rude worker in whsmith upset my 8yr old d

[pastapestofor6]

my dd 8 has been saving up to buy some hsm magazine, she has got the required 3.50 so today was the happy day for the long anticipated purchase to take place,
she went into smiths, I sat on bench directly i mean DIRECTLY outside with 2 younger ds's, she entered shop and the shop assistant[who i might add i dont know] said 'where is your mum?'
dd says 'just outside on the bench', woman then says 'what you doing in here' dd replies'just looking around', woman says 'do you have any money?' dd replies 'yes £3.50' to which woman replies'well you wont get anything in here for that' at which point dd fled the shop white as a sheet and shaking
I made to go in the shop and give her what for, but dd begged me to leave it, considering her upset i did so, very reluctantly i might add!
but aibu for letting her go into shop on her own [she is nearly 9]
and if not , then what should i do?

Yes it is the bully in tom brown school days but I tend to think more of the coward in the Flashman papers.

lord, which bit did you pick up on in my post, notasheep? i had to track back to find your post and even then I can't see how you managed to relate it to yourself? [where's the confused emoticon?]

That is hardly an insult now is it?

And the toby young book was funny.

To imply that all children are the same, by the head office, as a justification of the service received, it is therefore our only assumption that all WHSmith staff are belligerent, uncaring, miserable, pigs. So, in view of that, WHSmiths , in it's entirety, deserves to be treated awfully. That's surely fair.

Or the old fartbag could apologise. I get what is being said about her personal life, it may be in tatters, but if she can't do the job without letting it spill out in such an atrocious way then she should be removed from the sales floor immediately. Every member of staff represents the whole company, and should provide equally good service.

A shop - A place to spend money. Full stop. Capital letter. The customer should not be made to suffer the staff's problems. It'sfairly simple. And picking on 8 year olds is not a solution, it's entirely the problem

"And I'm still going to feel good for pointing out again that you compared the OP's child to a child with special needs this morning which is so f**ked up. Everyone deserves good service in a shop, and to use a term like SEN as an insult shows how low you are on the foodscale anyway. All children, regardless of circumstance, could show you a lesson in compassion."

OK, what I actually said was:

"Er, what, have I missed something? Does OP's dd have some sort of obvious SEN? Why is this her first experience of independent purchasing at double checks 8 years old? Why was the child left "white as a sheet and shaking" and crushed..."

If she had obvious SEN (eg Downs) I would expect the assistant to cut her a bit more slack. But if she had less obvious SEN I could understand why she is so easily distressed. Autism can make such social challenges much harder than for the rest of us, for example - or deafness. I don't see how so many of you have construed this as an insult, but as it seems the child has no such challenges we can let it drop.

(Or you can carry on castigating me for an imaginary offence if it still makes you feel good. That's OK. )

As to the rest of it, I was expressing my astonishment that a child can reach the age of nearly nine without having made an independent purchase in a shop, but it seems that's "normal" these days. I'm also astounded that a little bit of rudeness can reduce a child of nearly nine to ""white as a sheet and shaking" and crushed..." with her mother's support, but we've addressed that too.

Hey.

This is the start, of something new.

We're all in this together.

We should stick to the status quo.

Crikey

What time is it ?

well done Magnificent, I think you might have killed it

"SPB, she's not a doctor though, is she? Nobody died"

no, which is why i said "Customer service is what WHS do"

The example was meant to be extreme to illustrate the point. Obviously, not killing someone because of your personal life is at the extreme end of the scale. However, customer service is a store that is aimed at SELLING THINGS (with a lot aimed at kids) should be crucial to WHS.

I've been trying to keep up with thread but it's all gone a bit mad, hasnt it?

Hope OP takes her DD to a nice independent shop today

well well what a thread that turned into
time to put it to bed now no?
thanks all for the ahem spirited debate

I leave you with this
'what time is it..time of our lives were on vacation'
haha

Thought nobody understood

That is terrible the way your poor dd was treated. I know whenever we have young children in my place of work to purchase something, they are always treated with the same courtesy as our adult customers.

pastapesto, some people could start an argument in an empty house..what a thread indeed