. F., I understand.
I will get back to you.’
I call up my clients and tell them the story. They basically start laughing and tell me to ignore her. They had my same sense of justice. The wife of the couple had worked retail at a mall before she met her major league baseball star husband and he grew up in the ‘hood of the country he grew up in.
They basically told me I could give her the middle finger.
So, I did…well, at least figuratively.
I didn’t call her back immediately, but lo and behold, she ends up calling me instead – she had learned who I was representing.
This time, her voice AND attitude changed. It was like night and day. I was literally laughing inside listening to how she had a makeover with her personality and now I was the one in charge.
While I could have been nasty, I listened to her talk 10 times as much as she did before. And finally, after about 10 minutes or so of listening, I just basically ended our conversation with, ‘I don’t think we’re interested.’ In the end, she was almost begging for me to get my clients over to her homes and it felt like justice was served.” Source
27. He’s Yelled At By A Doctor Until He Finds Out Who His Dad Is
Pixabay“I’ll never forget going to the hospital with my father during my high school years in the 90s.
He’s an obstetrician/gynecologist (ob/gyn) and he had a delivery. He brought me to the doctor’s lounge/sleeping area on his floor so that I could watch television. He left me behind and went to deliver the baby.
About an hour into watching television, a doctor comes into the lounge where I am. He immediately asks if I am the father of the child he just delivered. He doesn’t give me time to respond.
He then proceeds to ask me why I am in the doctor’s lounge/sleeping area. Again, he doesn’t give me time to respond. Then, in an angry and irritated voice, he begins to rant about how I lack respect by watching television in the doctor’s area and how I am just like all young fathers.
Does he wonder why I am not in the waiting room? At no point does he allow me to speak.
Finally, he tells me to get my *** back to the waiting room.
I’m scared and I get up to leave. I’m about to walk out of the room when a nurse leaves her station and comes to speak to the doctor. She explains to him that my father is delivering a baby. His anger and body language change once he realizes that I am not a good for nothing father and that I’m the child of a doctor.
He softens toward me and wants to know about school and my extracurricular activities.
He ended up talking to me until my father finished his delivery.
Later, my father comes back and the doctor explains what happened. He’s laughing and telling my father that it was a simple mishap. My father sees the humor in it too, but I later fill in the blanks on our drive home.
I wasn’t happy, but it was a great life experience to learn at such a young age. Some people will view you as worthless, useless and treat you like piece of poop when they believe you are nothing. Then, their tune will change when they find out your father is the chief of staff of ob/gyn at the hospital.” Source
26. She Was Condescended To Until She Provided Her Zip Code
Pixabay“I lived in a very high net worth town in Connecticut at the time and was pricing items out to renovate the master bathroom.
I don’t tend to dress like women in my area – I wear jeans and a t-shirt almost 24/7 along with a pair of sneakers.
I went into one of the shops and asked about a specific soaking tub I saw on the showroom floor, and when I asked the price? The woman smiled almost laughing and said demeaningly, ‘Well, you know what they say…if you have to ask…’ and her voice trailed off, and she walked away…(the rest of that saying is that ‘you likely can’t afford it’).
She said this in front of other people shopping in the store as well.
I was livid.
I went to the counter and asked to speak with a manager, and told her of how her employee treated (potential) customers. The manager asked for my address to send me something for my trouble (it would turn out to be a very nice aromatic oil holder and aromatic oils for the bathroom)…when I gave it to her, she asked if I was ‘shopping for myself.’ Yes, I said (I was not a personal assistant or shopping for my boss), again, sort of demeaning, but at least she knew that I actually owned the place I was shopping for.
My zip code at the time reflected one of the towns with the highest net worth in Connecticut, and I lived on a road shared by some well-known people.
I had since gone into the store to browse with my spouse and show her items, and the manager had recognized me immediately and offered something to drink. I never bought anything there, and I never took her up on her drink offer.
My mother often cleaned houses to make ends meet when I was growing up. Anyone who treats people poorly based on income (or income assumption) really irritates me. I’ve seen it too many times to support it with a purchase.” Source
25. His $225 Necktie Didn’t Match His Casual Outfit
Pixabay“I once bought a $225 necktie at Neiman Marcus in San Francisco.
I never wore the tie and it was still wrapped in the NM gauzy paper. I returned it the next day at the Neiman Marcus in the Stanford Shopping Center.
I was dressed like a bum – normal for my day off.
The sales lady curtly told us they did not carry that brand of necktie. I politely asked to see the Department Manager. Even more sharply, the manager told me Neiman Marcus had never carried that line of ties.
Her ****** grimace said it all. This old con man is shifting from 3-card Monte to men’s neckties.
I asked them to pull up my Neiman Marcus charge account.
The first lady suppressed a snicker. Begrudgingly, they checked the computer. They were shocked to find my lengthy account history. The necktie was right at the top – $225 plus tax.
I expected an apology for the misunderstanding or a ‘Let me show you some great new ties.’
But that is not what happened. Instead, the manager looked up at the ceiling and barked: ‘Credit his account.’ Then, she spun on her heels and walked away without another word. Well, it is their store and their rules.” Source
24. His Calculations Were Absolutely Not Outside Of Their Expertise
Pixabay“For background, I need to explain that my husband has a short temper and a lively wit so he often lashes out with the perfect comeback while I’m fumbling for a retort (I’m the queen of coming up with a great response hours later).
We had been married for a few years, and lived and worked in northern California. We were still driving the beaters we had all through college so we decided it was time to buy a newer car. After poring over Consumer’s Digest for months, we knew just what we wanted and approximately what we should pay.
