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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that Marks & Spencers closing their dressing rooms is absurd

181 replies

paulaplumpbottom · 30/12/2009 11:03

I was in Marks & Spencers yestaerday and saw a couple of really cute dresses so I took them to the dressing rooms to try them on. The dressing rooms were closed. The sales assisant then told me that they now close them during the sales. I explained to her that yesterday was a rare day when I didn't have my very young son screaming his head off and that returning it would be a hassle. She rudely refused me even though i'm a really good customer and shop their daily. I don't understand how this policy benefits their customers. I felt really angry. Am I being unreasonable?

OP posts:
dexter73 · 30/12/2009 13:18

Same reason they shut the cafe some time before closing! People who work there need to go home.

brettgirl2 · 30/12/2009 13:18

YANBU I went with my gift card to buy some bras yesterday - I had driven for 20 minutes to get there, parked especially and I needed to try on loads to find out which fitted well and were nice and comfy (hahahaha who sounds old!!!) I'd have been evil if they'd told me the changing room was shut. To buy and take home I'd have had to buy 10 bras!!!

brettgirl2 · 30/12/2009 13:19

They could probably also do with an extra hours pay Dexter

LastOfTheMulledWine · 30/12/2009 13:20

Good heavens. I am so glad I don't go sales shopping, or any shopping really for that matter.

All this anger over buying a frock.

OP, they probably did recognise you today. Probably thought oh it's that woman who comes in here every day with that poor child who is hurting himself in anger and sadness at having to schlep round the shop every damn day when he's clearly let his mother know how god awful the experience is for everybody concerned.

The definition of stupidity, iirc, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. If my child was that upset by an experience that he was physically hurting himself while it happened and that experience wasn't necessary, I'd find a different way. Sod your not just any old groceries, M&S overpriced, daily bought groceries.

mayorquimby · 30/12/2009 13:20

"Of course, you hoped they wouldn't but they had every right to "

Well here's where we'll have to agree to disagree because it is attitudes like this that imho makes such a policy necessary.Why would they have a right to? Most shops will allow them to,I know i certainly had no problem with someone coming in a minute before closing and maybe giving them a couple of minutes leeway to grab something quickly but they do not have a right to shop after hours. it is good customer service to accomodate reasonable people but the shop is not obliged to stay open for the benefit of one selfish customer.
The shop on the other hand has every right to set it's opening hours and changing room policies.

clam · 30/12/2009 13:20

Sorry, but I'm losing the will to live on this one. Not overly concerned about re-reading the OP.

Hope this is the worst problem you have in life.

Bye.

Paolosgirl · 30/12/2009 13:21

And the extra time to meet their sales targets?

sitdownpleasegeorge · 30/12/2009 13:23

I can see OP's point about shopping daily saving money although it is probably because like me meal-planning simply wasn't working, in my case due to an arsey dh wanting to eat x or y on a particular night rather than what needed to be eaten that day.

We now have basic stuff bought in an on-line big shop session. (Toiletries, pet food, loo-roll, kitchen roll, long-life groceries eg cans etc) Fresh stuff with a short shelf life is bought every couple of days from the very good local supermarket which is fortunately on our way home and next to a petrol station. I only buy enough to make what we need or I freeze the extra raw goods as dh has an irrational dislike of leftovers of most types (His mother gave him and his brother food poisoning (more than once !) from the over enthusiastic use of leftovers).

Since adopting this shopping strategy we have wasted far less food as we are not tempted by bogofs on non-freezable fresh stuff possibly going off before it gets used and other stuff being forgotten at the back of our large fridge and also going manky.

As a stategy to avoid waste it has definately worked for us, we can now stick within our rubbish bin fortnightly collection limit and still have spare room in the wheelie bin.

OP is however being unreasonable with her irritation at the changing room "closure for the duration". All businesses need to make cutbacks at present, the recession is far from over (despite what GB wants us to believe, there will be pain all round when the public sector budgets are cut) and this seems a reasonable area in which to make savings for a short period of time.

brettgirl2 · 30/12/2009 13:23

Well quite, Paolos. I don't quite understand why people are quite so hell bent on defending M&S.

Paolosgirl · 30/12/2009 13:24

They had every right to - because they were the customer!! No-one is saying anything about shopping after hours, but if you go into a shop 15 minutes before closing time then it's only right that the shop shows that it values your custom by bending over backwards to help you in whatever way it can - and make the sale.

