MetaChat - And Sometimes Y

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

30 July 2006

And Sometimes Y →[More:]

I was in a Sears store buying an air conditioner, and took a couple of photographs for the Found Alphabet theme, when this girl that worked there came up to me to ask why I was taking pictures. I asked her if she thought I was spying and she blushed and told me that her manager had told her to come find out what I was doing. So I explained the photo/theme thing, and she was intrigued, and asked to see what I had shot so far (with my digital camera). When she saw the photos, she was all smiles, and voluteered to be my Y. I looked over at her manager, who was having a shit fit trying to figure out why we were laughing.

post by: iconomy at: 15:12 | 16 comments

Yay for Human Y Girls at Sears! And no Yay for their pisshaided managers!

posted by Lipstick Thespian 30 July | 15:31

Yeah, my company is like this. There's even a sign posted outside saying no photographing or video taping without permission. I don't know why, as the competition is always in and out, comparing prices and such. Aarrgghh, no pictures of yams!!!

posted by redvixen 30 July | 15:40

Even yams with jellied eel? Bah!

posted by iconomy 30 July | 15:45

A photographer's take on camera bans -- it's from 2004. I know I read a more recent article on Lifehacker just a few months ago...

posted by psho 30 July | 16:04

Vixen: The store displays you see are big marketing business. Most stores' margins are so razor thin that they've become obsessed with where things are placed for maximum impulse buying. One of my former clients had a consulting business that did just this, and it was ridiculous money just for arranging lipsticks.

posted by Eideteker 30 July | 16:08

Aha! Here's what I was looking for! The Photographer's Right

posted by psho 30 July | 16:12

The y-girl is such a good sport.

Serifs, even!

posted by sophieblue 30 July | 16:24

Eideteker, you are so right. Stores even get extra money for extra displays of products. Not to mention how much they get paid for items on eye-level shelves, point of purchase areas, and items "merchandised" for extra sales (ie: hotdog buns placed near hotdogs). There are always "contests" for increased sales of certain items, higher sales percentage being key to winning. But sometimes it seems to me that all this competition forgets what to me is the most important thing: the customer.
So hooray for the Y-girl! She's customer-friendly!

posted by redvixen 30 July | 17:15

I've never been given any amount of money for women arranging me in public displays! What gives, American Shopping Public?

posted by Lipstick Thespian 30 July | 18:06

My mom, who is law-abiding to a fault, was taking pictures in Marshall Fields in downtown Chicago once. Why? Because my brother had built the big Fossil watch display (a huge airplane that was "flying" out of the wall over the watch counter).

Security was on her immediately. She was mortified, but when she explained, they let her take one more picture and didn't confiscate her film.

Oh, and I just came from the grocery store, where I spotted a W, a Z, and an X. Will have to go back avec camera.

posted by mudpuppie 30 July | 18:11

Mudpuppie, watch your pictures! That's where I work and what I was talking about! ;^)

And Lipstick Thespian, maybe you should be "arranged" in Macys window, no?
That should garner some cash!

posted by redvixen 30 July | 18:48

Why don't girls ever volunteer to be my Y?

posted by stilicho 30 July | 19:06

Does anyone have a copy of that 80s song: "AEIOU...Y?" or something like that?

posted by Eideteker 30 July | 22:03

The real burning question here is... Is 'o' a consonant in the word 'one'?

posted by knave 30 July | 22:21

YES Eideteker! EBN - OZN was their name and the song is AEIOU...sometimes Y.

posted by getoffmylawn 31 July | 16:16

Awesome, but I need an mp3!

posted by Eideteker 31 July | 19:21

← Happiness is... || Doesn't this rock look kind of like Beavis? →

HOME || REGISTER || LOGIN