07/28/2026 from Daily Jokes
#22464
The bell above the door of “Elegance Boutique” chimed softly, but inside the manager’s glass-walled office, the atmosphere was anything but elegant. Mrs. Vance, the store’s stern but fair manager, sat across from Janet, one of her newest sales clerks. She tapped a manicured fingernail against a spreadsheet.
“Janet, I’ll be direct,” Mrs. Vance began, her tone serious but not unkind. “Your sales figures are well below any of our other clerks. I’m sorry to say that unless you can improve your record soon, we will have to let you go.”
Janet’s shoulders slumped. She wasn’t lazy, just naturally blunt and entirely unpracticed in the art of retail flattery. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” she replied humbly. “Is there any advice you could give me on how to do better?”
Mrs. Vance softened. “There is an old trick I can tell you about. It may sound silly, but it has worked wonders for me in the past. Go home, open a dictionary, and find a word that has particular power and positivity for you. Memorize it, and work it into your sales pitch whenever a customer is talking. You’ll be amazed at the results.”
Determined to save her job, Janet took the advice to heart. She spent the entire weekend flipping through her dictionary until she found the perfect word. On Monday morning, she walked into the boutique with renewed confidence. Her chosen power word? “Fantastic.”
By the end of the month, Janet’s sales figures had skyrocketed. Impressed, Mrs. Vance called her back into the office to congratulate her. “Did you try my little trick?” the manager asked, genuinely curious.
“Yes, I did,” Janet nodded proudly. “It took me all weekend to find just the right word, but I got it: ‘Fantastic’.”
“‘Fantastic’. What an excellent, uplifting word,” the manager said, smiling. “How have you been using it?”
“Well,” Janet began, “my first customer on Monday was a woman who told me her little girl had just been accepted into the most exclusive prep school in the city. I looked at her and said, ‘Fantastic.’ She went on to tell me how her daughter always gets straight A’s and is the most popular girl in her class. I said, ‘Fantastic,’ and she walked out with $450 worth of clothing.”
Janet continued, gaining momentum. “My next customer told me she was in charge of the Spring Ball at the country club and needed a new formal dress. I said, ‘Fantastic.’ She went on to tell me she has the best figure of anyone on the committee and her husband makes the most money. I said, ‘Fantastic,’ and she not only bought the designer gown, but hundreds of dollars of accessories, too. It’s been like that all week: the customers keep boasting, I keep saying ‘Fantastic’, and they keep buying.”
“Excellent work, Janet,” the manager complimented, thoroughly pleased. “Out of curiosity, what did you used to say to customers before you discovered your power word?”
Janet shrugged, her face the picture of innocent sincerity, and replied:
I used to say, ‘Who gives a sh*t!
