Pretty Woman Moment

I went to B&Q some years ago whilst I was decorating, so wasn’t dressed smartly, and decided to go to Curry’s at the same time as I wanted to buy an expensive (£700) camera. I knew exactly what model it was, but they were locked up, and despite the store being deserted, the group of male staff completely ignored me and stood around making jokes with each other.

I left, ordered the camera from Amazon, and wrote them a stinking email. I got a vague apology back, but I doubt they changed their ways.

Soft furnishing shop. Took one look at me and swiftly ushered me to the exit.

Ordered the fabric i wanted online.m I had been trying to support a local independent business.

That's just paranoia!

The other place I find people (not the staff but other customers) make assumptions is on business class flights. I travel semi regularly BC to Asia. Not a humble brag it’s for work and due to the distance we travel BC. Having done the flight a number of times, knowing it’s going to take approx 20hrs I dress for comfort. Hoodie, leggings and trainers. On a few occasions I’ve been given the evil eye while standing in the BC queue and on one occasion recently an older woman pointed out to me as I tried to reach the boarding gate that this queue was for priority boarding only. Gave me immense pleasure to walk past her and board while she was turned back (she’d followed me to the gate) as the desk agent explained they were only boarding BC passengers at this time

I remember a workmate telling me how he and his partner had gone into a high end department store to buy a Persian rug. They were young, a bit scruffy, and were ignored until he approached a sales person, who told him “Those rugs are really expensive, you might be better going to Ikea, they have rugs that are much cheaper. “ He told her he wasn’t sure that a Swedish company would sell expensive Persian rugs. When she tried to backtrack he told her that she had just lost a sale and walked out.

Ha, ha, try mystery shopping car dealerships. Some of the sales execs can be incredibly bad. It is MUCH better than it used to be when they only talked to the men but sometimes you get an old school SE or some snotty kid.

It's always interesting watching the videos back as sometimes it's not as noticeable that the service was bad and you've filtered that bit out.

And tbf, there are some really good people out there. I've never MS'd it but Currys staff have been very good whenever I've been in recently.

Yes, me too, I was waiting for the sex on the piano with a Richard Gere look alike story....

Yes but she physicslly had the cash on her but the sales assistant refussd to serve becsuse of how she looked.

Tell Oprah Winfrey. Someone did just that some years ago when she pointed at a very expensive designer bag and refused to show it to her saying there was no way she could afford it. Big mistake, big, huge.
We got this at teenagers in Paris. Our mums, aunts etc etc had all furnished us with money to get them designer perfumes and scarves while there. We practically had to force the idiotic shop assistants to serve us. I guess they couldn´t believe we had the money. They looked at us like shit was stinking.

I was told 'It's quite expensive' when trying to buy a bloody bottle of prosecco in the scruffy pub in York Train Station (is it a Wetherspoon?)! Our train had been cancelled due to a suspicious activity of some sort so we went for a drink having been assured that there would be one in around an hour.

I was fairly casually dressed but not the least bit scruffy. I think it was about £25 in the end. I asked her if I looked skint, and how much was it, expecting her to say £60 or such, at least more than a normal, standard pub would charge.

This made me laugh. My late husband worked for Raymarine and hated boats, and particularly hated having to go to the boat show. He said it was really embarrassing being on the stand and having to ask someone else to help when a prospective customer approached. They always assumed that he was the expert as he was the oldest person there!

I've had it on a few occasions as I'm a bit of a scruff (although not recently tbf) but my most notable judgement was when i went to a "prestigious" jeweller in Scotland and heard the head sales woman at the time, now retired and a vision in tweed, instructing the security guard to "keep an eye" on me.
I was in jeans, hoodie and converse.

She came up to me with the up and down look of "what is this shit upon my beautiful carpet" and was physically blocking my access to the rear of the showroom where the "significant" luxury watches were displayed. If i moved to sidestep her, she would sidestep and literally said to me "I don't think there's anything for you down there."

Watchmaker clocked what was going on as his department had a glass front overlooking the showroom and shot out to intercept the escalating war and told her that "Ms XXX is here to collect her FOUR XXX's from service so perhaps you'd like to offer her a drink while she waits."

Delicious.

