Wednesday, January 03, 2007

The inflexibly stupid vendor

Today is a slow day that I have the time to review the paperwork generated from our vendors. One particular vendor stand out as one of the most hillariously stupid vendor I have ever dealt with.

This vendor, who shall remain anonymous yet will be nicknamed "sky" (a very representative name with many layers of meaning due to translation, words play, and it's own choice of nickname..), has a bad choice of volume discount. For items with a packaging of 10 per package, they insist on giving discount only for more than 10, not 10 or more.

Let that statement sink into your mind..

So if I buy 10 items, which is conveniently packaged into 1 "box", I don't get any discount. If I buy 11 items, which is in a form of 1 "box" and 1 annoying additional item, I get the volume discount. Now, considering that the item (roughly 12cm x 18cm x 7cm or 5in x 7in x 3in) is delivered on a motorcycle inside a cube which side roughly 50cm (25in), the process of retrieving the items I buy (they sell many types) is unnecesarily tedious because getting that 1 extra item from inside the box is difficult, with so many extra items. It's their lose..

To be fair, I think this awkwardness in the minimal amount of volume discount, has something to do with their computer system. I suspect someone hardwired the volume discount minimal amount to 10, and accidentally set the logic to more than (>) 10 instead of at least (>=) 10.

Anyway, in a redeeming twist, their delivery order has places for 11 entries of items. This arrangement is excellent for a class of product they sell, which has many colors. By buying 11 boxes of different colors, I can get the volume discount and all those items can fit one delivery order! Yay! Good for them and good for me.

But in another twist, that particular class of item has 12 colors..

I have too much time.. :-)

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