Finance & Legal OUT of STOCK

Here is a variation of the 'out of stock' theme so prevalent in the Philippines: A friend has been told to wait 5 days for a bank ATM pin number as they have run out of them (she has the ATM card, so it is just the pin number - that thing which is a random 4 to 6 digits and which can be changed!). Have I missed something? Can this be possible?

 

Rather strange and hard to believe. But then again, once you think you know everything about the Philippines there is yet another surprise waitng for you.

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Maybe you are not getting the whole story. Maybe that is how long it takes for someone at the main office to reset the pin.

 

My latest memorable "out of stock sir".
City Hardware, I looking to buy a drill press. Im at the front end of the "Tool Department" and I ask in a loud voice to the sales person in the back where I can find a drill press. He comes back with "out of stock sir". No problem and no surprise. After all I'm in the big boys toy department. I continue to wonder around trying to find something else to spend some money on. I end up in the very same corner where the sales person said "out of stock sir" and lo-and-behold less than 12 inches from where he was standing is THREE drill presses. I go to the manager and inform him that he should try training his employees on where the things they are selling are located at. He offered a discount if I wanted to buy. I said no sale because I do not like being told "out of stock sir", just because the sales person was to laze or to ignorant to know where it is. I got my new drill press down town at ₱300.oo more than it was at City Hardware for the very same drill press.
This was some years ago. Did the sales person learn anything? NO. Did the store manager learn anything? NO. Did I learn anything? YES. I learned that, "out of stock sir" could really mean one of several things;

1. We are really out of stock.
2. We have never ever stocked it in the first place.
3. I'm to lazy to look for it.
4. It is buried in all the other stock on the back and I'm not going to look for it.
5. I do not get paid well enough to look for it.
6. Screw this store I hope they go bankrupt.

I no longer fret over the reply "out of stock sir". I just keep on looking.

 

Perhaps, but it was what the bank employee said (that they had "run out of PINs") and also it was a new account. There must have been a sensible reason even if my friend was not told it.

 

My similar experience at Citi Hardware, I went in looking for a rake, as I was walking to the back a salesman came up and asked me what I was looking for. I told him that I was looking for a rake, and he said, "sorry sir out of stock". I said thank you I will just look around. I walked back to the yard section and there were two different styles of rakes with plenty in stock. I picked the one I wanted, and then I went to find that salesman again and I showed it to him, and I said "is this the rake that is out of stock?" ... he said "yes sir".

 

I wonder if it is their lack of English or confidence in English which makes them state the same line which they have learned of "out of stock" rather than having to deal with a ... nose bleed (their term not mine). I notice when in Handyman at Robinsons as how they all scatter from the areas I approach and I am certainly not intimidating but possibly my language is. These guys are shop assistants and my guess is their English education is limited. And before someone reminds me that English is one of the national languages of the Philippines, it is only the more educated that are proficient.

 

No doubt something alone those lines in correct. However, a government worker or official calling it an "out of stock" problem that the gov't has run out of numbers, is highly amusing.