Mall shopping on a Thursday night.
Alternate title: Bebe sucks.
Holiday shopping. At Tyson’s Corner Center. In uncomfortable shoes. All that is enough to make a girl cranky, but honestly by the time I had walked from Bloomingdales all the way to Barnes and Noble, back to Bloomingdales, what got this girl irritated was not the blisters on her feet. It was the sales people.
I was in the candle store, with all the smelly candles. I can’t recall what it’s called, but why don’t they make more unscented candles? When throwing a party, the last thing you need is a fusion of “fresh linen” and “wild blueberry” assaulting your guests’ noses. Yeah my holiday party’s colors are blue and white. Actually, blue and silver, but silver candles are not only hard to find, they are generally kind of weird looking.
The girl at the register at the smelly candle store greeted me with a “Can I help you?” that was more reminiscent of someone who thought my presence was highly offensive. So I bought a couple of white unscented candles and got the hell out of her way.
Now I have to say that most of the people in the mall were very nice. They greeted with the ubiquitous “How are you?” and then left before my mouth would finish forming the also predictable “Fine, and you?”. But at least they acknowledged me. The kid working in Electronic Boutique was fantastic and helped me find the coolest game a 12 year old girl could want for Christmas while entertaining me with stories about the old school video games that an old lady like me would enjoy. (Space Quest, baby!)
The girl working the MAC counter at Bloomingdales should get a raise. She handled a wild two year old, -who kept threatening me with a toy car whilst saying NO!- while expertly managing a mini crowd and still managing to be polite, helpful and useful in her makeup knowledge. She also talked me off the ledge after my Bebe experience that made me homicidal.
And now to the point of this whole boring tirade… (I am tired. I am having a hard time even completing sentences. I hope ya’ll are still with me at this point…)
I was looking for the perfect dress for my holiday party. I found it at Bebe. I tried it on. Fantastic. Pretty, not too pricey and fits great. I have my dress. So I get in line to pay. There are at least six people working in the store. One girl is on the register. Another is goofing around at the register. Two people in line in front of me took 20 minutes to ring up. Then the girl in front of me got into a long conversation about ClubBebe, where you earn points for money spent. You think another employee could have had this conversation with her, or that perhaps someone would come to ring me up? Nope. You think the cashier could have made some slight offhanded comment to me, recognizing that she was leaving me hanging but that she’d be with me in a second? Nope. The cashier walked away from the counter to talk to the girl and did not even acknowledge me and my dress trying to pay. So after standing there like an idiot for a couple more minutes, I lay the dress on the counter and left. In the time it took me to do that I saw at least 3 Bebe employees, any one of whom could have helped me or at least acknowledged the fact that the cashier was gone. But they didn’t even look up. It seems that Bebe does not need to make sales to succeed. They just need a bunch of minimally dressed girls to move merchandise around.
I was royally pissed. And now I don’t have a dress.
Holiday shopping. At Tyson’s Corner Center. In uncomfortable shoes. All that is enough to make a girl cranky, but honestly by the time I had walked from Bloomingdales all the way to Barnes and Noble, back to Bloomingdales, what got this girl irritated was not the blisters on her feet. It was the sales people.
I was in the candle store, with all the smelly candles. I can’t recall what it’s called, but why don’t they make more unscented candles? When throwing a party, the last thing you need is a fusion of “fresh linen” and “wild blueberry” assaulting your guests’ noses. Yeah my holiday party’s colors are blue and white. Actually, blue and silver, but silver candles are not only hard to find, they are generally kind of weird looking.
The girl at the register at the smelly candle store greeted me with a “Can I help you?” that was more reminiscent of someone who thought my presence was highly offensive. So I bought a couple of white unscented candles and got the hell out of her way.
Now I have to say that most of the people in the mall were very nice. They greeted with the ubiquitous “How are you?” and then left before my mouth would finish forming the also predictable “Fine, and you?”. But at least they acknowledged me. The kid working in Electronic Boutique was fantastic and helped me find the coolest game a 12 year old girl could want for Christmas while entertaining me with stories about the old school video games that an old lady like me would enjoy. (Space Quest, baby!)
The girl working the MAC counter at Bloomingdales should get a raise. She handled a wild two year old, -who kept threatening me with a toy car whilst saying NO!- while expertly managing a mini crowd and still managing to be polite, helpful and useful in her makeup knowledge. She also talked me off the ledge after my Bebe experience that made me homicidal.
And now to the point of this whole boring tirade… (I am tired. I am having a hard time even completing sentences. I hope ya’ll are still with me at this point…)
I was looking for the perfect dress for my holiday party. I found it at Bebe. I tried it on. Fantastic. Pretty, not too pricey and fits great. I have my dress. So I get in line to pay. There are at least six people working in the store. One girl is on the register. Another is goofing around at the register. Two people in line in front of me took 20 minutes to ring up. Then the girl in front of me got into a long conversation about ClubBebe, where you earn points for money spent. You think another employee could have had this conversation with her, or that perhaps someone would come to ring me up? Nope. You think the cashier could have made some slight offhanded comment to me, recognizing that she was leaving me hanging but that she’d be with me in a second? Nope. The cashier walked away from the counter to talk to the girl and did not even acknowledge me and my dress trying to pay. So after standing there like an idiot for a couple more minutes, I lay the dress on the counter and left. In the time it took me to do that I saw at least 3 Bebe employees, any one of whom could have helped me or at least acknowledged the fact that the cashier was gone. But they didn’t even look up. It seems that Bebe does not need to make sales to succeed. They just need a bunch of minimally dressed girls to move merchandise around.
I was royally pissed. And now I don’t have a dress.
Buggie spilled her guts for you at 12/01/2006 09:33:00 AM
11 Comments:
I find that an occasional outburst helps in those situations
Sincerely,
Michael Richards aka Cosmo Kramer
I'm sure it was because you looked so much better than them. It's your curse. (You're going to a different one to get the same dress right?)
Order online?
The dress is not online! Can you believe it?
Hey Kramer, the MAC girl told me I should have wigged out, too. But I didn't. I am not good at that. I seer angrily and curse them from the confines f my head, hoping they can feel it. But they are usually left unaffected.
Yeah, I am going to see if Pentagon City has it and whether or not their staff the same crappy caliber. Maybe that is what the Bebe hiring mission statement is. "Give me your affected, your useless, your scantily clad asses for earning $7.50."
I would have done the same exact thing but very loudly announced what I was doing.
Poor service is everywhere. When I went to Best Buy last week, Ms. Thang was too busy chatting with her friend to pay attention to ringing up my order, and is fiddling with my receipt when she's talking to her friend. I said "Can I have my receipt now? Thanks." and she acted like she was going to put it in the bag, but I snatched it from her and went about my business.
Then yesterday at the same place, I waited at the sign that said "Please wait for the next available associate." Two cashiers were free, but neither had called me, and knowing if I had gone prior to being called they'd get ghetto and say "The sign SAYS wait!" The two cashiers looked at each other, then the girl rolls her eyes, sighs and gestures me to come over. I threw my hand up like "what the hell?"
She says nothing to me the whole time, and cuts off the credit machine to finish processing the order before I finish signing. (At least my credit card company considers it a valid signature.)
I go to that Best Buy because it's close to my martial arts class...but I'd rather go out to an isolated suburb than deal with that kind of ghetto treatment again.
When I worked at Abercrombie in college, we were specifically told that we didn't need to greet customers when they come into the store. We also didn't wear any nametags or other item that would identify us as employees. I can understand why people don't like shopping in there, it's not a very customer-friendly store.
I like effen lifestyle. Work hard, party hard - vip all the way to a-list nightclub
The guys at Abercrombie actually greeted me!
Golden, that is so infuriating!
My co-worker told me about his experience at a car rental place. He walked in and the place was empty save for the girl at the counter who walked straight into the back room when he walked in. He waited a while and she did not return. So he looked for a bell and not finding one did the goofy kind of lean where you call "hello?" into the empty air. Eventually she came around the corner, rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath and returned to the backroom. He resumed the hello calling and she came back with a huff. She asked him what he needed. And he responded that as it was a car rental place, it was probably a car he needed. Then she did not know how to rent him a car, so she called a different branch. Once they picked up on that end she stated "Who dis?". They in turn, responded with "who dis?" According to co-worker, this went on for a while.
Gah! What the heck? It makes me homicidal to be treated that way. I was in Blomingdales last night, too and the guy in the espresso machine area was too engrossed in whatever was in that binder that he could not even look up. Even after I walked around him 7,089,282 times.
By the way, if you wanna party with the party king, we are gonna have to go to Bangladesh. Road Trip!
And this one comes from when I worked with the jerks...
I worked at Friday's back in Buffalo for a few days as a hostess. They used to complain about how cold I came off and how I needed to smile more...but these bitches were the ones who were catty, snide, rolled their eyes, etc., any time someone tried to talk to them. And some of the waiters refused to wait on black tables! (I complain about ghetto-acting blacks all the time, but being black, I know not all blacks are ghetto.)
Good customer service is a rare find. So anytime I receive good service, I definitely tell everyone about it.
I can completely sympathize with you on this one. The exact same thing happened to me in the very same store about 2 weeks ago. The girls that work at the Bebe in Tysons are morons and I almost called a day later to complain to the manager. I waited it out though, and now I have my dress. Try White House/Black Market -- they have some cute things and some great sales. Plus the people that work there are angels!
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