To find it hilarious that shop assistants in these stores look down their noses.

[bleakmidwintering]

I’m wandering about shopping in London. I’ve been into a couple of stores where the shop assistants have been off hand; one in Chanel, one in Occitaine. I certainly don’t look like I’ve got bags of money in my rain mac and trainers but I probably earn 4 times their salary. Are they trained to be off hand or is it purely their attitude? AIBU?

I used to work in Harvey Nicks as a new graduate back in the 1980s. In training we were told not to judge the customer by appearances- that bag lady may well be Lady Talbot Mountbatten worth squillions.
The truly rich don’t feel the need to make an effort at all. Guess these girls didn’t get the same message.

I used to work in Harvey Nicks as a new graduate back in the 1980s. In training we were told not to judge the customer by appearances- that bag lady may well be Lady Talbot Mountbatten worth squillions.
The truly rich don’t feel the need to make an effort at all. Guess these girls didn’t get the same message.

I used to work in Harvey Nicks as a new graduate back in the 1980s. In training we were told not to judge the customer by appearances- that bag lady may well be Lady Talbot Mountbatten worth squillions.
The truly rich don’t feel the need to make an effort at all. Guess these girls didn’t get the same message.

I used to work in Harvey Nicks as a new graduate back in the 1980s. In training we were told not to judge the customer by appearances- that bag lady may well be Lady Talbot Mountbatten worth squillions.
The truly rich don’t feel the need to make an effort at all. Guess these girls didn’t get the same message.

In real life, there isn't some group of "truly rich" to compare with people who are "just rich".

Some rich people will get dolled up when they go shopping, others won't bother, but they're not likely to shop in these sorts of boutiques if they really don't care what they look like. If you could see them at some event they think is important, you wouldn't conclude "they don't feel the need to make an effort at all."

And as has been pointed out, the most important markets for these designer stores are not "the rich" anyway.

I used to work in Harvey Nicks as a new graduate back in the 1980s. In training we were told not to judge the customer by appearances- that bag lady may well be Lady Talbot Mountbatten worth squillions.
The truly rich don’t feel the need to make an effort at all. Guess these girls didn’t get the same message.

Yes, the principle is the same, but the staff in most shops Island don't get paid on commission and aren't encouraged to interact with customers in the same way, not that they should be rude.
The things that used to annoy me was when I was in shops as a young girl-I was quite slim, but some of the staff seemed to be ruder to bigger or older women. I never said anything, thinking maybe I was mistaken, or there was some other reason, but maybe I should have,

Im really confused. Isn't Occitaine basically like going into Sephora?! It's hardly a high end experience.

I never understood this attitude. When I go to Hermès, or some of the "high-end" sections at my local department store, the staff can be downright rude and dismissive. They don't have what I want anyway. They're not important enough to have good stock -oh the irony!

I remember going into the main Chanel boutiques in Paris and found the staff absolutely delightful. The atmosphere was very welcoming. The staff were lovely older ladies.

In one small shop (not Chanel) the doorman was opening the door for customers. He ignored me and looked away as I approached the door. The same thing happened when I was leaving. I went to the company's main boutique and again found the older ladies absolutely lovely.

I was only visiting these places to get perfume that they don't sell outside of their main boutiques, or advertise on their websites. I'm not a big spender, but I do buy the odd little luxury after saving up what I can.

For reasons to complicated to go into here I was invited to a "shoot" on the estate of a "Lord".
All the City Boys were there in brand new shooting clothing, hardly ever before worn boots, and in Range Rovers.
His lordship being the "real/old money", turned up in a tweed suit that was older than me, a Barbour that was 50% patches and stiches, wellingtons from the "Yorkshire Trading Company" in an ancient Landrover with a canvas roof.
It's only when you saw the matched set of handmade Purdey shotguns in a walnut case...

@User564523412 am loving your posts for the brutal honesty and inside knowledge. <Doffs cap at Miss Wintour>

Am late to the party - in my defence I did start reading this thread last night, only got round to commenting now. Am only up to page 3.

Didn't Ronaldo meet his wife through shopping in a store? I remember starting to watch a Netflix programme about them and the makers were having a go at putting a Cinderella spin on it. Nice try but it's not the same thing as him nipping into the Co-Op for milk and falling in love .. His wife was/is absolutely immaculate. If she hadn't been working somewhere like that one would wonder why.

