Friday, February 24, 2012

PLEASE Join our Club

Israelis love clubs.  Especially clubs that stores create so that you can get a discount on your purchases.  Not a bad concept, lots of US stores do the same thing.  But here, well, they get a little overly enthusiastic, shall we say, about encouraging you to join.

EVERY time I have gone to Supersol, the cashier asks me it I want to join the club.  Once I said yes, she took my identity number, and I thought OK that's it.  Never heard from them.  OK, guess that wasn't it.  I probably misunderstood what she asked me (do ya think?).

So Wednesday evening I was there again and the cashier asked if I had a "moadon" (club) card.  No, I said, but I want one.  Well, you would have thought I just offered her a year's supply of money (actually I kind of had).  Her face lit up and she RAN (I am not exaggerating) to the manager's office to get a form.  "Oh, don't worry, I'll fill it out for you!"  She asked me for my teudat zehut (identity card).

Ha, this is where it gets interesting.  You see, if you recall I handed all of my papers (identity card, driver's license, etc) to the car salesman who had to send them to some government office so that we could get our olim discount.  And I don't have them back yet.  So all I have are copies of these documents. 

"No problem," she said, and grabbed the copy from me and ran back to the manager.  She came back and proceeded to fill out the rest of the form and asked me to sign in 5 places.  I did.  "Where is that paper," I asked.  "Oh, you need it back?"  "Yes," I answered, "it's my only copy."  Ah-HA, I didn't think she had understood what I said before.  OK, she promises to get it back.

I sign the form and here comes the manager, a guy with a Steve Carrell haircut who looks like he just stepped out of Leave it to Beaver.  I am not kidding.  He is all smiles and very happy with me and then he looks at the form.  "Oh no," he says, "your signature is slightly different in some of the places you signed - they will reject this."  OK, you try signing your name 5 times in a row while leaning over onto a grocery conveyer belt.

"No problem," he says, "I will fill out the form for you and you just sign this NEW form again."  Wow,, a lot of people are helping me fill out this form, it's very impressive.  Or frightening.  One of those two.  So I sign again and he seems satisfied that I did not magically disappear and someone else stepped into my place to sign one or more of the lines.  Whew.

So everyone is happy.  Then he asks for my teudat zehut.  I explain to him my story - buying a car, they have the documents, etc.  His face changes. Drastically.  Not happy.  "Wait," he says, "I have to see about this."

In the meantime the cashier checks me out and I then go over to the manager's office where three people are now discussing the fate of my club card.  There is a huge debate going on about whether or not the company will accept this copy of my teudat zehut.  "No problem," I say, "I'll come back next week when I have the papers with me and we'll do it again."

Horrors!  Let a customer who is about to be suckered in to the bad deal of a lifetime walk out with nothing?  Never!  They are now all concerned and looking at me and looking at each other.  Finally, the manager says many words in Hebrew very quickly and hands me back my photocopied teudat zehut.  He is smiling.  I say, "B'seder."

I actually have no idea what he said.

 

1 comment:

  1. Gila was with me when I was forced to join a club in Kiryat Sefer. Pesach shopping makes you lose your defenses.

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