She can’t afford it because she’s looks like (and is a) prostitute. But then the bloke goes out with her and funds her lifestyle I think, so now she can afford it. I might have this wrong. But it’s still his money funding it I think….

I’ve had an experience very recently though not so much to do with not being able to afford said item but that as a little “woman” didn’t really know my finances.

Went a few weeks ago to order a new car. Same make and model as the previous 3 cars I’ve purchased. Would be seen as a premium model of car. Went to the same dealership as I had purchased the previous cars from but the salesman I had dealt with for the other sales no longer worked there so I was introduced to “Steve”. Steve was a condescending twat and from the moment we met acted as if he was doing me a favour selling me a car. I queried the trade in value he gave for me car as I felt (correctly) it was too low. He was only short of patting me on the head while he mansplained to me about trade because I didn’t understand car values. He also when printing the quote added on two extras which I hadn’t requested which added approx 2K to the price of the car. Probably thought I was too stupid to notice. The final straw was when I again challenged the costings he told me maybe I needed to go home and discuss with my husband what I could afford (ignoring the fact this was my fourth time buying this car so was obviously a serious customer). I thanked him for his time, got into my car and drove 30 mins to the next dealership where I ordered a car that very afternoon. I think it was a combination of my being a woman and also an assumption that just because I was a repeat customer the sale was in the bag

The dealership emailed me last week to enquire if I was still interested with offers of assistance in purchasing a new vehicle. I very politely emailed back to explain I’d purchased elsewhere and I didn’t believe a person of my gender was a good fit for the sales person I was partnered with on the day. Radio silence since then but I like to think there was at least some questions asked of Steve’s sales technique

We needed new sofas and for some reason my PIL were with us. I think maybe they had something to do on that out of town trading estate too. Anyway, DH and I were first in and it's one of those massive chain stores. We started looking round, only looking at sofas and with focus because we bloody hate those places and shopping, we wanted it done. We were early 30s maybe. Pointedly ignored by sales staff. ILs walk in few minutes later and the sales person zoomed past us to them. They of course said they were with us and we were the customers. We said no, not anymore and left.

I don't get it! How many couples in their 30s spend their weekends driving to awkward to get to furniture places and wondering round just for fun? Compared to the number of couples buying and kitting out their first home and therefore really needing sofas?

This happens to me a lot. I don’t dress to impress (well most of the time) and certainly not when shopping.

Similar happened to my parents years ago. My dad was a farmer so probably not the smartest looking bloke but didn't have his scruffs on. The salesperson showed them some products and made a comment about how they probably couldn't afford those ones. Ironic thing is they had cash in the bank to pay upfront. They didn't say anything sadly but walked out.

Many years ago, I went shopping with my mum for a trench coat - at that time, very on trend.

I tried one one and said, "Hmm. It's a bit tight across the chest. Can I try a 14?" and the sales assistant replied, "Oh, you won't find a size 14. Not in London."

She clearly had us marked as country bumpkins having a day out in Oxford St. (It was Dickens & Jones back in the 1980s so its glory days were long gone).

Aren't a lot of these things showcases for b2b trade? Are you sure she wasn't just telling you that it was impractical for a sole purchase?

Be content that as a sales person she is a complete failure- as a sales person you just CANNOT make assumptions about anyone's spending power. They do it because they don't want to put effort in if you don't turn out to have the money- but it's the wrong approach, have your time wasted most of the time is part of the job.

My dad famously tells a story about a friend of his who owned an engineering firm, and went to buy a car. He was a shop floor kind of guy, so had overalls on when he went car shopping.

The Porsche garage didn't give him the time of day, in his overalls. But the Ferrari garage did 😂

I like to think he want back to the Porsche garag in his Ferrari and said, big mistake, huge!!! But I doubt he did

That reminded me of getting my (inherited) Omega watch fixed at some big luxury jewellery store place. I just went there because it was big and handy.

I went to the Omega counter and explained what I needed. The sales assistant looked over my watch and sniffed, “It’s an old one.” I just said mildly, “It was my grandmother’s,” but I was dying to make some comment along the lines of, you mean people actually buy these watches new? How amusing! 😂

Have you watched the movie?

You should have bought them elsewhere and returned with them to the snooty family business and gone: „Biiig mistake - huuge!!!“ 😂😂😂