Routinely. I consider my time valuable, if a business chooses to waste it I walk away. Very few “things” I need in life so if getting an item is a PITA I go away and order online if possible.
At the doctors office last year I walked out and asked for my co-pay back, the doc was over an hour behind and I had other things to do, the staff had to call the business to see how to do the transaction.
The most recent place we walked out on:
Show up for brunch - there’s no one waiting so we ask if we can sit by the window. Waitress says that is for four people, so seats us at a tiny table near that table. Whatever. A couple comes in behind us and is seated at the table we wanted. The two of them.
Wife asks for a Bloody Mary, which we can see pre-made sitting at the bar. Is told by same waitress that they are too busy for her to make that, but she can make her a screwdriver. (I guess they were exactly too busy to add celery and asparagus to a vodka and pre-made juice drink, but not busy enough to make the same vodka and other juice drink). Note: they had three waitresses and there were maybe 15 people in there.
We then see the same waitress bring the couple at the window table two Bloody Marys. As she passes us, my wife asks again for a Bloody, and this happens:
“I already told you we are too busy for that.”
“OK, well I just saw you bring two of them to that table…”
“Well the other waitress made those, she wasn’t supposed to.” ::walks away::
No offer to make one for us, just walks away. She still hasn’t taken our food order. So we’re sitting there reading the menus, when we look up and the waitress has crouched down at our eye level next to the table, startling us b/c we were looking at the menus, and says to my wife: “I feel like you’re mad at me. I can’t make you a Bloody Mary, the other waitress wasn’t supposed to do that, she’s always doing things for my section! Don’t be mad at me!” Then she walked away again, did not visit the table again while she walked past us to tend to her other tables, so we finished the screwdriver and left.
The only good to come out of it was that I now like to sneak up and crouch down next to the couch and say to my wife “I feel like you’re mad at meeeee!”
One thing I recall from my days working in under-staffed, over-worked retail is that we simply didn’t have the time to spend with tyre-kickers or dreamers because while they were going “Oooh, shiny” at the new computer, the guy who actually wanted to buy a $1500 laptop was walking out the door because there was no-one to serve him, because we were dealing with people who didn’t actually want to buy anything but gee whiz, computers sure are neat!
So yeah, I totally understand how frustrating it is being ignored because the sales staff don’t think you’ve got any money to spend, but probably 92% of the time, if you look like you don’t have money to spend in the store, you probably don’t and the sales staff are too busy to be worried about the handful of times a year they encounter someone where that’s not actually the case.
I and Mrs. J. had this experience of invisibility at an auto dealer. Every other dealership I’ve ever walked into, the floor whores will mob you immediately (often in the parking lot). But we spent 20 minutes walking around the Saab place without a vestige of human contact, finally realizing we were too déclassé to even think about buying a Saab.
Saab went out of business, so there must be a direct connection. 
Confirmation bias. I’ve worked enough retail to know that sales people don’t have any kind of “moneydar” abilities, even though many think they do. Somehow with the “wrong sort” of people they only remember the times they don’t buy, but with the “right sort” of people they only remember the times they do buy.
The days of dress style being a predictor of money are long gone.
The mistakes are what keep me and my husband going back to Longhorn. 40% of the times we’ve been there, there has been a major mistake with 1-2 entrees in our party’s order. However, they always make it right very quickly, and comp us the entrees that were mistakes. We continue to go, and have started ordering more expensive items, because we know there’s a pretty high likelihood at least one of them will be free. 
If you want help, then ask for it.
However I do commiserate if you run into people who can’t multitask. You know, the ones who are starting to hand you something and then stop because someone spoke to them and they can’t run their arms and mouths at the same time.
If you never acknowledge my existence, you don’t actually have any way of knowing if I have money to spend or not, so your statistic is totally pulled out of your ass. A statistic that’s not pulled out my ass: 100% of the times I’ve walked out of a store because I was being ignored, I was prepared to make a purchase. Cash on the barrel head, right then. Instead I spent that money with a competitor. In approximately 90% of those cases, I’ve never darkened the door of the place that ignored me ever again. And sad as it is to say, almost half of these situations have involved staff just standing around chatting with one another.
Yes, there’s is a reason for ire. But it does no good to seethe in silence or take it out on the lazy clerk. You must write the management. I find a Yelp review works pretty good.
I did this at Johnny Rocketts and the manager not only fixed the issue but mailed me a $25 gift card. It’s back to being a standard for me. *
(to be fair I also did this at Panera and the manager told me “too bad, so sad”- it’s still a standard- but only for me to tell dudes not to eat there and to use their restroom. I figure @ 5cents per trip they still owe me 147 free visits:D ).
*I was rather shocked to find that in Texas the employees dress like 50’s celebrities and actually entertain the clientele.
Oh god, the bleating cry of the entitled asshole.