At the second dealership we visited, we found the right car.
It was a floor model of the previous year, so we knew we could get a decent discount over a brand new car. We happily settled down with a salesman, thinking we would sign a few forms and drive away in a few minutes.
The salesman had other ideas. He didn’t want to discount the car because it had many premium options. We got into the little game where he would stand up and ‘go check with his manager’ to see if he could possibly give us the discount we thought was fair.
We didn’t know at the time that this is (was?) standard procedure. We were feeling uncomfortable and irritated by the time we got him talked down to what we knew was a reasonable purchase price.
But! Then we had to go through the laundry list of extras they wanted to sell us: a special coating to reduce paint chips and rusting (rusting in California?!), a special coating to make that new car shine last longer, special treatment of the upholstery so it wouldn’t get stained, and so forth.
We tried to cut to the chase more than once, saying we didn’t want any extras but it was like he had to recite every detail before letting us escape.
And then, the financing. We quickly told him we had the down payment ready and our credit union (we both worked at Chevron) had pre-approved our loan. But, the car company was offering special financing for a limited time only and this guy really, really wanted us to take it.
The discussion got a little heated as he kept explaining the same details over and over, and my husband kept pointing out that the credit union was a better deal.
I don’t know what kind of sales tactic this was, but at last, the salesman sighed and, gesturing to his calculator and the page of figures, said, ‘I guess you just can’t understand the advantages of our finance package because all these calculations are outside your expertise.’
My husband stood slowly.
‘I have a master’s degree in finance. I design and code financial programs for a living. We work right across the freeway there, where we have a million-dollar computer that runs our company’s billion-dollar businesses around the world. If you think I’m having trouble following your high school calculations on your ninety-nine cent calculator, then I guess we’ll have to buy from the next dealer down the road.’
I swear the guy blanched.
I stood and was following my husband out the door when he came after us, stammering his apologies and begging us to come back. We had spent most of the day with him – and all his hard work was going down the drain. He practically abased himself to get us to come back to the table, and my husband made him take a thousand dollars off the price before we’d sit back down (I noticed he didn’t have to check that with his manager).
We signed a few papers and walked out with the keys to our new car.” Source
23. Her Neighbors Are Very Materialistic
Pixabay“My first house was a bit of a dump.
It was a 50-year-old house in original condition.
I introduced myself to the neighbor across the road (a lawyer who lived in a new house) after the auction and he immediately asked me was I going to bulldoze and build a new house.
No, I said, I loved the house as it was and I may eventually renovate.
‘Good luck with that,’ he said with a sneer on his face, ‘…you’ve got a LOT of structural problems.’
Hmm, I thought. Ok, a not so nice neighbor who’s annoyed he’s not getting a new house in the street.
Fast forward four years.
The same neighbor, his wife, and his kids have ignored my smiles on the street for the four years I’ve been there.
If I waited by my car door and smiled as they drove past me they would blank me. I was clearly considered worthless.
In addition, if my visitors ever parked out the front of their house they would deliberately reverse their family car almost to the bumper to act as a turf warning. Until two things happened in year four:
My father visited in his new Mercedes. Then my mom arrived a short time after in her new Mercedes.
A building permit got positioned out the front of my house (I had decided, after all, to demolish and build a new house as it was going to be cheaper than renovating).
I still remember watching this guy and his wife wander across the road and stand reading the permit.
Wow, they must have been thinking, she’s not a penniless renovator after all … and perhaps her family isn’t poor after all?
Guess who couldn’t wait to speak to me the next time I saw them on the street.
You guessed it. The lawyer and his wife, with cheesy grins on their faces like you’ve never seen before.
‘I see your family are Mercedes people,’ he says to me with a knowing smile of acceptance on his face (he too drove a Mercedes).
‘We’re SO thrilled you’re building a new house! It will be SO nice to have another new house on the street.’
Guess who started waving at me from the steering wheel as they drove past after that.
I was never rude to them but I would never give them details about my life. I avoided them for the most part but on the odd occasion they would catch me on the street I stayed polite but distant.
It was the most blatant bigotry and change in attitude I’ve ever experienced when people realized I had some money after all.
A few years down the track they got divorced and their lives went to pieces so I figure their materialism and bigotry didn’t buy their happiness.” Source
22. She Chose To Go To School And Her Clients Stopped Talking To Like She’s Stupid
Pixabay“I have been a hairdresser at a high-end salon for several years.
From experience, I can safely say that most people believe hairdressers to be unintelligent. I have had people say the most passive insulting remarks questioning my abilities, knowledge, training, experience, and professional opinion. I just had to shrug them off and prove them wrong by doing a **** good job coloring and cutting their hair.
After doing hair for some time, I decided to go back to college to get my bachelors degree.
I was a mediocre student growing up and struggled to even make B’s in most of my classes. When I went back to college, I had to cut my salon hours down to 30 hours a week so I could be a full-time student.
When I started telling my clients that my hours would be changing because I was going back to college, their responses lit a fire in me.
Most of them laughed and asked why I would want to do that and some of them were confused, but very few were genuinely happy for me.
What shocked me the most was when I told them what major I chose: Accounting. This was the most common response I received: ‘Oh wow, you must be smart then?’ It became clear to me, right then and there, my clients believed that up until that moment, I was still just a dumb hairdresser.
