Bad experience in M&S fitting rooms

[TwinTantrums]

I’ve recently lost a lot of weight and so need a lot of new summer and holiday clothes.

I came over to M&S this morning and had a trolley full of clothes and other such items, walking up to the fitting rooms and the woman looks me up and down and then asks how much I have, as “8 items is the maximum, to stop some types” from stealing. I offer to split it up and she rolls her eyes and says “I suppose you can”

I go in, try on my eight items, split them into what I do and don’t want and come back out, she then huffs and asks if I really need to go again? I said yes, as I’ve lost a lot of weight and don’t know what size I am. She looked me up and down and then asked how big I had been before if this is the after!! I just took the number from her and went back in.

AIBU or was she totally out of line?

She definitely should be looking for a new job. If I were her manager it would be the door I was presenting her with.

My jaw actually dropped at her last comment!
I cannot believe anyone is saying you did anything wrong!
Surely even if you know your size you may still want to try things on to see if they suit you and there is quite a lot of size inconsistency even in the same shops. I've tried lots of things on that do technically fit me but do not look good on because of colour /shape/style.
I don't think you were to blame in any way!
Edited to add - You could email head office and tell them of your experience in X store on X date and it will get back to the store manager.

I would definitely complain to the store manager. Or to M&S customer services. That is no way to treat a customer. She was rude and offensive. Your size is none of her business. She is there is help you not make you feel like crap…. She needs to do some retraining if she thinks that her behaviour is ok.

As others have said M&S need all the customers they can get right now, and staff members being rude to customers is a big no.

But well done on your weight loss!

It's a shop. They want people to buy as much stuff as possible. Why shouldn't she want to try it all on?

The member of staff was really rude and quite insulting with the comment about OP's weight.

Staff are their to facilitate the shopping experience so the customer spends more money.

Absolutely appalling for anyone to speak to someone else like that about their weight/appearance, let alone a customer service assistant. I would 100% complain in writing and post about it on social media. If I had a staff member like that I would want to know.

Hey op you had the right to try on everything just because your a 14 doesn’t mean every 14 will fit you, the shop assistant was out of order. Simple as that. I’m sure there not meant to treat everyone as a thief.

If the assistant thinks it's OK to deliberately insult and make a woman trying on clothes feel bad about her weight, losing her job is exactly what I'd want. Even if you discount her nastiness, the woman's job is to contribute to the sale of clothes, and commenting negatively on a customers weight so they feel uncomfortable means she is absolutely rubbish at it. If the OP complains she'll have the chance to explain herself. She'll probably deny it anyway and unless she's got form, won't lose her job on the basis of an unevidenced customer complaint. Unfortunately.

What a cheeky cow

If the eight item policy is to stop stealing, then it makes sense that if you had sixteen items you'd take eight in, leave eight with the attendant, bring out two piles and give them the ones to go back and the ones to hold for you, take the second set of eight and repeat, then exchange your rejects from the second set with your yesses from the first and leave everything else to be returned to the floor. That's a lot of work for the attendant, so I can understand why they'd rather not. BUT YANBU at all, because there's no other way you could really do this. Asking of you really need to try the second lot is odd - perhaps she thought you'd found so many great things in your first try on that you didn't;t need any more?

The personal comments about weight loss are inappropriate.

The 'assistant' was rude and then horribly rude with her last comment. She is clearly in the wrong job. Hot weather isn't an excuse for someone who works in a customer service role to be rude, especially when the OP didn't do or say anything to upset her. I'm shocked at some of the replies.

How do you know it was fully air conditioned? OP says she was hot.

You've entirely missed the pp's point.

She was rude and it's not surprising you were upset at the time. I'd send an email to M and S customer services saying what happened at what time in which store and then forget it. You didn't do anything wrong so you don't need to think about it again.

It’s not grassing it’s reporting her. she can’t go round treating people overweight like there not important what if op thought fuck it she’s right I’m fat no point carrying on trying to lose more weight. a comment to a sensitive person can push them over the edge. She could just be a total bitch and should not be in retail.

I don’t understand why posters are minimising the staff member’s extremely bad rudeness unless they are jealous of OP’s weight loss.

M&S pride themselves on their customer service. They would want to know if a member of staff was deliberately rude to a customer. Mocking a customer's weight isn't a minor transgression. It's horrible behaviour.

Being attacked or robbed is a police matter. This obviously isn't but was still upsetting for the OP.

Clumsy? It was deliberately nasty and insulting. She didn't need to say anything about OP's weight.

Are you going to complain? Don’t see the point of this thread if not.

both of you were in the wrong here.

Firstly, brazenly bringing a trolley full of clothes to try on in the changing rooms is bizarre behaviour. In M&S, the trolleys are for the foodhall, not for clothing changing rooms. I can easily imagine the trolley being a technique used by shoplifters.

So I don’t think the M&S staff were in the wrong during your first exchange. It’s likely she was directed by her own management to discourage trolley usage in the changing rooms & to have a limit on the number of items taken in. Your complaint won’t get anywhere there.

It’s possible due to your appearance/behaviour she was suspicious of you in particular; but ultimately bringing the trolley to the fitting room was weird so you set the tone of the interaction by doing that. It could be the case that you resembled a previous shoplifter, and she mistakenly thought that was you. But you can’t do anything about looking like previous dodgy customers, just as much she can’t help but watch you robustly if she thinks it’s you. This is likely why she made the curt comments she did - she didn’t have you in customer territory but “potential thief”.

I do think her comments about your body were unjustifiable though. I just think in general, we as British people err on the side of caution when commenting on weight/weight loss because it’s a delicate subject. She must have been quite convinced that you were up to no good.

Our M&S is on an out of town shopping centre with other stores, all of whom share the trolleys. People use trolleys for the clothes all the time

“Brazen trolley use” is peak MN 😂

Sounds like you had an overfull trolley of stuff. And you are the one who brought up the subject of weight. The shop will probably be glad if you take your custom elsewhere. So we will other customers as sounds like you hog the fitting rooms.

Is there a limit to how much you can buy from M&S at one time? I only told her why I was buying so much because she made me feel like a nuisance!

She was very rude - forget or report.

Staff will be fully aware of people like this. We have a few customers who come in at least twice a week, try on lots of clothes, and never buy anything.

Admittedly one lady is elderly and we think she’s lonely, she’s lovely so even though she never buys anything we always have time for her.

Some people are just inconsiderate time wasters though.