Powers of Persuasion

Apparently, the pawn shop I work for has many regulars. One of them called the store today and I had the pleasure of answering the phone when he did. I recognized his voice and jittery speech mannerisms immediately and knew it was going to be an interesting conversation. He first tried to get me to pass him off to one of the more seasoned employees with whom he is more familiar, but as they were busy helping customers I offered my assistance and he accepted. This is more or less how our conversation went.

Customer: "Would you guys be interested in buying a surround sound digital converter output box?"

Me: "Uh. Probably. We buy just about everything. Did you say surround sound?"

Customer: "Yeah. It's a surround sound digital converter output box. I have no idea what it is."

This is when I wondered why this man had an item when he had no idea what it was. I imagined him rummaging through a dumpster and pulling out something large and heavy and thinking "Ooooo. I could sell this!"

Me: "Did you say it has something to do with surround sound?"

Customer: "Yeah. It is a surround sound digital converter output box, but I'm not sure what it does."

Me: "Well, I would think it would have to be a part of a surround sound system."

Customer: "Yeah! I think you hook it up and it enhances the sound, you know?"

Me: "Uh. Maybe. But why do you have it if you don't know what it does?"

This was to satisfy my curiosity as to how he had obtained this mysterious item.

Customer: "Oh. Well, they're just selling it here and it seems like a pretty good deal and I was wondering if I should get it."

Dumpster theory was out, but now I was curious as to who was selling this man strange electronic equipment. An image of an open car trunk and broken electronics being sold by some scum bag entered my mind.

Me: "Okay. Well, I think it's the part of a surround sound system where you hook up the speakers. Look on the back of it. Are there hook ups for speakers? They might be a bunch of different colors."

Customer: "Uh. Yeah. Yeah. It's not the wire kind with the thing you push with your thumb, but it's got hook ups for A/V cords. It says 'rear speaker', 'front speaker', 'subwoofer'. Yeah. Yeah."

Me: "Are there speakers with it?"

Customer: "No. But I was wondering if I got this--because it's so cheap--if you guys would want it. It's a surround sound digital output converter. I think it enhances the sound when you plug in the speakers. Would you guys be interested in something like that?"

That's when I got it. He wanted to buy something and then turn around and sell it to us for a profit. It then became my goal to dissuade this man from buying this item and trying to sell it to us. We do have similar items, but we have plenty of them. It would have been much better if the item had been accompanied by the appropriate set of speakers, but since it wasn't, I didn't think we'd want to bother. He would have been wasting his money buying the thing and then our time when we had to tell him we didn't want it.

Me: "We probably would take it if it had the speakers. But if they're not even selling the speakers and you're not sure of what it even does, I wouldn't buy it."

Customer: "No?"

Me: "No. I mean, you can't even test it to see if it works without the speakers. So, really it's just one part of an incomplete set. I wouldn't buy it."

Customer: "Oh. Okay. Yeah, I don't think should buy it. It says it only gives out 30 amps. That doesn't sound right, does it?"

Me: "No."

Customer: "That wouldn't be very loud, huh? That can't be right."

Me: "Yeah. Something's not right with that."

Customer: "Uh. Yeah. Uh. I don't think I should buy this."

Me: "I don't think you should buy it either."

Customer: "Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I will. Thanks for your help.

I told the man that he was welcome, but what I was really thinking was that I should have been thanking him for entertaining me for the past couple of minutes. I was also very pleased with myself that I had dissuaded the man against buying the thing and then trying to sell it to us. I told my fellow co-workers about it and they told me that this is pretty much all the man does, buy things and then try to make a profit by reselling. Not very steady income if you ask me, but whatever. At least he'll provide some interesting stories every now and then.