I don’t remember how I responded the first time I heard that, but it truly hurt my feelings. The conversations I had with my clients while they were in my chair started to change. My clients started to talk to me about more, ‘scholarly’ subjects like history, government, business, etc. New clients would immediately change their demeanor as soon as I told them I was in college for accounting.
My clients stopped talking to me like I was stupid and started talking to me like a normal human.
Fast forward three years: I graduated cum laude from an awesome university with an Accounting degree.
I won multiple scholarships from various CPA firms. I made mostly A’s in all my classes and even a 100 average in some. I had multiple job offers from CPA firms before graduation.
Over the past few months, I have been reminding my clients that I will be leaving the hair industry for public accounting and it secretly brings me joy to know how stressed they are about finding a new hairdresser. Yesterday was my last day at the salon and I start my accounting career in a month!
Moral of the story: 1) Don’t let anyone make you feel stupid.
If they do, then prove them wrong.
2) Don’t be rude to your hairdresser because one day they might be doing your taxes or auditing your company. Karma is a beautiful *****.” Source
21. He Was Rich, Sad And Depressed So He Became A Dishwasher
Pixabay“Back in 2004 at the height of the real estate bubble, I was an extremely successful real estate broker making over $500K US a year and managing about 20 agents, all of whom were super successful, earning millions of dollars in commissions.
I was living in a multi-million dollar mansion and driving around town in my fancy sports car with the top down. I felt on top of the world nothing could stop me! I was IT!!
One day I got home and it just hit me.
I walked in and suddenly I felt alone, in a really big house with no real friends, no purpose and I asked myself, is this it? What if this is not who I’m supposed to be? What does it feel like to have real friends? A woman who truly loves me for who I am? Even though I was self-made, all these questions made me feel such emptiness inside to a point that I could no longer ignore.
These questions were eating at me and on my mind constantly. So I decided to do something about it; I left my top guy in charge of my business and I left for six months.
So I moved to a nearby city where no one knew me and I got a job at Joe’s Crab Shack as a dishwasher. A very humbling experience to say the least.
I have never done hard labor a day in my life but I was I believe the best dishwasher that place ever saw. At first, employees were offensively impolite to me, making fun of me and talking behind my back because I was the new guy and most were longtime employees. There were cliques and I didn’t fit in in any of them just like in high school.
In business, I had learned that respect is earned and not given and so I let my hard work speak for itself.
Little by little, I started gaining people’s trust and they started warming up to me. They started sharing with me all of their personal and financial troubles and tribulations. I heard some crazy sad, really sad stories regarding child support, living pay-check to pay-check, not being able to afford a car, a house, rent, food, clothes etc., pretty much everything in life which I had been taking for granted up until that point.
I also met genuinely friendly, sincere happy people that enriched my life in more ways than one. These were all real people with real feelings and real problems and I was in the middle of it all – it was exactly what I was searching for (I met my beautiful future wife there too)!
After a few months, my new set of acquaintances started getting suspicious of me since no one really knew who I was or where I came from so the pressure was building.
After thinking really hard and going back and forth with myself, I finally decided to invite everyone over to my birthday party at my real house so I could reveal who I really was.” Source
20. He Paid For Everything In Full And On The Spot
Pixabay“Many years ago, I had to have extensive shoulder surgery due to a work injury. I had been going to the doctor for over a year, and the receptionist for the doctor was extremely attractive.
During that time, there were many professional athletes who were patients. The receptionist would always speak to them very professionally. However, she always a bit rude to me.
One day, she delightfully informed me that, ‘…the doctor would not be able to see me unless I made arrangements for paying my bill. I asked the balance, which she loudly stated was just over $125K. I pulled out my checkbook and proceeded to write a check for the total.
The receptionist accepted the check as if I had wiped myself with it. She asked what she was supposed to do with it. I replied most people deposit them. She questioned whether the check would clear. I told her to call the bank, which she did. After speaking with the manager (my neighbor, coincidentally), she was told the check would clear.
The manager stated that a couple of other checks that size could clear and there would still be plenty in the account.
After hearing this, the receptionist inquired about my weekend plans. If I was seeing anyone and several other questions all using my name. I told her I would probably have a nice dinner at one of several restaurants (that were well known with top name chefs ) and goto a concert or show. She asked if I wanted company. I said certainly, just not yours.” Source
19. She Found The Receipt To His Large Bank Account
Pixabay“I’m pretty well off in life.
I have a higher end 6 figure salary at 24 years old.
I have a full beard and wear blue jeans and T-shirts (Like the ones with funny obscene phrases on them) and beat up old boots because I’m frugal.
I have multiple vehicles, two muscle cars (Camaro ZL1, and Challenger SRT-8 ‘not a hellcat’) and a 1996 Jeep Cherokee.
I usually drive the Jeep because it’s my beater car, it never requires more than an oil change and it’s trustworthy in all seasons.
The other cars are for nice days or when I’m lazy and don’t fill up the Jeep. I don’t flaunt my money because all of our graves are the same size, be humble.
I met a girl at a friend’s bonfire and we immediately hit it off. We were talking for a few days and finally decided to go out on a date. I decided to take the Jeep because it was the last thing parked in the driveway.
I picked her up and we went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, like a gentleman I paid, no questions asked.
We then decided to head to the bar to grab a few drinks, but I had to stop at the ATM and grab money out because I limit myself.
I grabbed the cash, put the receipt in my pocket, and carried on.
The night went on, we left the bar, dropped her off (yes, I was sober) and continued to talk for the following 2 weeks.
After that it was short answers, canceling plans, etc. Found out from a friend that she started seeing some other guy, and her reason for not seeing me was, ‘he drives a Jeep Cherokee, let’s be serious, Guy A has a 2012 F150!’
