We all know that businesses have motivational signs and slogans that managers use out of sight of the public. But someone at this supermarket is probably going to get the boot after posting a sign on the front window encouraging employees to wring more cash out of customers.

Twitter user Chris Dodd noticed the above poster in the front window of a Sainsbury’s store in London.

Titled “Fifty pence challenge,” the poster asks workers at the store to “encourage every customer to spend an additional 50p ($.81) during each shopping trip between now and the year-end.”

Now it’s nothing new for a retailer to urge its employees to push upsells and impulse-buys and it’s understood that most of us will politely decline these attempts to squeeze a little more cash from our wallets. But this is one of those social constructs that is not meant to be blatantly spelled out in a poster on the front window of a major supermarket chain.

It also raises the question of how daft an employee and/or manager must be to post that sign without realizing what it was advertising. Unless of course this was a deliberate bird-flip to Sainsbury’s management by a disgruntled worker. In which case, well done.

Interestingly, the poster doesn’t really indicate how employees are supposed to succeed in this “challenge.” It’s not like supermarkets sell extended warranties. Perhaps it’s like those drugstore cashiers who are forced to ask if you want candy with your bottle of Pepto-Bismol?

Sainsbury’s isn’t saying. It’s responses to Dodd’s Tweets have been more about making sure the sign gets taken down than answering questions about the challenge it promotes.

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