General Etiquette > All In A Day's Work

I Was Rude at a Merchandise Stand

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WestAussieGirl:
Last night my brother and I went to watch a major tennis event.  It was a hot summer night so the (indoor) tennis centre had set the air-conditioning somewhere between arctic and sub-arctic.  I was dressed for a hot summer night.  After shivering for the first couple of hours, I decided to go to the merchandise stand and buy something warm to wear.  My brother came with me as he wanted to buy a small souvenier.  I stood back from the stand until I decided what style and size I wanted and then went and stood next to the person being served.  There wasn't a price on the item my brother wanted so we waited to ask....and waited....and waited...and waited.  The person being served tried on at least 15 items of clothing.  She tried virtually every style, in at least two different sizes, rejecting each one.  Each time the sales person had to go the back and get the next item, then refold the previous item.  After waiting almost 30 minutes (during which the match had restarted - so I was missing the action), with only 1 person in front of me in line, I got fed-up.  While the customer was trying on another item of clothing, I interrupted with an "Excuse me, could you please give me the price for x?" then said "Great, I'll have one of those, and that black long-sleeved shirt in x size".  I was paying cash so all up it took about 30 seconds for us to get what we wanted and be gone.  The customer before me got very annoyed (and the sales assistant got a bit flustered as she was trying to keep her best customer service manners and please both of us at once).  I do admit that I was rude, but come on...merchandise stands aren't like fashion boutiques.  Choose your style, choose your size, move on!  I have never before seen anyone try anything on, let alone everything they had to offer.

So who gets thrown into the fire, me (for queue jumping), the sales assistant (who could definitely taken some control and said, I'll just serve this customer while you try on you 100th piece of clothing), or the customer (for not being mindful that merchandise stands need to move lots of people through quickly - I didn't mention that by the time I left there was a sizeable queue and that was during match time).

My brother votes for the customer, but I think it was probably me.  Your thoughts?

Rose2Bear:
I would rank it like this:
 #1 offender: The Customer, big time, you're right - every merchandise stand I've ever seen is shout your size and style, and have done with it.

#2: The merchant - he should have realized it was OK to move on to you while the other customer was taking her time.   He should have waited till her head was half in the sweatshirt or whatever then quickly moved on to you.

#3: You, but hardly, while line jumping is normally rude, I think the amount of time this took makes this an OK exception by all means.

FoxPaws:
The customer gets the one-way ticket down. I am a firm believer that one adjusts their maintenance level to the establishment they're in - expensive designer boutique: take all afternoon trying things on, souvenier stand selling t-shirts: in, choose, pay, leave.

The sales assistant gets a short visit for re-training. (Maybe a lack of training was the problem to start with.) She should have been able to handle two people at once. The rejected clothes should have been tossed in a special bin and re-folded later. She also should have set the tone so that HighMaintenance's expectations were reasonable. "Yes, you can try things on. I'll be happy to assist you in between other customers."

You get a slap on the wrist for cutting in line, and another only if your tone was rude, although I probably would have spoken up after only 10 minutes.

Slartibartfast:
How I understand it, line-jumping is looked on differently in different parts of the country and of the world.  In New York City (I'm told), it's not rude to ask the person ahead of you if you could take your two groceries through the line first since they have a full cart - in the Midwest it would definitely be rude, even if you were really running late and they had three carts' worth.  I know I have definitely been to different food-kiosk-type establishments that had different rules - a smoothie bar on my college campus had a "whoever can catch the attendant's attention first" mentality, so you were free to stand around and read their menu and decide, and when you were ready, just step up to the counter and make eye contact.  One I went to more recently had a very cluttered counter, so you couldn't read the menu until you were right up at the register - so there was a bit of a line because everyone had to get to the counter before they could even start to decide on their order.  (To be fair, a lot must have been repeat customers because they ordered right away - but I felt really awkward holding up the line while trying to decide on my drink.)

I think I would have stood there a while, waiting for the employee to acknowledge me, but you did the right thing.  The other customer was definitely rude.  The employee was more spineless than rude - he should have been able to deal with two customers at once, at least to find out whether you needed something time-consuming or not.  (Not everyone is good at multi-tasking, I know, but I bet he really really wished he could just ignore rude customer for a while!)

IndianInlaw:
You were assertive.

The other customer was rude to the point of ridiculousness.

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