I was pokin’ around the other day and went into a furniture store. On the sofa inside the door were a couple of pillows I liked. I thought they would make good spring-like replacements for my current darker ones. I said to a saleswoman, “I like these pillows. How much are they? She said $50 for the pair. Less than I thought I’d have to pay. Great!

Then she said she couldn’t sell me those; that she would have to order them for me, that it would take forever because the manufacturer would wait til they had reason to cut the fabric, that I could buy the fabric and make some pillows myself (ya, right). Her final suggestion was that I try Bed, Bath and Beyond because “they have nice pillows”. WHAT?

Seriously, why didn’t she just sell me the pillows? She could have found another pair from a sofa towards the back of the store where it was less noticeable (a furniture store doesn’t keep spare throw pillows around??) and then SHE could have gone to Bed, Bath and Beyond the next day and gotten two pillows, for less money I’m sure, and thrown them on the green sofa in the front of the store. Really, who the hell would ever know or care?

Her boss? Would the store owner really want their salespeople to follow rules so strictly that they don’t sell merchandise and instead send dissatisfied customers elsewhere?

Maybe the salesperson just didn’t have the capability of dealing with anything outside the norm. Too bad. Am I missing something here?

Why would someone blindly follow rules or procedures that make no sense and are counterproductive?

Talk about a lose/lose!

More examples of frustrating rule followers?

I think there is and I asked others what they thought. The most obvious answer, as pointed out by one of my favorite tweeps, is that people will take advantage of you. And he’s right. Many will. And there’s more.

The circumstances which prompted my original tweet… We ‘re in the grocery store. It’s  like 8:15 on a school day and we’re picking up some bagels and fruit for my daughter to bring to a meeting she has at school. We are borderline late because she forgot I am boycotting the store across the street from the school (that’s a different story) and she hadn’t factored in time to go out of our way so she’s getting stressed.

We get our stuff and are heading into the checkout line with three items, cash in hand. Just getting in line in front of us is an old couple (my daughter is a sucker for seniors), stooped and grey haired, with half a cartful of groceries. They notice us and politely offer to let us go ahead of them. So what does a normal, reasonable person do? They say thank you so much, that’s very kind, blah, blah and they go ahead.

Not my daughter. She says, ” Oh no, that’s okay. You go ahead.” I looked at her incredulously. WHAT? You’re worried that you’re going to be late, you have three items and cash and you’re not taking them up on that offer? What are you thinking?? I said “You’re too nice. Like unnecessarily nice” and she said, “There’s no such thing.”

How do I get through to this thoughtful person who never wants to inconvenience anyone (except me of course!)? I asked, “You know that good feeling you get when you let other people go in front of you? Well, you just deprived those sweet old people of that same good feeling by not letting them be kind to you. You don’t have a lock on being nice. Other people are allowed to do it too! I got the eye roll.

The other time that came to mind was in my car. I, along with two of  her friends in the back seat who have their driver’s licenses, gave her hell for her comments at a four way stop. There were cars in all directions and she said something like, let them go. We all said, “NO”! really loudly. You can’t do that we explained. There is an order about this. When it’s your turn, you take it. You don’t just sit there like you don’t know it’s your turn and wait ’til everybody else goes. I told her, “It’s a system. It works. Don’t mess with it.” And don’t ever let me catch you stopping in the road, mid block, for a pedestrian who wants to cross the street. Or swerving so you don’t hit a squirrel for God’s sake!  There’s nice and there’s stupid.

And that’s where I was coming from that day.

More examples?