Apparently, I had accidentally put the receipt with my phone in her purse and eventually, she found it months later, the conversation went something like this:
Her: ‘Hey, sorry I’ve been busy with work and whatnot.’
Me: ‘Guess you were too busy with Guy A to be bothered with answering back.’
Her: ‘Yeah, I wasn’t thinking straight.
I have a question!’
Me: ‘What’s the question?’
Her: ‘If you make a ton of money, why do you drive a POS Jeep?’
Me: ‘How do you know how much I make?’
Her: ‘Well, I found the ATM receipt in my purse from the night we went out.’
That was the end of the conversation once she found greener grass, but that greener grass appeared to be spray painted.” Source
18. The Owner Is Exactly Who You Don’t Think He Is
Pixabay“I was in one of my retail businesses, wearing what I usually wear on most days; my jeans, a $10 Target t-shirt and my Vans shoes.
I was behind the counter kneeling down, looking at one of the POS systems (Point of Sale systems) to try and fix a problem.
All of the other employees were either on the floor or behind the counter wearing their work uniforms and helping customers.
A customer comes into the store and says, ‘Hey!’ I look up and he proceeds to insult me and read me the riot act because he’s very unhappy about a purchase and subsequent service.
Then after yelling at me for about 5 minutes, he says, ‘…you can’t help me, get the manager. I want the manager.’ I said, ‘Sure.’
I go get the manager, I don’t tell him anything other than a customer up front is upset and wants to speak to him.
I go back to doing my work on the POS terminal while the manager stands a few feet from me and the guy yells at him for another 2-3 minutes.
Then the guy says, ‘I want your boss! Who’s your boss?’ The manager says, ‘I could probably get the owner for you if you’d like.’ The guy says, ‘Yes!’
This guy has not allowed anyone to get a word in edgewise. In fact, I’m not sure he’s even taken a second breath since he walked into the store.
The manager looks down at me and says, ‘Do you think the owner would take a minute and speak to this customer and try to resolve his issue?’ I say, ‘I’m sure he would, just ask him.’ The manager looks back at the customer, smiles, then looks down at me and says, ‘Hey George, can you talk to this customer and try to help him?’ I said, ‘Sure.’
I stand up, square up with the customer, put both of my hands on the counter, smile and ask how I can help him.
He turned white and just looked at me. I actually saw all of the color leave his face.
He looks me up and down and then tries to be nice, he comments on my watch and tries to make other small talk. I smile and ask how I can help him. He tries to go back to being angry but I cut him off. I point out that the service to him would have been the same whether it was me, any employee or the manager.
I tell him the only exception in talking to me at this point is that I have the ultimate authority in this business to not help him and ask him to leave and not come back.
I again ask him if he would like my help resolving his issue. He says, ‘yes.’ So, I take a few minutes and resolve it, then ask if there is anything else I can do for him.
I then tell him to have a nice day and I went back to working on the POS system.” Source
17. He Convinces Her He’s Got It Made
Pixabay“Preface: This story is from when I was around 24 and had really only been making big money for a few years and of course still growing up.
Anyone who knows me, knows I’m a gambler to the fullest.
So it was the eve of my birthday and of course, I hit the casino, great luck!!! I doubled my money and had about 30k on me after my win.
I was with a friend and we decided to go to a club, something I rarely do, but what the heck it was officially my birthday and I had just won 15k within an hour.
My friend and I are just hanging out and aren’t big drinkers. All of a sudden, two of the most jaw-dropping, beautiful ladies walk into the room. Now I don’t wear jewelry or high-end clothes, I’m zero flash or show.
These women, however, are most certainly strippers.
I have a side bet with my buddy; I bet him that not only could I get a phone number to one of the girls, BUT I could get her to buy me the first drink. I forget the amount of the wager but it was gentlemanly and it was probably $10-$20.
So I approach the women and ask some random question about what song it is or where to find something, I can’t remember -the plan was just to get a conversation started.
She answered but couldn’t care any less if she tried, and most likely only answered as it was the quickest way for me to get out of her way.
I immediately called her out on being rude; sarcastically and with a smile, I said, ‘You know – a guy like me doesn’t get to see a woman as beautiful as you very often, and never gets to speak to her.
What if you hurt my feelings?’ She’s still unimpressed and growing increasingly agitated, but I quickly follow up with, ‘Hey I mean no harm, but what if it was my birthday or something and you just ruined my night? You wouldn’t want to ruin someone’s birthday would you?’
At this point, she was done with me saying, ‘It’s not your birthday – have a good night.’
Me: ‘That’s cold.
It could have been, I’m just saying that if it was my birthday, after all, that you’d have to buy me a drink just to make it up.’
Her: ‘If it was, yes I would bu….’
Me: whips out driver’s license and smiles.
She smiles too and says, ‘I guess my friend and I have to buy you a drink, come on.’
After she buys me the drink, I thank her and tell her, ‘Listen I’m not the kind of guy who can just let you walk away without returning the gesture, I’m going to buy you and your friend a drink.’
Now here she is along for the ride, and at best, just trying to ‘get through’ this experience.
I know these women are only after one type of guy, so I reach for one of my 10K stacks and make it seem as though I’m intentionally reaching for it out of sight from her but what I really did is wait for her posture and eyes to be facing the direction of where my money will be counted and by pure ‘coincidence’ she would see it.
Me: ‘Excuse me, bartender!! Can I get these beautiful ladies a bottle of Dom Perignon?’
