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Previous: Kinko's customer service | Main | Next: Dell email support
June 24, 2006 12:03 AM
Broken: Neon storefront sign
Alex B sends in a picture:
This is a new neon sign in the window of my supermarket.
I asked the checkout lady what the sign was all about, and she told me (with much sarcasting eyerolling) that "it's intentional; the store is really open 24 hours a day, but the new manager thinks the sign will convey to customers that the store's employees will go the extra hour for you."
Simple answer: This picture was taken on the last Sunday in October. Technically, that day is 25 hours long in most of the US.
A depanneur (convenience store) in Montreal has a sign like this. It's a little dumb and obviously not true, but everyone in the neighbourhood knows where the 25-hour dep is.
Oh? It seems pretty funny to me. It's just for fun, after all. Hopefully everyone knows there are generally 24 hours in Earth days at the present stage in the life of the solar system. *walks away humming "Eight Days a Week"*
MESSAGE TO THE FUN SUCKERS >:(
It is a freakin sign that we think is funny. Just becasue you don't have a soul doesn't mean you have to feed on someone else's.
LOL! I wonder if they make their employees work for a nonexhistant hour, or work 24 hours for the last day of their work week and add in an hour from the next morning, from 12AM midnight to 1AM in the middle of the technical morning.
Oh, for goodness sakes... It's pretty obviously a joke - its not a mistake, or a poorly thought out slogan, it's a manager's humerous way of telling the world that their store has that little extra bit of service.
This is what happens when people start looking for "broken" stuff, just so they can submit it. ...Humour suddenly becomes "broken", simply because someone had to think about the joke.
This is just like that junkyard that is "open 8 days a week".
But the junkyard is always closed.
And the sign is painted on some old welded junk from the owner's yard
My interpretation would be that the store is open 25 hours at a time. Like, it's open for a day plus one hour, then it closes for a bit. Then it opens for another day plus one hour, then closes again for a while.
"We go the extra hour for you" is not an interpretation that would ever occur to me, because that isn't a saying. It just doesn't make any sense. It's a supermarket; how could there ever be an extra hour's worth of work to do for a customer?
Well, it's obviously an attempt at cleverness, but it's a poor one. Makes the manager look not-too-smart. I hate it when people make mistakes on purpose in an attempt to be clever.
"It may be mild Glenn but it is definitly not humorous..."
Hm. Maybe I need to submit your sense of humour.... it is clearly broken.
Side me with the people who like this. There's no way if this store was in your neighborhood that it wouldn't stand out in your mind.
In busy cities no one even notices open 24 hours signs any more because they're everywhere. This sign, whether you like it or not, grabs your attention.
This is a good example of Seth Godin's "purple cow."
"'We go the extra hour for you' is not an interpretation that would ever occur to me, because that isn't a saying."
>I agree.
"There's no way if this store was in your neighborhood that it wouldn't stand out in your mind."
>Yes, I would be so annoyed that I would go to a different grocery store.
" the clerk told me (with much sarcasting eyerolling)" Obviously not funny the 16 thousandth time you hear it.I wonder, do they have locks installed on the door to a store that is always open? Now that would be broken.
O-yea, maybe it is "25 hours a week", as the sign does not give any time lime to complete the 25 hours.
That sign has no meaning. I might as well say that my store is open 962 days. What happens after 25 hours? Do they go out of business? Does the sign count down?
Wow! Who knew there were so many humorless people in the world - right here on TIB.com. Reading the sign gave me slight "start." But, immediately, it dawned on me that the owner/manager was conveying that they go the "extra mile." If I saw an "extra mile" sign, I wouldn't have cared less - no impact. This is a sign on a business. What is a sign on a business? Marketing. Upon further thought, perhaps it suggests "this is such a good place to shop (because of service, etc.) that you'll be in and out of here and feel like you saved a lot of time (an extra hour sounds nice to a lot of people). But that requires THOUHGHT. I agree with the person who said that people look for/want this to be broken just to be able to comment - now that's broken. And thinking a more logical explanation is that they're open for 25 hours at a time and then closed "for a bit." As if the supermarket needs to sleeeeeeeep for a while. lol. Obviously a Wharton grad.
"My interpretation would be that the store is open 25 hours at a time. Like, it's open for a day plus one hour, then it closes for a bit. Then it opens for another day plus one hour, then closes again for a while."
Then you'd get a open at 12AM, close at 1AM, then open at 2AM..etc and eventually the cycle would keep going on until the store is closed (for inventory or something) during the day.
I actually submitted this one - What I don't like about it is, that to me anyway, this sign doesn't say "We're open 24 hours AND we'll go the extra mile for you". Instead, I read it as "We're so clever! And we're *probably* open 24 hours a day, but you'll have to read the smaller sign on the front door to be sure".
Why is this broken? Even though it's not a huge improvement over the 24 hour stores, it's still nice to know you have that extra hour when you need it. It's not a big deal for me because I do my shopping early, but I know many people would appreciate the added convenience.
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Previous: Kinko's customer service | Main | Next: Dell email support
Hmm...
mabey they close 25 hours after this picture was taken?
(BTW: FIRST!!!)
Posted by: Dylan at June 24, 2006 12:07 AM