disagree away. It makes for interesting discussion. Be a dull world if we all saw everything the same way.
fwiw, I suspect that the woman in question may well have pnd (as I said in first post). Her reactions were not 'normal'. I remember when I had raging pnd I once slid down the wall and collapsed into hysterical sobbing because I thought we'd run out of nappies.
The woman should have just left it, but she didn't. People don't always do the sensible thing.
But. she queried it and was told that she could not have purchased it in the first place - even though she had and she had the reciept. so they were calling her a liar.
She had the shop assistant waving something in her face while again implying she was a liar - very unprofessional
The assistant continued to imply the woman was a liar.
The assistant then yelled across to other staff members, creating a scene and arguing with other staff members for several minutes. She then stormed off to find a manager.
She then came back and said that the woman couldn't have the top and shouldn't have had the first one - that wasn't really her fault was it? Yet somehow blamed for it?
Then she wanted details so that she could find out who sold it, creating yet MORE fuss and possibly making the lady 'responsible' for disciplinary action of another staff member.
All this time, this woman was getting more and more upset, a fact that was given no consideration by the staff member, who could have softened her manner. Perhaps not been confrontational. Perhaps not behaved as though the woman was a liar or trying to scam them?
When they did decide to just leave it, the assistant tried to bully them into leaving the receipt so that someone in the store could be blamed for all this! This - totally trivial thing!
The man had a sobbing wife and he decided to complain about the way the assistant treated her. Not about the top, not about not getting the tops, but about the manner in which the woman was dealt with.
The assistant refused to give her name to ensure perhaps that she could deny it was her, if a complaint was made.
She then stuck her hand up at the man's face and said she wasn't going to deal with him, walked off and sent the manager over. (how unprofessional is 'talk to the hand' ?!)
The manager did not care that the customer was in tears about the attitude of the staff member. and refused initially to apologise for the upset - not for the top, but for the way the customer was spoken to.
When the woman came back into the store, the manager could have said "I'm sorry you are upset" - but chose not to.
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I think they should have just walked away. but they didn't. The OPs wife clearly has some sort of problem to become hysterical over this, but the behaviour of the assistant was very unprofessional indeed from start to finish. She could easily have talked and behaved in a way that would have calmed the situation, instead of being confrontational.
I can understand why the OP wants an apology. Unless I am reading the events wrongly.
and re the united thing - everyone's different. I always go for the united in public and in front of the kids and tear him a new one in private so regardless how wrong or daft I felt he was being, I'd step in over something that was upsetting him and he'd do the same for me. I appreciate that that's not how other people operate and that's fine. I'm not saying everyone should do things my way.