Then I count my money. I face the lady and I say, ‘You made my birthday amazing and I just wanted to thank you and sorry for giving you a hard time.’
Her: ‘Take my phone number down, and if you don’t call me tomorrow, don’t ever call me.’
Queue 4 months of great ‘friendship.'” Source
16. Her Good Work Doesn’t Go Unrewarded Again And Again And Again…
Pixabay“Back when I used to be a travel agent in the days when all air travel could only be booked through a travel agent, a young university student (let’s call him Fred) came in looking to book a one-way domestic flight to a city that was about a 2-hour flight.
This was in New Zealand. The commission for a travel agent on domestic fares then was 2% (basically pittance) so it wasn’t efficient to spend too much time on customers like Fred. Commission was a big part of our income. He asked for the cheapest flight but unfortunately, was flying short notice (usually the cheapest seats are available if you book months in advance). I did all I could to find him the cheapest flight – checked every single flight time, various possible routes, different dates, all the best prices were gone but he appreciated my time and booked a flight on the most cost-effective route I could find.
My manager chastised me a little on the amount of time I had spent working on his flight. She was right, but I wanted to do my best, as I always do.
Fast forward a few months and Fred comes back to the travel agency and asks for me specifically. Turns out he was studying finance, had just completed his degree, came from a wealthy family, had a high-paying job in the UK lined up, and he and his best friend (we’ll call him Tom) wanted to do a round-the-world trip before he started his new job.
Because I had been so good about helping him as a (poor) young student looking for the best deal on a rather minor flight booking, Fred wanted to book the two round-the-world tickets and some tours with me.
I was so delighted, plus it was a bonus that they were really lovely fellas to deal with.
Since he was moving to the UK, I thought the saga would stop there, but then Tom booked a trip to Singapore for him and his girlfriend, the girlfriend and her brother booked a trip to visit family in South Africa, and the best one of all was booking tickets for Tom’s parents to fly back to New Zealand from UAE, where they were working.
I told him it would be cheaper for them to buy the tickets from the UAE because I wouldn’t have access to any deals that airlines had that originated in the UAE because I was in another country.
I could only book ‘published’ fares which are basically the most expensive fares an airline has. Tom said that money wasn’t an issue because his dad’s company was paying for it.
I was so gobsmacked because these were business class, return, published fares I was booking, for two people. Not only were they expensive (loads of commission), but because they were so expensive, availability wasn’t a problem so it took me literally only a few minutes to book them. I was so appreciative because I’m sure his father could’ve gotten his work to buy the tickets for him in Dubai.
I have no idea why they wanted to do it in such a complicated (for them) way, maybe it was a tax thing?
Every time anyone connected to Fred booked travel with me, and especially when Tom’s parent’s bought the flights from Dubai, I made sure I pointed it out to my manager (who was an excellent boss and appreciated my customer service) and reminded her about the time I’d ‘wasted’ trying to find a cheap domestic flight for a student.” Source
15. Her Assistant Coach Saw Her For The Athlete She Is
Pixabay“I was in 8th grade doing track and field.
There was this one coach that would only stay for the beginning of practice while we were doing our warm-ups.
I would always do my warm-up really slowly because warm-ups are meant to warm you up, not tire you out. So I would always come near last in the warm-up while all the other try-hard kids sprinted it and looked really good – and that coach saw that.
During practices, he would ignore me and help the kids he thought had more ability. If I asked him to time me or measure my steps or something like that, he would say he didn’t have the time and would help the ‘better’ kids.
He would tell me to hand my timer to the ‘more promising runners.’
On the day of the first meet, he was there and he saw me do my 200m dash, 55m hurdles, both of which I came in first for and beat all the boys (I’m female).
He watched me beat the school long jump record too. The look on his face was priceless.
Next practice, he tries to give me high-fives and advice, and tries to help me measure things out and set up hurdles; but by then, I didn’t need him anymore and could do all of that stuff myself or with the help of an assistant coach.
End of the season at regional championships, they hand out trophies to the winners and have them take pictures with their coaches and do a little interview with their coaches for their website.
I took my assistant coach instead.” Source
14. His Money Is Good This Week But It Wasn’t Last Week
Pixabay“It was summer holidays in a declining low income, low prospects Northern English town. I needed money, so was helping a friend on his window-cleaning round by being the ‘climber.’
Most of the houses in our town were old terraced houses, with a back yard, and were often locked – so someone (the climber) needed to climb up over each wall to let in the window cleaner, so he could put his ladder up to do the windows.
As this involved daily climbing over hundreds of walls, gates, and yards, I wore scruffy, ripped, tatty clothes.
Having a bit of cash in hand, who wouldn’t feel rich? Especially if one had a lucrative second ‘job’, as I indeed had.
My second ‘job’ was to manually walk around all the bookmakers in the same town, placing bets for a professional gambler. This was well before the days of Internet betting, and involved walking from bookmaker to bookmaker to get the best ante-post odds on the horses.
By taking a small percentage of my cash/wages, I often ended up winning by matching the same bets as my employer – even if on a much smaller scale of course.
So one afternoon, we noticed a new men’s clothing store opening in the mall, and decided to see if there was anything to buy. As I walked in, one of the assistants came to me – as I was dressed in bleach-splattered cut-off jeans (remember those?), a ripped sweater, and tatty trainers – and politely, but arrogantly, said I was not allowed in the shop as they were trying to ‘create an image’.
I left immediately and plotted my revenge.