You do know that it's the paying customer who keeps shops going? They don't get handouts from the Govt to stay afloat!

brettgirl2 · 30/12/2009 13:25

"OP is however being unreasonable with her irritation at the changing room "closure for the duration". All businesses need to make cutbacks at present, the recession is far from over (despite what GB wants us to believe, there will be pain all round when the public sector budgets are cut) and this seems a reasonable area in which to make savings for a short period of time."

So how exactly is a clothes shop preventing people from trying things going to help them to beat the recession? It is likely to put people off buying things

LastOfTheMulledWine · 30/12/2009 13:25

Oh and as nice as it would be to live in the 1950s, or the Isle of Man, we don't. People have more and more responsibilities, more to fit in the day, more constraints, less time. I'll be damned if I force somebody to hang around for half an hour unpaid while I mess about with shoes that I may or may not buy when they probably have children to collect and their own shopping to do and elderly parents to check on and goodness knows what.

It's enough that we have shops open 364 days a year with more clothes that you could want or need.

Go and try the dress on on Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday or any other day seeing as you like going in there so much.

Pikelit · 30/12/2009 13:25

"Am I the only person here so old that I rarely bother to try on anything in M&S because in my day you couldn't and I still haven't got used to it?"

No. You aren't. I'm still rather astonished to see signs for the fitting rooms. This is M&S I think, we buy parsnip shaped trousers "as seen" and return them on our next visit.

mayorquimby · 30/12/2009 13:26

"They could probably also do with an extra hours pay Dexter"

maybe but that's their/their employers decision to make. Not yours. Just because an extra hours pay might be helpfull (and do you honestly think that staff get paid extra if a customer dicks around for 20 minutes after closing) does not mean that a customer has the right to compell them to work this hour.

paulaplumpbottom · 30/12/2009 13:27

So maybe I should just stop making sure my family gets fed because my son can't handle being in the store for ten minutes. It wouldn't matter which store I went to he would act that way. Nobody is more upset by that situation than me. I hate having to put him through it.

OP posts:
Awassailinglookingforanswers · 30/12/2009 13:29

you know this thread has explained one thing to me though.

My Great Aunty (who sadly passed away in June this year) always used to drive my G Uncle bonnkers buying bags and bags of clothes @ M&S - she'd take them home, try them on and only want to keep 2 or 3 things.

She did usually take the ones back that didn't fit but I always wondered why that was when I was younger - now I know - it was because there were no changing rooms to try them on

brettgirl2 · 30/12/2009 13:30

"maybe but that's their/their employers decision to make. Not yours."

Well quite, but it's not the decision of the person who originally made the point either. This was about routinely closing rooms ahead of closing, the extra could be factored into their 'normal' hours.

brettgirl2 · 30/12/2009 13:30

Or someone else's who does want a few extra quid.

FabIsGoingToBeFabIn2010 · 30/12/2009 13:31

You are being ridiculous now paula. There are so many other options open to you other than shopping every single day.

LastOfTheMulledWine · 30/12/2009 13:31

Then find another way paula. Do you have a dp/dh? A friend? Somebody who could watch your ds while you shop? Try shopping every other day or every third day.

If it truly has to be that way, then it has to be that way but you can't expect a shop to change its entire policy/rules because of it.

Do you know, I've never been in M&S in my life.

FabIsGoingToBeFabIn2010 · 30/12/2009 13:32

How old is he?

CoqAuVin · 30/12/2009 13:34

paula
do you not have a job?
cos you is being a nob
about your bad habit
to run in and grabbit
this shopping all day
will get in the way
or playing around on the puter

Awassailinglookingforanswers · 30/12/2009 13:35
paulaplumpbottom · 30/12/2009 13:36

He is a year and a half. My Dh works in London so he isn't home during the day and my mother in law doesn't babysit. My friends haven't offered to help although im sure they offer if they knew how difficult it was for me but I know they have their own shopping and errands to run so wouldn't feel comftorable asking. I'm not in the shop for very long really

OP posts:
clam · 30/12/2009 13:36

"I hate having to put him through it."

But you are, nonetheless, choosing to do so.

There have been alternatives suggested on here, but you maintain that you prefer to shop everyday, which "puts him through it" everyday. Don't suppose he differentiates between being in there 15 minutes or an hour, or whether it's been a day or a week since he was last there. To him he just sees "shop" and goes into one.

Now I really am off.