Mall Meltdown

Over at The Stir this week, I wrote a post about getting snubbed by a couple of sales people while shopping at a clothing store here in Nashville.

It was one of those topics I thought a lot of women would be able to relate to- and boy, was I right. Commenters came out of the woodwork, itching to talk about the times they had been dissed by store employees.

The funny thing was that the snubbing I experienced wasn’t the only bizarre incident I had with a sales person that day at the mall. On the very same visit, I managed to cause great consternation among the employees at Dillards AND Macy’s. Now that I have small children, I don’t go to the mall as often as I used to, and at the end of that day I was left thinking that somehow, mall etiquette rules must have changed, and no one had bothered to send me the memo.

It happened like this…

I went to Dillards looking for spring clothes on a weekday morning, when the store was all but empty. Within a few minutes of browsing in the woman’s department, I had a couple of pieces thrown over one arm. A sales person came and asked if I wanted her to start a fitting room for me.

“Oh no thanks,” I said. “I’m okay for now.”

In salesperson-ese, refusing the starting of a fitting room is basically like spitting in the salesperson’s face. At least, that’s what I gathered from the woman’s expression after I turned down her offer.

But here’s the thing… Women’s departments are sort of large and spread out. I’d rather gather up all I’m going to try on, THEN find a fitting room and get it all over with in one fell swoop, as opposed to letting some salesperson start a fitting room and spending ten minutes once I’m ready to try things on attempting to figure out WHICH of many fitting rooms in the store she put my clothes in.

Also? Quite often, I want to keep the clothing with me so that I can match it to other pieces. IS THAT SUCH A BIG DEAL?

Apparently, yes. Yes it is.

The woman proceeded to tail me at a distance and within a few minutes, she was joined by another employee, who, after a whispered conference with the first, also asked if she could start a fitting room for me.

“No thank you,” I said politely. “But I’ll let you know when I’m ready.”

Cue horrified Did-you-really-just-SPIT-ON-ME look from the second employee.

And now I had two salespeople tailing me at a not-so-respectable distance.

Brilliant.

Eventually, I had about eight things to try on. I headed for the nearest fitting room, found an empty stall, and went inside. There were a few items of Dillards clothing on the floor of the fitting room, but since I was the only shopper I’d seen in the area for quite some time, I logically assumed that person was done trying on clothes and the things she had tried on hadn’t been put away yet by an employee (probably because the employee was too busy tailing dangerous customers like me).

I began trying on my clothes.

A good 20 minutes later, I was almost done, and a customer and salesperson came into the dressing room.

“Oh, whoops,” the customer said. “Someone else is in there now. I had a pair of pants in there I wanted to buy.”

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

“I need a pair of pants that were left in that dressing room when you went in there and I need them now,” the salesperson announced testily. I could tell by her voice that it was the first woman I had “spat” on.

“Okay,” I said. “Let me just put a shirt on.”

“Another customer was trying on clothes in there,” she hissed. “I need those pants now.”

“Just trying to get un-naked,” I said. “I’m moving as fast as I can!”

Seconds later, I opened the door and handed her the clothes.

“I couldn’t have known,” I said apologetically. “This dressing room has been completely empty for the last thirty minutes.”

“We like to let customers into dressing rooms ourselves,” she said angrily.

“Clearly,” I said, smiling and shutting the door.

A few minutes later, I was done. I took two items I had chosen to buy and left the dressing rooms. Outside, the saleswoman stood with a pack of other saleswomen. She saw me come out and her voice dropped to a whisper.

I felt like I was wearing a scarlet letter. ‘D’ for Dressingroomstealer. Or maybe ‘W,’ for Wouldnotletsalespeoplestartafittingroomforher. I held my head high and marched past them with burning cheeks. What was with all the hostility? I hadn’t meant to steal someone else’s dressing room. Even the customer seemed to know that. And where were the rules posted stating that I had to let a salesperson start a fitting room for me or suffer dire consequences? GAH.

I left Dillards and headed straight for The Snubbing.

After that, I ended my morning at Macy’s, where employees waved their arms and shouted at me as I got on the escalator, apparently because I was carrying a blouse from the second floor and headed down to Petites to see if I could find a coordinating skirt. Is that not allowed now, either? I didn’t know and at that point, I was too beaten down to bother with it.

“No speako Englisho,” I shouted back at the employees, shrugging and pointing at my ear. I’ve begun using this phrase whenever I don’t feel like answering questions, and it tends to be pretty effective, particularly if delivered with a Southern accent. It worked at Macy’s, too. No one followed me downstairs.

I’m beginning to wonder if there’s some sort of WANTED poster with my picture on it in all the employee breakrooms at that mall. HOW ELSE can you explain the number of people there who were suddenly all up in my grill? Was Marzipan behind this? Or maybe Ima Nidiot?

I don’t know… but I’m determined to find out.

 

Image via Momentcaptured1/Flickr