I returned to the shop a week later, dressed rather more smartly, and sought out the same assistant. I told him I had a lot of cash to spend and wanted a full outfit, and he gushingly picked different clothes, outfits, and accessories for me.
I asked him to carry the items over to the till, as well as running him back and forth for good measure ‘whilst I made up my mind’ on other items, and told him I hadn’t enough clothes for the money in my pocket, so he needed to work harder.
At one stage, we must have had almost anything possible to purchase from the shop on the counter – he certainly couldn’t see without standing on his tiptoes amongst the pair of shoes, shirts, suit, sweater, underwear etc.
I asked him to till it all up, and when he asked for the money, I was just about to hand over the stacks of cash (little did he realize this was all my stakes/winnings from my gambler employer and was almost a thousand pounds ) when I asked him if I could ask him a couple of questions first.
Of course, this poor soul couldn’t help his smarmy, greedy, deferential manner overtaking common sense, so he said: ‘Of course sir, what would they be?’
My two questions were:
‘Why my money was good enough that day but not a week before?’
‘Did he not feel an a*s having to replace all those items back on the shelf as I clearly didn’t fit the image of his shop, so would never be a customer?’
And then I left the shop with a smug grin that still brings a smile to my face today recounting this incident.” Source
13. She Needs This All Done In One Hour Starting Now
Pixabay“I worked for a company that employed several thousand people spread across at least ten different offices.
We had an online directory that allowed you to pull up an employee’s picture, phone number, department, and supervisor.
One day, a case came across my desk that required me to reach out to a Director in Operations in order to get it resolved. A client was promised something and a guy in the Director’s office never followed up. I didn’t point fingers or anything. I simply sent an email explaining the situation, asking if that person who originally handled it in the Director’s office was out of town because he wasn’t responding to my messages.
It was actually pretty friendly.
When she didn’t respond, I called her.
As soon as I told her my name, she went into a very, very long power tripped rant. She told me that she instructed her employee not to respond because her office doesn’t answer to mine. She said that they would get to it when they got to it and that I had better not call her line again because she was a Director and I was a Customer Service Sep.
‘Unless [CEO] himself calls, it will get handled when we get around to it.’
There was a brief pause as I tried to think about the best way to remain professional yet still give her a taste of her own medicine.
I said something along the lines of:
“I’m guessing you looked me up in the directory. For some reason, there’s a glitch that will not allow them to update my information.
I haven’t worked in Customer Service for quite some time. You can, however, look up the extension that shows up on your caller ID. It should show that I’m calling from the Office of the Executive Vice President. That’s who I report to directly. Mr. [CEO] asked me this morning what was going on with your office because apparently he knows this client personally and wanted to know why it was taking you so long to get this issue resolved.’
Dead.
Silence.
‘It will be done by the end of the day.’
‘I’m sorry. That doesn’t work for me. I need this done within the hour. Thank you.’ Source
12. They Didn’t Look Like It, But They Were Ready To Drop 3X the Cost Of An Average Kitchen
Pixabay“After my wife and I bought our first home, we needed to get a new kitchen. It took us a lot of time to go to all the kitchen stores, get prices, and we really wanted to put money into a kitchen with high quality, so money wasn’t an issue.
One of the stores we went in to, was a new store that opened in our area.
It was a large home decoration place, offering everything from a bath to a door handle, including kitchens and even utensils. A kind of IKEA, but far more high end with prices to match that image.
As we are looking around the kitchens display area, we found a kitchen we really liked.
Just the style we were aiming for. But the price wasn’t written on it, so I had to look for a salesperson. Living in a hot place, I was window shopping with shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops, because who thought you had to show your money to get proper service?!
Anyways, found a salesperson, and asked about the kitchen we were interested in, and its price.
His reaction?
‘That’s probably a kitchen you can’t afford.’
I stood there as my jaw dropped to the ground, and wife trying to figure out what just happened. I looked at the salesperson and said, ‘I guess we won’t be buying our kitchen here, I’d rather pay someone else the 50K budget we have for a kitchen,’ and walked away. This time, the salesman was the one with the jaw dropped, since a 50K kitchen is almost 3 times an average kitchen cost.
3 months later, that store went out of business. Apparently, sales weren’t going that well. Maybe because the people that worked there are arrogant? They very well deserved it for the way they treated customers.” Source
11. He Looks Like An LA Director But He’s Not Really
Pixabay“Over 20 years ago, I quit my job in the research triangle park in Durham, North Carolina, to pursue film work.
I have a film degree but was working as a network specialist. I moved to Wilmington and took on minimum wage jobs on films. I had lived in Wilmington before and had several connections. I was hired as a director’s assistant for a well-established director from LA for a CBS series episode that was shooting in Wilmington. I was getting minimum pay but was happy to learn from a well-established director from LA.
Folks who did not know me thought I was an up and rising director from LA being mentored by the LA director. I was treated like royalty. One young attractive personal assistant was talking to me about something and touched my thigh.
She suddenly apologized for touching me as if I would have her fired. When the word got out that I was just a guy living in Wilmington getting minimum wage as a director’s assistant the special treatment was stopped.
The attractive personal assistant barely spoke to me after that. My behavior had not changed but my status had.” Source
10. He’s Not A Teen And He Goes By ‘Yes Sir’
Pixabay“I’m treated like a kid in my job. I’m only 21 and look like I’m 19. I’m a project manager for an IT company. I design networks, A/V, automation and so on. I can’t forget my first meeting with a committee of engineers and architects for a new building they were doing.
I got there and took a seat waiting for the meeting to start.
