“May Be Expensive for YOU” — Woman Records Rude Client’s Response While Giving Price of Tiles

A woman who works in a Long Island tile supply store posted to TikTok to share an interaction between her and a client that not only left her shock, but throngs of her followers as well.

Mia (@ayo_marie_) recorded herself while she was at work. In a conversation with a prospective client, Mia says that the tiles the client selected were $90 a pop, which Mia said was "expensive" as a per tile price, as tiles are usually sold per square foot.

The client didn't seem too enthused that Mia would refer to an item as pricey, and seemed to think Mia was judging her as not being able to afford it.

Here's how the situation went down:

"You said it's expensive," the video begins with a remark from the customer, as Mia explains the cost behind the tiles the shopper is inquiring into.

"These tiles, they're usually packaged by the box with square feet; this is sold by the piece," she tells the woman, who is off camera.

"So I was in shock that $90 a piece for a tiny tile, that's expensive. In my opinion," Mia says to the tile purchaser, who responds, "It might be expensive for you, maybe; it's not for me."

Mia then zooms the camera into her stunned expression in what seems like an attempt to communicate just how shocked she was by the client's response.

"Can you write it down please?" the client asks Mia.

"Of course," Mia says, putting pen to paper for the shopper.

"Thank you," the customer says back to her.

At this point another co-worker is heard assuring the client off-camera that Mia "wasn't making assumptions."

The TikToker writes in a text overlay how her fellow employee (Craig) was seemingly working to dispel any potential negative feelings that could arise from her interaction with the client: "Craig defending me bc I literally never judge anyone."

Craig continued to say, "Most carpets are usually like $4 a square foot I'm like if it's $12 I'm like this is expensive."

As the video progressed, Mia did write in another text overlay that any awkwardness she was having with the customer ended up being squashed.

"Good news is she came back and we became bffs lol," Mia wrote over the part of the video where she hands some paperwork over to the shopper while assuring that the tiles she's picking is for a bathroom design.

The TikToker added that the shopper "proceeded to show us the toilet she wanted off ALI BABA."

After the client left, Craig says to Mia that the woman thought they were "judging her" with the comment after pointing out how expensive the tiles were.

Mia said that more often than not prospective clients complain about the price of tiles as being too expensive, which is why she was shocked that the woman, in this instance, seemed irate that she mentioned the cost of the tiles was high, which is why the content creator probably looked like she was in the Twilight Zone after her interaction.

"Being in the business for five years, you get to know your clientele. Almost every time I've ever given a price for this brand, I get ridiculed for offering such an 'expensive tile' so I obviously word vomited at the sticker shock," she penned in another text overlay.

"Like I've never priced this out before. The fact that this is the only tile in my life that I've ever sold that comes by the piece. Ten inches by thirty inches is this big, Craig," she says to her co-worker, demonstrating the size of the tiles.

Another text overlay populates the screen. "There's always room to learn and grow in this field, and you take every experience as a learning lesson," she writes, indicating that she elects to learn from her interaction with the potential client to help prevent her from ever making the same mistake again.

"90 dollars per piece," she says, opening her mouth to intone how astounded she is as she looks at the camera. She then talks to someone else off camera, asking if they heard what happened. Mia recounts her experience with the customer to this other individual.

"She goes: may be expensive for you," Mia recounts in a seemingly judgmental and nasty tone as she bops her head from side to side, "but it's not expensive to me."

The TikToker continues, "She was like, well my contractor gave me the address of this place so I know I'm in the right place. I said of course you're in the right place," before the video ultimately cuts out.

There were commenters who came to the defense of Mia, with one person stating that even if you've got a ton of money, that's still a crazy amount of money to be paying for a single tile: "Objectively $90 per tile is expensive even if you can afford it!"

"$90 per tile is insane," someone else said.

However, there was another person in the comments section who offered up a different adjective/description for the tiles the client was interested in buying.

"It’s now referred to as 'higher end,'" they wrote, and Mia seemed to echo this sentiment, getting into the same spirit of sales speak: "LUXURIOUS."

Have you ever been in a situation at your job where you felt like a customer was getting offended because you may have assumed that they weren't able to afford something?