Discount Journalism

Recently, Business Insider decided to blur the lines between legitimate journalism and Penthouse Forums by running a story about a straight woman who flirted with a female furniture salesperson in order to receive a discount on a sofa some thirty years ago. The article ended with the author/narrator, Rebecca Morrison, learning a lesson about being a good ally and getting a nice pair of stilts for her high horse. But, as The Serving Times was able to exclusively uncover, there is another side to this story, and the events as told by Insider are not all there is to say on the matter.

After some digging, we were able to track down Jennifer Baudin, the Washington DC salesperson mentioned in the story, to get her side of things.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” says Baudin. “We couldn’t just give out our employee discount like that. What had happened was we were allowed to take off a certain percentage of the posted price to make iffy customers feel like they’d gotten a better deal, like they got one over on us. It had nothing to do with me being attracted to her.”

It’s true that most people who sell big-ticket items like sofas can’t just give out their employee discount without raising some major red flags to management.

“Also,” adds Baudin, “we totally fucked.”

“No, it wasn’t like that at all,” says Rebecca Morrison who penned the self-adulating, autobiographical article for Insider. “It was just about getting the discount. Which I now regret as a longtime LGBTQ ally.”

“Oh my god,” says Baudin, “I don’t know what her problem is, even after all this time. We dated for like three weeks! She spent Thanksgiving weekend with my family!”

Once we learned the full story about this incident, we wondered what else in the article was less than truthful.

“Oh, did you read the part where she said I kept calling and she had to keep blowing me off?” says Baudin. “As if. I had to break it off with her because she got way obsessive. It actually got pretty messy. We had a lot of fun together, but I was glad for it to end, truth be told.”

“Honestly,” says Morrison, “if I’d known just buying a couch would become such a headache, even all these years later, I’d have returned the thing immediately!”

“Oh,” adds Baudin, “I think we both knew they wouldn’t take that couch back after the night I helped her move it into her place. And she did try to return it, but only because it was too big to move into my apartment with the rest of her crap.”

“Not that there’s any truth to these claims,” says Morrison, “but I never did get back my Alanis Morissette CD.”

In the end though, Baudin doesn’t believe she bears any ill will towards Morrison.

“It’s fine,” she says. “It was a long time ago, it was just weird having it brought up again out of nowhere and for the silliest reason too. I’m glad she’s doing well, really, and if she wants to rewrite history for the sake of clickbait journalism, and I mean that in the least bitter way possible, then that’s fine with me.”

And what does she have to say for other, young salespeople who may find themselves in similar situations?

“Just be wary of customers,” she says, “because, one way or another, they’re gonna try and fuck you.”