Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Mystery Shopping Gone Bad

I am not much of a shopper...I sometimes pay one of my kids to do my food shopping for me...and I think this experience could turn me against all shopping except for buying from catalogs. I had gone to the mall one afternoon to go to an "upscale" store that seems to be the only one in Western Maryland that carries the fragrance I like. I had my elderly neighbor with me. We stood at the counter, patiently waiting for a sales clerk to venture over our way.At that time there were no other customers around and there were three clerks standing around talking. They looked our way and continued talking. Another customer walked up and my gosh...she got waited on. Still we stood there while the other two clerks continued talking. The sales clerk finished with the customer and finally looked us up and down and asked in a most snotty manner if there was something we wanted.I told her yes PLEASE and asked for the fragrance. She acted like it was such an effort to reach under the glass counter to retrieve the bottle! While I was waiting for my change, my neighbor commented that she felt we didn't belong in this particular store. That really ticked me off because that was EXACTLY how we were made to feel. It dawned on me that I had on old pants and my son's hoodie, maybe not the best way to dress when going into an expensive store. But it shouldn't have mattered...I was still a customer. I was very polite when the clerk came back with my change, but I did tell her that just because I wasn't dressed up didn't give her the right to be rude. Now when I'm running out of my fragrance, my sister sends it to me.

No comments: