Down here at the pawn shop

[cellarolson]

i used to work in the British version of pawn shop (a second hand store). I got a mobile phone for free. It was literally the size of a brick

[limey]

Hi Cellarolson! We do have pawnshops here in the UK. A second hand store is a different thing, more like a commission store, where you leave stuff and only get some money if and when it sells.

[Undertoad]

This is the sort of thing you will come across in North Philly. This is Saturday night, in a neighborhood just to our south.

There is some consensus that the dude is on PCP and not molly as our narrator suggests. Our narrator is more likely to be a customer than this tripping guy.

[jimhelm]

what's Molly?

the pure form of MDMA, or ecstasy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA

[Undertoad]

Molly is a more pure form of Ecstasy. It's usually used at raves and a few people died from it at an electronic music conference in NYC last weekend.

[jimhelm]

crazy

[neilt0]

I think I may have posted a link or street view of the Pawn Shop I stumbled upon near me.

That very shop is now a TV series: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/posh-pawn

[Undertoad]

Pawn Stars ripoff. I'm trying to think of one single posh thing in our shop... I guess it would probably be an iPad in good condition that someone stole.

[Undertoad]

My replacement at the shop is a pretty chill dude. He reported that this happened yesterday:

A customer just walked into the shop and through the inch thick bulletproof glass I work on the other side of posed the following query: "You work here?"

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

"You work here?"

... maybe his emphasis was on work

[Undertoad]

I was there yesterday, and here's one he didn't report.

A woman walks in with a ring, looking for a pawn. The ring has three diamonds on it. Only manager Alan inspects and prices diamonds, so new guy Steve takes the ring and starts to walk to the other room where Alan is working. The woman immediately objects and demands her ring back... suggesting that while the ring is in another room, we are going to remove the diamonds and replace them with something cheaper.

Alan hears this happening -- he knows what's going on in the shop at all times --and walks out and tells the woman we aren't going to pawn her ring at all. "If you don't trust us for the thirty seconds to evaluate the ring, how are you going to trust us when we have it here for months?"

He's right of course; and one thing the shop is relentlessly honest about is managing jewelry. The entire back-end process is built to make sure people get back exactly what they brought in.

But at the same time, honesty is one thing that's strange about the shop, because there are so many lies going on at all times. Being a relentlessly honest person was one thing that made it hard to work there. Half the customers are lying to us when they bring things in; people make up all kinds of stories about why they need money, or what their item really is. Half the time we give an explanation for something, we are lying just because it makes it easier to do the job.

After working there for two decades, Alan's spidey sense is remarkable, and he can tell what a customer is all about because he's seen so much history. He's seen this kind of woman before, and she always makes a terrible fuss when she gets her item back.

I asked him if her reaction was just racism, and he wouldn't say, but that's just another polite lie. A huge number of the shop's customers are racist (reverse racist, if you prefer), and resent the fact that they are so desperate they have to deal with whitey's pawn shop. Their first instinct is that we are so talented at being evil that we can swap out diamonds in thirty seconds, and every transaction with us is a ripoff. If it's not (reverse) racism, what is it?

[lumberjim]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

My replacement at the shop is a pretty chill dude. He reported that this happened yesterday:... you work here?

No, sir. I'm the idiotproof glass inspector.

[DanaC]

Might be class antagonism rather than race, though. The pawnshop represents the barrel a lot of people are over in life. It's also a lot of people's saviour in the short term. The people on the lowest incomes, are the ones that can't get credit and don't have a cash float. Doesn't mean they don't resent the business that is 'getting rich' off their backs :p

Also, I think there's a historically ingrained sense of suspicion between those that offer pawning and those that have recourse to it. That the customers are often black and the pawn shop is owned and staffed by white people probably just adds an extra edge.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

If it's not (reverse) racism, what is it?

It could be Wealthism or Classism, but it's probably good old prejudice.

[Undertoad]

One of my personal theories is that Britain is self-flagellating about class as America is self-flagellating about race.