I was asked by the chief’s engineer assistant, like the chief of the workers, what I was doing there. I was dressed normally, no suit, no tie.
‘I’m one of the engineers here,’ I told him. ‘I was appointed to this meeting.’ He was rude and basicall*y told me to *** off in a subtle way.
The customer personally came over to greet me. ‘Let me introduce you to our new engineer. He’ll help us with the automation of the offices and the A/V for the meeting rooms. Also, he’ll be in charge of the phone and data network.’
A couple of hours later, I was served some coffee with the fakest smile I’ve ever seen.
I rejected it with a more fake smile.
A couple of days later, I was giving him orders and he was answering with a, ‘Yes, sir.'” Source
9. There’s A Reason Why His Bill Was So High
Pixabay“I was at the AT&T store, trying to get a device activated. It was crowded, and the lines were long. One lady was taking a lot of store resources arguing that she had been charged $27 on her bill when it should have only been $24.
The manager was working with her, along with two other employees who seemed pretty experienced.
When I finally got helped after about 30 minutes, it was by a kid who had just started.
He asked for my phone number and pulled up the account. He was confused by what he saw and called the manager over to help. It took a few minutes, and she obviously became irritated.
He was confused by my account because I was one of the administrators (for lack of a better term, I can’t remember what AT&T called it) for our corporate account. So every number we had was listed under my name. When the manager saw what was going on I immediately became the most important customer in the store, because my last month’s bill was about $35,000.” Source
8. He Hoped To Live Out A Fantasy Scenario
Pixabay“As someone who isn’t rich, I’ve always fantasized about this scenario.
To see the shock on someone’s face when they discover I’m wealthy. My only real opportunity was disappointing…
At my last job, we would find investors so that we could buy apartment complexes. One investor wrote us a check for $2,000,000, and my boss asked me to go to the bank to deposit the check. You see where this is going.
I thought to myself, ‘I can’t wait to see the look on the teller’s face when she sees all of those zeroes!’
So I change into ratty clothes with the check in hand, and head to the bank.
Filled out the deposit slip, stood in line, and I giggled to myself in anticipation
Here is my conversation with the teller:
Me: ‘Yes, uh, I would like to deposit this check please.’
Her: ‘Absolutely.’
She then looked down, pressed some buttons on the computer, scanned the check, handed me the receipt and said: ‘Is that all for you today?’
WHAT?!? That’s it???
I got back in my car with a sad look on my face, knowing that I may never have the chance to live out my fantasy again.” Source
7. She Just Wants To Be Treated Nicely
Pixabay“Not me, but my daughter. When she was 15, she went with a friend to a nice French restaurant near where we lived.
Being teenagers, they asked for some of the crayons and paper the restaurant provided for small children. The waitress laughed at them for asking and made a sarcastic comment.
When my daughter received the bill, she simply signed her name. When the waitress asked what she was doing, my daughter told her that her father-me-owned the restaurant. After checking, the General Manager of the restaurant came out and apologized to my daughter, who asked that the waitress simply be told to be nicer to customers in the future.” Source
6. They Don’t Want To Rob The Place, They Just Want Diamonds
Pixabay“This past February was my daughter’s 16th Birthday.
We had planned a big Sweet 16 party but not until June, when the weather would be nicer.
My husband and I had talked about what to get her for her birthday. We had decided on a necklace with diamonds, something she could wear even as an adult, which she was fast becoming, and a two week trip to Scotland.
We own a farm and like to do most of our own fencing and gardening but big jobs we hire out.
The night before her birthday we realized that neither of us had been to the jeweler’s (I don’t know how that got away from us.) We looked at the clock and noticed we only had 20 minutes to get to the jeweler’s before they closed.
Jumping into our farm truck, we sped into town, making it to the jeweler’s 5 minutes before closing. We walked in with muddy boots, dirty jeans, heavy jackets, sporting windblown hair.
Needless to say, they did not like how we looked.
My husband informed them we were looking for a gift for our daughter’s birthday. Nervously, we were directed to a case which had not been put away yet. There were thin and simple, gold and silver chains barren of any gemstones. We told the sales lady again what we wanted. They pulled out trays with thin gold and silver necklaces and small trinkets on them.
The manager was standing in the background nervously watching us.
My husband was getting a little annoyed. He said to the lady, ‘Look, this my daughter’s 16th birthday, not her 6th. I don’t want to see anything under $500. And I want it to have diamonds on it.’ She looked at him like a deer with headlights coming at it, then walked over to the manager. While they were whispering together, I said to my husband in an elevated voice, ‘Don’t get upset.
They don’t know we were working outside all day on the farm. We probably look like we’re going to hold up the place.’ My husband snickered.
The manager overheard me, eyeing me to see if it might be true. He sent the woman to back. He locked the door.
The sales lady and manager brought out trays of necklaces more like what we were looking for. The manager explained to us that they had been closing up when we came in, they were sorry for the inconvenience.
We looked at the necklaces with diamonds picking out a sterling silver necklace with a heart with diamonds. It was $1,250.
The manager apologized again, said they were having a sale starting in a few days for Valentine’s Day and would be happy to give us the discount for all the inconvenience, which was 25%.
My husband and I just stared at him, not saying a word. The manager became uncomfortable, stuttering and stammering.
My husband said, of course, he could do better than that because of the inconvenience, how long all of this had taken, etc. We ended up getting 45% off.
When my husband paid for the necklace, he pulled out a stack of $100 bills. Many more than he needed. He handed the manager the money and said to me, ‘ I brought $1600, $100 for every year.
