Pretty Woman Moment

Nothing to do with looks. Julia Roberts is playing a prostitute who meets a rich guy who gives her a credit card to buy something from an upmarket shop. They treat her badly because she's dressed like a cheap prostitute....hence petty woman moment.

Charlotte tilbury stand at a department store- I asked about mini products and the lady scoffed and said Charlotte tilbury don’t do minis (they actually do online and that department store sells them online!) I said oh ok, thanks. Mac lady was standing near them and I said sorry Mac do minis don’t they? Can I buy a few please? and bought three and a full size just loud enough for the two to start looking over. I then smiled at them (genuine smile, not catty) and then (cattily) said loudly ‘ this is even better than I’d hoped, thanks so much!!’

Did you go in your hooker outfit? 😂

She might have had twelve people so far that day respond, "it's bloody how much?!"
And be trying to preempt it!

Lol. Straight up and down with a nose like a door knob.

Yep , this happened to me. I went into a local, independent travel agents and requested brochures on travel to Lapland/ Iceland. She kept trying to give me the budget brochures and simply would not hand over the high end brochures I had asked for. Her loss as I went on to spend 20k on the family trip of a lifetime with a different company.
Probably didn’t help that I went in after mucking out the horses , no makeup and hair in a ponytail( my usual look in fact).
Don’t judge a book by it’s cover……unless you want to miss out on a hefty commission !

We completed on our house while he was wearing an 'I can't adult' tshirt during our home demonstration haha 😅

Same thing has happened on school visits, viewing wedding venues, ultrasound scans etc. All good fun!

Of course it was fiction, but like all film media, it’s based on a (sometimes very distorted) version of reality and psychology experienced by the screenwriter.

I was going to say this about BtoB. Out of interest, care to share the name? I work in the construction sector.

I got plenty of those stories. My mum went with me to buy my wedding dress. I had told her to dress well, so that we'd get good service but instead she showed up in flip flops, a faded t-shirt, and faded leggings. The sales assistants in every shop we went to only showed us dresses that looked like they came from Toys 'R' Us. So I took my mum up on her offer to sew my dress. In her mind it was going to be a spencer but jokes on her: I made her sew a ball gown. She found it to be very satisfying to sew something that complicated, though.

I had to go buy something rather expensive for a celebrity visiting the company I temped for when I was quite young. The clerk first let me wait despite there being no other customers and then only showed me the cheapest stuff. So after politely having let the clerk show me several cheap items instead of the ones I had asked for, I said that I really needed to buy the specific expensive items and I didn't have much time as ___would arrive shortly. Then he looked as if something finally clicked, and I was graciously allowed to buy the items. If it had been up to me and there had been time, I would definitely have gone somewhere else. The shop is still there, sorry. The Danish Royal family shops there and has done that for a couple of generations.

Slightly related to this topic:
There was a clothes "boutique" called "Nørgaard på Strøget" in Copenhagen for several decades. The sales assistants were snobbish to all the customers and just crap in general. (I only ever went in there to quietly laugh at their clothes to myself as they all tended to look like something Willy Wonka and The Mad Hatter might wear so I never interacted with the sales assistants.) Recently there has been a "MeToo" moment where a some of the former sales assistants have claimed that Nørgaard groomed and/or sexually harassed them. It made so much sense to me. After all, if you sleep with the boss you can't be expected to actually do your job too.

You know that the film is fiction though, right ? 😬

🙄 you can google it even if you didn’t watch the film… it’s obviously a title of something or a phrase seeing as it’s in capitals!

So bizarre, losing out on potential sales like that.

My cousin went to buy a Porsche once, walked in and was told they’d be too expensive for her. She went to the dealer in the next town and bought one, and drove it to the other dealer and stuck the finger up at him while grinning haha.

Often people who act like this own the business themselves so complaining doesn't help.

After my husband and I got married we wanted to buy a nice bottle of champagne, growing up my dad was in the music industry and would often bring home very high end bottles which was an unusual luxury for someone who grew up on a council estate.

We went into selfridges and was greeted by a young girl who was clearly training, we got chatting and she started showing us the expensive bottles, the manager comes over and starts to steer us towards the budget sparkling wine, she leaves us there and mutters to the trainee "don't waste your time on people who look like that." (We're both alternative looking but own our own business) and walks off, the trainee is clearly embarrassed and comes back over, I ask if she gets commission and she confirms she does so I decide to blow some money on a high end vintage bottle.

We rock up to the check out and the manager looks shocked and starts asking questions, so I just smile and say "maybe don't presume people are poor based on their looks, my hair wouldn't be this colour I had a judgemental manager I had to report to."

OP, she’s bluntly telling you they don’t deal at your level, which is MOQ of 1. Whether she acted like the saleswoman from the bad store or the good store (that helps her find an evening dress) in Pretty Woman. If the owner of their company believes she was wrong to do that, then your complaint will matter. If the owner of the company couldn’t give a shit less, then he maybe won’t discipline his saleswoman for not “wasting her time” on you, regardless of what she said. It’s an incredibly short-sighted way for a company to act, but a lot of companies act that way, by making any assumptions about potential buyers based on visuals at a trade show or online. Any sales-person who’s not unintelligent or an arsehole would know that even a man in a wheelchair might need help selecting a bicycle, for many legitimate reasons.

But why does it happen in Pretty Woman? Because the saleswoman believes she has more power (in the interaction) than an unknown customer, and that’s usually a sign that a company is rotten at its core. So, maybe really think whether it’s worth your time to complain. They’re already going to drive themselves into the ground when they run out of orders that they got from their last saleswoman who wasn’t a judgmental arsehole, because the one you met definitely won’t be making deals 😂

A classy place will treat all clients and customers the same, whether you are there to spend £10 or £10000. Last century I got lost with some friends on a ramble in the Cotswolds and we stumbled (literally) into the car park of a veeeeryy naice pub and restaurant. We asked if one of us could go in to use the phone (before mobiles!) but they ushered us all in, covered in mud and soaking wet, rustled us up some sandwiches even though the kitchen was closed for the afternoon and didn’t bat an eyelid at the state of us. The car park was full of jags and land rovers with the odd Maserati but they charged a fair price for the drinks and sandwiches and were friendly and kind and pointed us in the right direction when we left. If I knew where it was I’d love to go back again!

We sometimes have a stand at those sort of shows and I would be very grateful if someone had let me know if they'd been treated like that on our stand. The shows cost a fortune and I would be livid if the person on the stand had treated anyone like that.

It very much depends on the model so if anyone is planning to scrap for gold weight please check first!

Definitely email the company, many years ago I had a Christmas job in a very high end jewellers, it was drummed into us never to presume someone couldn’t afford something, she shouldn’t be representing the company if this is how she goes about things.

To be fair, a lot of people under 40 might not have seen the film-I know you said you're in your 30s, OP.
And while a lot of Millennials can't even afford, a house, never mind a new door for it, I'd have though affluent Millennials were their target group!

I hadn't thought of that. Quite possibly the case.

Ah, well in that case her rudeness was completely justified 🤪

I'm starting to think I must look rich, no nonsense and possibly single 😂 because I've never even had car salesmen ask if I want to discuss with my husband or father first. I've even bought a house by myself without anyone querying it.
I'm very good at hamming up being the pathetic damsel in distress if I need something though - they fall for it hook, line and sinker every time!

Oh dear.