- First, in the corner of 34th Street and 8th Avenue, a young woman comes and asks me, point blank, "do you know if 9th avenue is that way or that way?" I point the way and say "that way" and right away, without uttering an extra word, she starts walking that way. That woman must not know the words "excuse me", or "please", or even "thank you". She had what she wanted, the information, so why lose two seconds saying "thank you"? Had I known she was going to be this rude, I would have pointed the wrong way.
- Then I head to a well-known store, B&H Photo Video, which was nearby (34th and 9th), because I was looking for a set of waterproof headphones I had seen in their website last week, while I was in Utah, at $19.95. I enter and ask some guy there "I would like these headphones". He calls and while we wait for them, he tries to charge me $29.95. I tell him: "excuse me, but the web price is $19.95." He looks it up and it really is $29.95. I ask him "has the price changed?" and he answers "no, they've always been $29.95". I tell him: "Excuse me, but last week they were $19.95 in your website". And he says: "That's not true". What do you mean it's not true? Am I blind or don't know how to read or what? Tell me it was a special, or it has changed, or that it was a mistake, but don't tell me it's not true. Here's a capture of the froogle entry where it still is $19.95. Froogle wouldn't have it at $19.95 if it weren't true.
So visibly upset and half yelling I tell him: "Are you calling me a liar?" and he says: "No, but what you say is not true". "You've just lost a customer". And he incredibly says: "We never had it". Then, with all the yelling, a manager comes, I tell him what happened, and he nicely apologizes. I accept the apology and leave. But they've really lost a customer, it will be a while before I set foot in B&H again, no matter how cheap. - Finally, when I get back to Harlem, I go to my local Duane Reade (125th and Frederick Douglass) to buy a couple of things. It's 8:35pm and I know they close at 9:00. I enter and buy my stuff and when I leave, the door is locked. A big guy comes and opens it. I ask: "is it closed?" Before he answers a woman tries to enter the store and he says "it's closed". I look at my watch: 8:42. "Don't you close at 9?" I ask him. And he says, quite upset: "You were inside the store, sir. Did you not hear the announcement?" I say "No" and he answers "You weren't paying attention." And leaves inside the store. Of course I wasn't paying attention to the announcement, 95% of the time they say "Johnny, come to cashier please." The big idiot implied it was my fault for not paying attention instead of theirs for closing the store 20 minutes early.
This city has two major drawbacks: first one, that everything is hugely expensive (a tiny studio in Harlem is $1,100 and is a great price?); and the second one is that some people are rude as hell.
