Things that Robert is thinking about that keep him from accomplishing anything.

 
Always Be Closing
I'm riding a wave of pride right now. I'm about the most spineless person you know. Some might prefer to call me "accommodating," but they're just trying to butter me up to take advantage of me in the future. Am I paranoid or is Poker Nation seeping into my brain?

I'm brimming with pride because I negotiated a discount at the Jiffy Lube today. Already significantly overpriced for an oil change, they offered to replace my transmission fluid and clean my fuel injectors. What would be a $18 job at my usual place--which I'm not at because they pissed me off yesterday when they said the crew was about to take lunch for 30 minutes--that's right, the whole crew was taking a break simultaneously with 4 customers in the lobby and me about to be 5--has now become $130-ish visit.

Maybe it's the decongestants talking, but it came to me: why not ask for a discount. I even looked in the person's general direction for it instead of at the floor and speaking into my chest. Not only did I ask, he offered $10 without hesitation. So I said, "Well, is there any way you could go to $20 cause I just went from a $30 oil change to looking at about $120 in extra stuff." He didn't just buy it, he gave me the oil change free!

Holy crap! This is way better than the $50 I got out of Circuit City in exchange for the 3 hours I spent there on a computer exchange. They were nice, so I didn't push it. Anyhow, with that $80 plus my freelance dollars, I've just about covered the rest of my expenses for my trip to Austin. Some of you may be saying to yourself, "Yeah, but you just blew $100-something you didn't plan to. Who out negotiated whom?" To that I say, you enjoy undermining me, don't you mom? (Apparently the Al Franken book has taken hold as well.)
posted by RSaunders at 11:38 AM ⇒