Superior Negotiation Skills

I took a few college courses one summer at the gorgeous gorges - Ithaca New York. The topic of the last class in psych 101 was on what we learned and its application in the real world: He taught us how to buy a car (or sell one). It was everything we learned that summer, applied in the real world, by car salesmen. How people interact, manipulation/persuasion, social pressures, decision making, cognitive dissonance... car salesmen probably read every psych paper written and apply it to sell you a car.

For example: The foot-in-the-door study where if you agree to something small you'll incrementally agree to something huge later - If you agree to put a tiny flyer on your lawn for a politician, within a month, you'll incrementally agree to bigger and bigger flyers, until you have a giganto billboard with his shiny grillz facing the street.

At 24 hour fitness I used this knowledge to diffuse the jedi sales tricks they tried to use on me.

the calculator trick "with this discount you'll save (punch in some numbers) $145.32"
- uh huh, to your overly bloated price to begin with.

the manager trick "well, I have to ask my manager"
- no you don't, you have the power right there

the making you feel special trick "I like you and I shouldn't do this but I have this expired coupon... "
- yeah whatever

I finally negotiated down to a $29 a month flat rate. (okay, okay, Dr. Joetta also told me to flat out just refuse to pay a fee except the monthly. Note: she studied psychology!) I also piggy backed on Richard's account to just get rid of the initiation fee all together. (thanks richard!)

But the good part is when the business is all taken care of we can just shoot the shit for real. I was making fun of rich people and celebrities in LA and he let me into the swankalicious executive locker room that I could never afford... and by the way, seeing a naked white rich man makes them all too human, without that facade of excess. You're just like the rest of us.