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?

M&S have pretty inconsistent sizing, you can have a go at a customer for wanting to try on different sizes ffs.

You should complain. This wasn't someone being a bit grumpy or sullen in the heat, (of the air conditioned M&S store ) she was incredibly rude, and it's not in anyway acceptable to say that to someone in a social setting, let alone in your paid job. If you genuinely can't cope with a customer wanting to try on lots of clothed then you shouldn't be working in retail

@HundredMilesAnHour

Bollocks, she was being a rude, bitch end of!
and her manager needs to address it with her.

I think it’s Bluntness100 back again!

You're not being sensitive, that was really rude and you should tell a manager. That person might need some extra training.

Also if you work in a clothes shop and get openly annoyed with people trying too many things on, you're in the wrong job. It's part of it unfortunately! Having done that job for years, I don't ever remember a day when there was a justification for treating someone the way you were treated.

You are making too many excuses for rudeness and a lack of professionalism. You are exaggerating that she may be fired and be on benefits - she may just be warned if this is unusual behaviour for her but if she has form for it, she deserves to be fired. Finding another retail job is not difficult and she may learn from the experience to keep her gob shut. Bodyshaming a customer is inexcusable. A nurse doing it will probably face more sanctions and you know what? That is exactly right.

I'm not particularly large and I can remember shopping in BHS once years ago (when I was smaller than I am now!) and the assistant serving me at the checkout looking at the size label of one top I was buying then looking at me and suggesting it wouldn't fit and i should buy the size larger. It actually fitted fine and I had tried it on anyway. I just laughed but I did think it wasn't very good customer service and might have put some people off buying anything at all.

Was his/her spelling and grammar as equally atrocious? I reckon you'd spot alexalisten under a different username a mile away because of it!

I would've felt the same. I think most people are so stunned by that kind of left field rudeness it seldom gets challenged. I used to kick myself later, when all the things I could've said came to mind. Now I just take comfort in knowing that their days must be very long and miserable if that is their approach to their jobs / life.

Wow, some of the comments on this thread are insane.

In what world is it ever justified for a shop assistant to body shame a customer?

It does not matter that the OP wanted to try on 14 items. It would not even have mattered if the OP was rude about being told about the item limit. There is no customer behaviour that justifies a shop assistant saying, "how big [were you] before if this is the after!!"

OP, I can understand that in the moment you were too shocked to say anything. You would be perfectly justified in reporting this to the store. It's not acceptable and ignore all the comments on the thread trying to find some justification for it.

@alexalisten

meh, she should have thought about that before being a horrible bitch to poor Op.

maybe her job can go to someone nicer and more deserving 😀

Last time I was in Marks I, too had an incredibly rude snarky sales person. I was gobsmacked- it customer-facing & you really need to keep a smile on your face, or find different work. She looked like she had been working there decades & I can only think she was burnt out

Hell,I'd post the interaction on their social media pages

i cannot believe a lot of people on here.

Yes retail is thankless and hard work, but people are paid to do it and on some level choose that shit job pr end up there for whatever reason. If they’re this rude they’re lucky to have a job!

She was absolutely rude and should have a disciplinary based on it or at the least reprimanded for treating a customer badly.

Email the store. Call them during the day asking who the manager is and who the duty manager was on (give day and time). Get an email and complain. And be clear and thorough.

What i dont agree with everything you say you mean. What other threads are you actually referring to?

Def report this. She was ooo and so rude. M&S management will want to deal with this. It def falls well below their expectations.

Hope you got some lovely outfits and congrats on the weightless too!

You spent a fortune and you should have treated with respect. I would complain.

No.

She was rude full stop.

Im sick of making excuses for rude workers because "oh its hot" "oh its low paid" "oh its hard"

I was a Saturday girl in M&S once upon a time and ill tell you now my feet wouldbt have touched the ground if id been like this.

You aren't being unreasonable in the slightest.

