Buying a door without a partner

[chemenger]

According to a local company I cannot buy a door, or even discuss buying a door without my husband present. The woman on the phone had the cheek to ask me if I was able to make decisions “like this” on my own. The massive decision of what kind of back door I want. I checked my calendar and I haven’t slipped back in time to 1918. Needless to say I have found another company who is willing to deal with me no questions asked.
I assume I have just escaped a long session of hard selling and they wanted DH and I both there so I couldn’t get rid of them by using the excuse that I had to consult him. Again this is the 21st century. The company I am buying from has its prices on the internet, no “sign now or you’ll lose your discount” nonsense.
My mostly male colleagues agreed that their door selection skills were no better than their partners but that they would have liked to have overheard my conversation on the phone. To think that I used to be allowed to choose equipment for chemical plants and now I can’t be trusted with a door.

@Gormless

Brilliant!

I had this with my front door
My double glazing
My boiler

And when I bought my sports car and visited dealerships, in Mercedes none of the sales guys came to assist me because "they thought I was the wife of one of the men they were serving"

Fuck off
Fuck off
Fuck off

*had a bad day full of mansplaining today so this was a trigger thread!!!

You tried to buy a door??!! Without taking A MAN?!??!! Are you insane?!! How on earth could you buy a door??? Surely you don't have access to gasp money????

Come on now OP. Don’t rise above your station. You is but a woman don’t you know. Your tiny lady brain clearly can’t cope with many decisions such as what a back door should look like.

Seriously, this garbage pees me right off.

I have had this before, several times, My dh used to work away a lot. I made all the decisions, I was paying for it and yet he had to be present.
Doors
Windows
Building work
Will
My company car

Once, when this chap kept insisting, he was there for about five minutes before telling the chap, she makes all the decisions about this sort of thing, and went into a different room. He did not have that in his sales script. I bought from someone else who was prepared to sell to me in the end.
Laughable in this day and age.

What if you were widowed?
Or gay and don't have a DH?
Or single?
Do all these people have to pretend and 'borrow' a man for day?
😂

My husband had this problem when we were getting prices for a conservatory. They needed me to be there as we were both on the title deeds. Even though I told them that I was happy for him to make any decisions, they wouldn't make an appointment unless we were both there.

I've taken my custom elsewhere for exactly the same reason. Anglian kept phoning up for ages after, and every single time I told them it was too late, I'd already used another company and it was because they wouldn't deal with me on my own. It took a long time for them to stop ringing.

always amuse me when he gets addressed as 'MrThistleAmore' when I've been doing the initial scoping on big ticket stuff.

ThistleAmore my DP gets called Mr RollaCola a lot too. I'm the more organised of the two of us so holidays, restaurant bookings, tradesmen etc. are usually done in my name. He finds it amusing now but does agree the assumption could be annoying.

I had this too. With solar panels.

I had this when trying to buy a motorbike. I had saved enough to buy it outright and after looking round the show room and being completely ignored I asked about the one i wanted. The salesman's first words were "it's nice buying a present but don't you think your husband might want to try it first as it's quite a short bike?" He looked pretty shocked when I told him that I didn't have a husband and he had just lost himself a sale.

As a single woman, I've had this, I was trying to buy two new windows they asked when I asked them to come and give me a lift my husband would be there, I told them I wasn't married they suggested I might have a partner, I confirmed I am the only adult in the house. They asked me to confirm the house isn't rented, which I did. They called the day before to confirm the appointment (standard I assume) and asked once again if my husband/partner would be present and the conversation was repeated. There minimum order value was one of the lowest so I persisted.

On the day the salesman asked yet again, at this point I asked if they thought I was lying, hiding a husband somewhere ?? He apologised, gave me a rediculous quote, tried to sell me windows for the whole house and was asked to leave.

So equally annoying if you are single.

That should say, come and give me a quote. Darn autocorrect.

I think it's because they know one half of a married couple will tend to say they want to discuss with their other half first and many companies want to pressure people to sign ion the dotted line there and then. It's bullshit. Dh and I once had a salesman follow us into the kitchen because he clear knew if we got a chance to talk without him we'd say no. We cancelled the order we got pressured into making so he shot him self in the foot.

We had this with a company I wanted to quote on fitted wardrobes. We both had to be here for 2-3 hours! I cancelled the appointment. Also similar from a company who spray the inside of the roof. I didn’t need to be here. Just tell my husband, who’s wages will be paying for the stuff, how much it costs and when you can do it. He will either decide or get back to you. Much the same as he would if I wasn’t there. I was quite capable of getting info on wardrobes. I HATE the hard sell. My mum had this once before when my dad had recently died. It was awful.

Yes ive had this too. When they rang to check the appointment was ok I said he'd been called unexpectedly to work. They said we'd need to rearrange because he had to be present, they were insistent so I to.d them to poke their doors where the sun doesn't shine Obviously us poor little women can't make such many decisions.

I've written drivel apparently but I'm sure you get the gist

Go with a small independent company! It's only the big national companies that do this. We have just had our whole house done and I got quotes from 3 small companies and never had this issue.

Of course it's sexist. All kinds of companies used to explicitly treat women this way. Any company doing it now is still part of that, it doesn't matter what the supposed reasoning is now (you don't know what the reasoning is without testing it, and you don't have to do your own little journalism investigation thing to be allowed to say it was sexist). If you deny a woman service without speaking to her husband, it is part of a sexist tradition.

YANBU both because it's an obnoxious sales tactic and because it is sexist.

I’ve had this once buying furniture. It was a relatively big order as we had saved and were replacing most of living room. Salesman refused to put order through until he had spoken with DH. I explained that wasn’t possible he was working. He said he could talk to him on the phone. I said ok and gave him a number he didn’t recognise. I asked me where the number was I said Afghan...if you manage to get through to him do let me know how he is I have spoken with him in over 4 weeks. He’s military and on operations and isn’t back for another 7 months! Ended up buying elsewhere!

Don't complain about it, let them carry on - it's a great way to weed out high pressure sales companies from ones which don't need to use pressure selling as they have a great product.

I bought a car sticker. The lady who sold it to me told me cheerfully "make sure you have a man nearby to pop it on for you"🙄 needless to say I did it on my own

Get fed up with car salesmen talking to DH. He cant drive. All he goes along for is to check he can sit in it comfortably with his long legs. He's not even paying for it!

I also had this crap with safestyle. I was also asked who would be paying for it, would it be my money or my husbands to which I firmly pointed it that it was family money and my husband had no interest in being present for the discussions and whatever I decided would be good enough for him. I was refused an appointment with the line "get back in touch when your husband will be available". My response to this was hat will be never then.
They then kept calling me to hassle me to arrange an appointment. After speaking to another person who then offered me an appointment I told them - politely of course - where they could stick their appointment and door

I had this from Safestyle! I wanted them to come round to quote for some French doors. They wouldn’t come unless both me and DH were home. I explained that it was just a quote but they said decisions would need to be made about door type etc. When I explained that I pay the mortgage and have the authority to make said decisions alone (as DH really doesn’t care about house stuff at all!) but they still wouldn’t come. They then phoned me weekly for a few months to find out why I hadn’t brought from them!