I had exactly this experience at Selfridges. It wasn't Becca on Trish McEvoy was it? I ended up spending £1,200 that day.

That girl could sell snow to the Inuits.

You said if a shop assistant was rude to you in any shop, you'd never shop there again.

Right! I did. And you wrote 'often thankless, entry level job - someone I'll have forgotten about minutes after leaving the store.'

If I have forgotten about them minutes after the store, then it wasn't a particularly rude or upsetting encounter.

'Voting with your feet' when you decide to is a completely fine and normal thing to do. No, I sometimes decide not to return to a shop if I have been upset by an encounter with a member of staff there and there is perfectly fine.

If you’re in New Bond Street, the Christmas lights are gorgeous down there! Enjoy!

Friend got a job recently in a very upmarket department store. Was told during his training that those people who would traditionally have been followed around the store by the security staff, are now their best customers, to be treated with the utmost respect.

He suspects that quite a lot of them are the criminal class, ie drug dealers or their partners. You know the type, dripping in designer goods with lots of work done, Turkey teeth etc.

So I never worry about how scruffy I'm perceived to be, at least I know I came by my money honestly!

To be fair, I am typically understated middle class. Gabor shoes, decent but not designer bag, subtle jewellery. I receive better service in high end shops (Cartier/Ferragamo/Caroline Charles, etc) than I do on the High Street.

I find that overall a lot of people that work in shops are snooty these days and speak to customers like shit and if they're superior in some way. I'm not talking high end shops as I rarely go in them, just normal everyday shops on the high street.

In regards to earnings of luxury sales assistants in high end shops, I know they do often earn a lot more than a sales assistant in a bog standard shop that's just getting an hourly wage. Someone I know used to work for YSL in one of their boutiques and earned way over 100k per year. She mostly sold handbags and shoes, sometimes over 10k worth of items per shift.

@GirlMaths

"Gabor shoes,"

What do people infer from Gabor shoes? I don't get it.

I started to google Gabor shoes and the first autofil question was "are Gabor shoes for old ladies". Very confused.

@HaveACheekyChristmasi think you meant to tag @RosesAndHelleboreslol.

believe me, I don’t and never will wear Gabor shoes 😂😂

Ah, so now it's rude and/or upsetting that's the benchmark, not just rude! I can't imagine being genuinely upset by a brief encounter with a random stranger in a shop, I guess that's why we're at odds with this.

I've no issue with voting with my feet...I think it was more the 'any shop' bit I wasn't having.

If a guy on the fish counter at Waitrose called me the most horrendous thing imaginable, I'm not going to assume that what he said is the official stance of the wider company and never go to my local Waitrose again. I'd be the only one suffering for it.

I guess the main thing for me is remembering that people are human. I (very briefly) worked in retail in my late teens, so I can appreciate how rough and thankless it can be. If someone in a shop is rude or miserable with me, my first thought isn't that they've set out that day to purposely insult me and need to be taught a lesson in feet-voting, it's that they're either having a rotten day themselves, something in their life is getting to them or they're doing a job they hate because they have bills to pay. Then I walk away and forget about it.

What I've learned from this thread is that, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary, that "scene from Pretty Woman" fantasy has something of a cultural chokehold over a lot of women and they can't bear to let it go.

Just ordinary.
Believe me, I'd have said the same 30 years ago!

I'm not really sure what this sort of forelock tugging idolatry of the aristocracy which pops up constantly of MN actually adds to this specific thread....

On a general basis I don't understand why people who didn't do anything to earn their money other than be born to the right parents are somehow "classier" or more admirable than people who put some effort in and actually earned it themselves.

At the end of the day shop assistants don't care if someone has money generally or not, they care whether someone has money they are going to spend that day, in that shop.

"Old" money are as likely to look but not buy as "new" money or indeed anyone without loads of money. If anything, your stereotyped story suggests that they tend to make do and mend rather than buy new so shop assistants wouldn't be proved wrong for making the assumption that on average the scruffy farmer would be less likely to buy something than the person decked head to toe in this season's fashion, even if they could technically afford to.