Would you like something as a gift for being such a great mother for 16 years?’ I declined.
The manager was quickly realizing his mistake and was trying to backpedal, offering us their sale ad for Valentine’s Day, trying to get our email, offered preferred private buying times, asking me to fill out a wish list, etc. We declined everything, took our necklace, and left.
Our daughter loved the necklace and the Scotland trip is scheduled for the spring.” Source
5. They Were Doctors And They Didn’t Even Know It
Pixabay“This happened to my sister.
My sister who is 9 years older than me is really short. She also has really good skin so you’d think she is younger than me if you see her.
My sister and her husband are medical doctors in the UK.
My nephew who was 4 or 5 at the time was always complaining about a boy in his class that pushes him. So my sister went to his school after a shift one morning to talk to his teachers.
She was tired and had been working all night. She also had no makeup on, and just wanted to have a word with his teachers and go home to sleep.
His teachers were rude and they said that no such thing is going on. Now, he is a gentle, sweet boy who rarely gets into trouble and we knew that for him to have spoken out, that he was really being bullied.
They asked my sister to fill a form and she did. Mother’s name – Dr. XXX, Father’s name – Dr. XXX and she gave it to them.
They saw this and changed their tone immediately, promising to look into the issue. That was the last time my nephew complained about his bully. It also changed the way his teachers related to my sister.” Source
4. She Was Impressed With His Car Until She Wasn’t
Pixabay“I was working in Greece as an assistant at a used car dealership in order to get by while I was finishing my studies in economic sciences.
The dealership sold mainly high-end sports cars – Porsche and Mercedes cars were what we dealt with most of the time, but we had the occasional Ferrari too.
My job was to assist with anything needed, meaning driving the cars for inspection, washing them, sitting next to customers when they wanted to test drive, deliver them, etc.
One day, I had to deliver a Porsche 911 Turbo S (almost new) to a customer that was working at a finance company.
My boss gave me all the details: you have to drive to this address at this time, park the car here, then wait at the entrance of the building for a guy named xxx, he will be wearing this and that and so on.
So I arrive there, park the car and go to wait at the entrance of the building.
There is a woman standing there, smoking a cigarette.
Since, I was curious to know what the company does, I approached her in a very polite manner and tried to pick her brain and ask a few questions on what qualifications I need in order to work at a finance company (remember I was studying economic sciences at the time, so it was a bit of a dream job for me).
She wasn’t very rude, but she was very cold and gave me very short answers.
As she was finishing her cigarette, my boss called me and told me to drive back to the dealership as the customer would be picking the car there.
So I sort of automatically took the car keys out of my pocket and that’s when she saw the Porsche logo. Suddenly, a huge flirty smile comes across her face and then she popped the question: Do you drive a Porsche?
I thought to myself, at this moment, I can be whoever I want to be.
She doesn’t have a clue. As far as she knows I am rich as a Richie Rich. So I take a deep breath and say: no I am just delivering this car to someone who bought it here.
The disappointment on her face was so obvious that I wanted to punch her for judging me because of that single phrase.
That was also the point where she left without saying bye or anything.
I am positive if I had said that the Porsche was mine, I would have gotten a date with her. The reason I didn’t is because I wanted to act professionally. She would eventually see the car being driven by one of her co-workers.” Source
3. He’s Young, But Able To Fork It Over
Pixabay“I walked into Mercedes Benz when I got my license at the age of 16.
I had been lent 50k by my parents for Forex and managed to turn it to a decent amount and wanted to buy the new A45 AMG which cost around 100k.
When I asked whether I could test drive that car, I was asked for a license and they wanted to see what car I drive at the moment, which was a cheap humble car no more than 10k.
They didn’t let me drive the car but instead made me sit in the passenger seat (ohh, what fun).
Afterward, when I said I wanted to buy it he laughed and said it’s not as cheap as I think. So I went to his manager to say that I felt disrespected and he’s judging me by my looks. (At the time I had a tee-shirt, Vans, and jeans with an Apple watch.
Not only did I end up getting the car, I got it for 10k lower than retail compared to the price they gave me and also received a formal apology from the employee.” Source
2. She Wants A Place In The Middle Of The City, What Doesn’t He Understand?
Pixabay“I work in the *** industry and between leveraging my skills in that area and investing sensibly, I’m doing quite well financially.
I’m currently in my mid-20s and look a little younger than I am, so I’m not very often taken seriously. I recently moved to a new city and visited a real estate agent to find a new place.
When I told the agent I met with that I was looking to buy a place near the center of the city, he was very condescending. He explained to me that maybe I didn’t understand how high property prices were and that maybe I should think about renting out in the suburbs.
He even asked how much my parents were willing to help out financially. The tone changed considerably when I explained that my mother currently lived in a house that I own as part of my existing seven-figure property portfolio.
Needless to say, I found another agent.” Source
1. He Knows His Niche Market Well
Pixabay“In the early 80s, I worked as a salesman in a jewelry store in Kansas City.
I made huge commissions from sales to farmers who would come in dressed in overalls and work clothes. All the other salespeople would just try to avoid them like they were contagious, but i figured out that they came only about twice a year, right after selling their crops! On the same day, they would buy a new truck, a tractor, and drop an extra 50-100k on jewelry.” Source
Appearances can be deceiving, don’t you think? Have you ever gone out somewhere and been treated differently based on your age or looks? Sometimes it works in favour, other times, it certainly does not.
In this day and age, image is everything and it’s important to do a little homework before you speak!