As a paying customer you can try on as many clothes as you like. If there is a limit to how many you can take in at once then fine, split it into batches. It's done all of the time, I hardly ever try clothes on but if I needed to try lots on then that's my perogitive.

Secondly, being outright rude isn't ok, huffing isn't ok either regardless of how hot you are.

I work in a customer facing environment and semi recently someone complained about me being rude. My manager asked me about it and I said I wasn't intending to be rude at all but perhaps I was a bit abrupt without realising. Nothing else was said because it was likely just a case of getting off on the wrong foot, I don't usually get complaints and I am always (or I intend to be!) polite even if I'm not brimming with enthusiasm. Ever since then I try to engage said customer in friendly conversation to show that I'm not actually a cow.

If you complained about her she isn't likely to get sacked unless it's the last straw. It's likely she will get asked what happened and nothing more will be said, maybe a "don't do that in the future" If it's the last straw then that's on her and not on you, she shouldn't be in the job if she can't be polite to people on shift.

Well done on your weight loss, you should be proud, it's not easy to lose just a couple of pounds so you've done great.

That's terrible customer service especially the comment at the end about your weight. I would suggest you complain to head office with the time you visited the store and a description of the assistant if you don't have her name. It's unlikely she will lose her job over this but anyway she's clearly in the wrong one and could do with some customer service training. She is getting paid to be professional and offer excellent customer service. M&S pride themselves on customer service so they will want this feedback from you. Well done on the weight loss.

Yes, I would. I'm bloody fed up of rude assistants in shops - I'm sure it is a difficult job at times and I'm sure some customers can also be extremely rude (which is a) unacceptable but b) not how the OP was behaving). But it's not an excuse to act like an arsehole and a significant minority DO. They then act as if "working in retail" is some kind of higher calling which should come with the right to be as rude as they like and the entitlement to be defensive about it.

She SHOULD lose her job. And a flimsy "shop elsewhere" doesn't cut it - one customer leaving will hardly have M&S's board searching for the reason behind a profound downturn in profits.

The rudest (but very funny) comment I've had when buying clothes was in a small independent shop in our village. I had been warned by friends that whilst there were some nice clothes, the owner was very odd. The shop was tiny so you had to emerge from a curtained area at the back to see yourself in a mirror in the main part of the shop.

On the first & only occasion I ever went in there I tried on a dress and as I stood looking at myself in the mirror the owner surveyed me somewhat critically before saying, "It doesn't look right because your breasts are in the wrong place" 😂

What she probably meant was that I could do with a better bra, but she honestly made it sound as if I had one breast on my kneecap and the other next to my ear....

I didn't reply, nor did I buy the dress and I never went in there again.

The shop did not last long and shut a few years later

I’m at this rude woman basically calling OP fat somehow being blamed on the heatwave.

Some of these replies are insane lol.

firstly, massive congratulations on the weight loss! That’s amazing.

and secondly, the comments about knowing roughly what size you are…. Even if you know your size you can still try on clothes lol. When I go m and s, I can try a 12 in a dress and it fits perfect then try a different one and the same size and it’s massive. The whole point of changing rooms is to try clothes on. I don’t see everyone’s issue.

She sounds astonishingly rude. The thing about the number of items is fine, that's their rule. But even to say to stop 'certain types' from stealing is unnecessary. Why not just say it's company policy for stock protection reasons.

But to tell you you shouldn't go back in there? Why does she care? Surely if there's a queue then it's the people waiting who just have to be patient.

And finally the thing about your weight/size. That's awful and I'd complain about that in itself.
At most if someone volunteered they'd lost weight you could say something supportive like 'thats great/well done..' or simply 'ok, shall I fetch some different sizes for you?'

Nobody has any right to make derogatory remarks about anyone's body. If you work in a clothes shop you shouldn't even assume a size, you might at most ask what sizes they'd like and try and find them.

I would take it further and complain. It's one thing being grumpy, but what she said is another level and completely unacceptable.