Has this ever happened to you? Say you want some red high heels. For some reason the sales assistant doesn’t want you to have them so he or she takes a number of steps to put you off as follows.

• Tells you that you don’t really want the red ones you want some other colour
• Tells you the other colour is more popular, more in fashion, is what ‘everyone’ wants (Yep, that’s supposed to make you want it)

When these ploys fail the tactics change and before you know it the colour red doesn’t even exist anymore. Whatever happens the sales person is determined not to give you what you want even though it’s what YOU want and your’re the one who’s going to pay for it, a minor detail.

I’ve experienced this a lot like the time I was told by a very confident sales assistant that a book I’d been trying to find didn’t exist even though I’d read it before and don’t start me on hairdressers.

Some of the best examples come from when we built our house. Even the little things were met with opposition, like light bulbs, I kid you not. The sales man was intent on selling us his choice. It took forever to get away from him and first we had to hear the history of the light bulb. Even now we laugh/shudder when we pass the lighting shop! The laughing part came later.

Talking to builders/workmen at the house you never knew if they didn’t want to do what you wanted because 1. It couldn’t be done without great difficulty, feats of engineering prowess and expense or 2. Because they didn’t want to. Even when they said it was 1 I always suspected it was 2.

Our window experience though was by far the worst. I wanted red windows and was willing to pay for them of course. Was that enough for the salesman? Was it hell! First he tried everything under the sun to convince me that I didn’t want them. When that didn’t work he tried to convince me that a winey/brown colour he had in stock was in fact red. Did the fact I know my colours make a difference? Not a jot.

After much, much, much insistence on my part he finally gathered I wouldn’t be put off. Was that the end of my window trouble? Sadly no. We wanted the traditional style with a bar down the middle and another across, the opening straight down the middle too so each half of the window could be pushed fully out (only downstairs of course). At this point he proceeded to tell me I didn’t want that, it wouldn’t look well, it wouldn’t let enough light in and then of course he went on to tell me what, according to him, I did want, and this is only half the tale.

I would so much prefer if people just admitted they don’t have it, can’t get it or don’t want the hassle. Anything would be better than what they do! What do you think? How do you feel when this happens? Does it bother you at all because it drives me CRAZY!

In the end of course I got my windows and I love them. They’re beautiful. They even let the light in : )