If my friend Chris is great at one thing, it's telling stories. Over the course of nine years, I've heard and been privy to some incredibly funny moments. Unfortunately, Chris' memory is worse than a goldfish's and I am often the one to remind him of things that he experienced in his own life, which in turn makes it amusing for him all over again. I'm not kidding either. I probably remember more of his life than he does. I have no doubt that I'll have to remind him exactly how his wedding went down in a few years.
With his consent, I will periodically be sharing some of these great moments with you for your own amusement, beginning with one of my favorites from the Best Buy era - "The Preview Window."
My first three years at Best Buy were spent in the warehouse, unloading numerous forty foot trailers filled with the products that you, the consumer, purchase. I'm sure none of you ever think about how the product gets into the store, which is precisely why we warehouse folk were looked upon as grunts even within the store. We're the ones who busted our asses until two in the morning, unloading trucks in Michigan heat and humidity in a warehouse with no air conditioning so that you can buy your quality electronic goods.
Unfortunately, every so often things happened on these trucks. Things that might have included, but certainly weren't limited to, boxes collapsing, sending a ceiling-high stack of merchandise toppling on top of a hapless employee, or someone's foot being run over with a pallet jack loaded with furniture (that would be MY foot, for the record). When things like this happened, the natural response was usually to punch and/or kick the nearest box until the pain went away. The next time you go to Best Buy to purchase an expensive product, you might want to keep this in mind. Warehouse folk are an angry, underappreciated bunch and we didn't treat the product with care. We were just concerned about getting the hell out of there because those of us who weren't lazy salesfloor employees had to be back at work the next morning at 6 AM.
At the time Chris worked as the supervisor in the video department. It was his job to lie about... er... "sell" TVs, DVD players, tell you about non-existent benefits of the Performance Service Plan ("Yeah, if you throw the TV down a flight of stairs into a pool of water, we'll replace it for you,"), and explain to gullible customers why the $90 cables were way better than the $10 ones.
One afternoon, Chris was helping an older woman purchase a television set. After bringing it down from the racks high above, Chris noticed a gaping hole in the front of the box - no doubt a result of an angry, semi-injured employee during the unloading of a truck. Quick-thinker he is, Chris whipped out his trusty box-cutter and did his best to make the hole look symmetrical, then brought it to the patiently waiting customer.
When the lady looked at the box, she exclaimed "Oh, there's a hole in the box!" Knowing we didn't have another of that same model in stock and unwilling to lose his sale, Chris quickly countered with, "No, that's not a hole - that's a preview window. That's a new feature so you can look inside the box and make sure that everything is OK." He actually invited the woman to look inside the box, which she did. Pleased that there was nothing wrong (which, in all fairness, there wasn't), she still purchased the TV and the service plan.
That is an example of Chrisery at its finest. For the uninitiated, "Chrisery" is the term I've coined for his underhanded exploits... and there will be much more Chrisery to come. For now I leave you to mull over the Preview Window and the fact that this is one of my best friends, ladies and gentlemen.
