Tillmonkey Reviews
May 12th, 2006 at 22:51
I’ve spent today mostly at home and slacking on the internet. No surprises there, then. I did spend some time coding some PHP- both directly useful PHP (ie: for my Pokémon website) and one of those pie-in-the-sky ideas I have every-so-often and then give up on because I realise they’re too difficult (in this case, a last.fm/amazon mashup that would link you, loyal readers, to buy music I listen to, giving me some commission).
I also spent some time in the garden, but gave up when I realised it was too bright, and I couldn’t really see my laptop’s screen.
But, yesterday! Now there was a day! I went to some shops for the first time in ages, and being a veteran of the retail industry, I’ve decided to review the tillmonkeys.
The Railway Station
He didn’t ask to see my railcard when I said that I had one- this was good as it demonstrates a degree of trust. No banter, as such, but very functional and polite. 8/10
Waterstones
For the first time in a few months, I bought some new books- a Chomsky and something or other about the Middle East. I based my purchases entirely on the cover designs, so they may well be rubbish.
The Tillmonkey was awful. I thought with it being a bookshop, the middle-aged, grey-haired, jumper-wearing shopkeeper would be up for a bit of a chat. He’d be the friendly sort of chap who’d be passionate and enthusiastic about books, and would have read the vast majority of the books on sale himself. Perhaps when he saw what I was buying he’d exclaim with delight “Wow! I loved this book, it was really insightful!”, or perhaps “You’ll love the bit where Noam Chomsky insults American foreign policy”, and maybe even offer a frank review of my purchases, telling me that he’s not sure I’d like one of them, and go on to recommend a better one that he’d make less money on- because he loves books.
Alas, I was wrong.
“Do you do student discounts?”, “No, not anymore”. I thought I’d try and expand this exchange into banter. “Ah, I guess you get a lot of students in here”, I said, knowingly, before adding “…so it’d wouldn’t be profitable”, to justify my assumption and the fact I was apparently thinking aloud to the tillmonkey. Rather than get a lamenting, yet friendly comment about the cutthroat nature of modern business, harking back to the “good old days”, followed by an upbeat “Oh well, I guess that’s the way of the world”, to leave the conversation on an upbeat note, I got a dirty look and a scowl. He literally lowered his eyebrows, opened his mouth whilst leaving his teeth closed, and glared at me.
He did bag the books for me, though. 2/10.
WH Smith
This tillmonkey was excellent- when I got to till I spotted the “half price Galaxy when you buy any newspaper or magazine”. Despite having already scanned my goods, she didn’t mind cancelling the till, and she didn’t expect me to put back the now redundant bag of malteasers. 9/10.
The Train Back Home
This bloke wasn’t strictly a tillmonkey, but the ticket man annoyed me. He waved his hand in a sarcastic way (yes, a sarcastic wave) across my field of vision to get my attention, and then proceeded to act a bit shirty. I produced my “RTN” ticket from my wallet, and he stamped it, but then reached across and pulled my “OUT” ticket directly out of my wallet- essentially putting his hand all over my property without asking permission. He then demanded to see my railcard, to prove I got the discount tickets. Clearly he thought I was the next Great Train Robber and was robbing Midland Mainline’s excellent services. This completely eroded the trust that had built up between me and the tillmonkey back at the station.
I am disappointed. 3/10.
Overall, a mixed bag. The bag contains four tillmonkeys of varying quality.
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