I’ve been hearing this sentiment a good deal lately as the days of brick and mortar businesses wind down. Yes, I understand that some customers are rude and unreasonable, but if a businessowner wants to be successful they absolutely HAVE to make accomodations for customers.
I used to work at Borders, first in a major college town, then in a dying industrial town after I transferred for my wife’s work. In the first place, we’d bend over backwards for customers–at least to a point. In the dying industrial town, my manager spoke with some pride about how she was able to keep people from staying in the cafe very long (ostensibly to encourage turnover of tables). Once, a longtime employee literally shook with rage once when I allowed a customer to take a special-order book out to her car so her mother could confirm that it was the proper item; the store manager had to take a 20-minute meeting to soothe his ruffled ego. There seemed to be an overriding philosophy of going EXACTLY as far as the rules stated in helping customers, but no farther. Needless to say, when the chain had its first round of closings, the store in the rundown town was one of the first to go, while the store in the college town was one of the last.
Yorikke, I understand what you’re saying about overdemanding customers taking advantage of service employees, but I’ve seen a marked sense of entitlement in the service sector over the past 20 years, too. There’s plenty of assholiness to go around.
I will usually leave a store only if, upon first walking in, I realize it is very busy and that most likely I will end up waiting forever to check out.
There was one instance, however: I was in a local, mom-and-pop farm and tack store. I’d shopped there previously and found the staff generally helpful. This day, I was looking for a tall mounting block. I asked the woman behind the counter if they had one; she found it behind some other merchandise, squinted at the tiny price tage and said it was 34.95. As she was carrying to the counter, the owner said angrily, "No wonder I'm going out of business! The price on that is 39.95. You’re giving away my profit!" The poor woman looked like she wanted the floor to open and swallow her. (And it was made worse by the fact that she was that man’s wife.) I just stood there for a moment, then said to him, “You know, I would have been happy to pay $5 more if you’d just said that that was the correct price. But I’m not willing to spend money in a business that treats its staff like you just did.” And the I walked out.
It’s obviously not a scientific figure, but anyone who’s worked in retail for an appreciable length of time - particularly retail involving big-ticket items - can tell you eventually you get a sense for who’s dressing a bit casually but has money to spend and who’s dressing like a bogan with no money to spend, because they are a bogan with no money to spend.
I agree it’s not cool to ignore customers (regardless of appearance) if you’re not currently serving anyone or doing other important tasks, though. I’d be annoyed about that too, but having worked in retail for as long as I did, rather than silently fuming in the corner or storming out in a huff or muttering plans never to shop there again, I find I have marvellous results by approaching sales staff and saying “Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but I’m interested in one of these widgets over here…”
And I hate “The Customer Is Always Right”. No. They. Bloody. Well. Aren’t.
Admittedly the “Not Rightness” is often caused by stupid corporate policies rather than asshole customers, but even so.
I’m sure the saying was perfectly cromulent in the 1920s when people thought motor vehicles and telephones were wonders of the age bordering on magic, but times have moved on and our society is different now.
A friend of mine wanted to buy a Corvette and started saving up money for one when he was 9 years old. He worked his butt of and achieved his goal at age 17. He was used to being treated like crap because he looked like a hippie-freak teenage kid (hey, that was the era).
He went to the bank and told them he wanted to withdraw his whole savings in cash, preferably one-dollar bills. The bank manager asked why, and upon learning what Doug was up to, asked if he could hold on a couple of days, that the bank would work with him on it. So they cooked up a plan and he went for the car.
He walked into the dealership, up to the Sales Manager’s desk and said he wanted to buy a Corvette. Predictably, the Sales Manager snickered and told him he couldn’t afford it. He replied he could. The Sales Manager said he wouldn’t have enough credit to get a loan. He said he would pay cash. “Oh really?” says the Sales Manager. “Where is this money?” Doug started pulling crumpled bills out of his pockets, and a couple more from under his hat, and then he opened his knapsack and dumped a bunch more on the manager’s desk. Then, the door opens, and in come several men in suits, dragging bags of cash including the Bank Manager, who verified the cash was all there.
Doug reported it was the best day of his life.
I just love this story. And it’s true too. I’ve seen the pics and the car.
I’m not sure how marvelous it really is to give your money to people who treat you badly. Personally, I prefer to give my inferior bogan money to businesses who treat me like a valued customer rather than some dreary chore to be dealt with if I really insist. So far I’ve been fortunate enough that when this has happened there’s been such a competitor close at hand, sometimes as close as across the hall. I mean, if it’s just as easy to walk three doors down to Store B as it is to flag down some help at Store A, and Store B will greet me with a smile and at least pretend to be delighted to help me…why the hell should I shop at Store A, then or ever again?
Yes, I am the archetype of the fabled Customer Who Doesn’t Complain. Why do you ask?
The"'customer" *is *always right. The “*guy who just walks in and isn’t spending a fucking nickel” *him? *Not so much. *
Having been in customer service many years, I have a different take on this story. I often hear these kinds of sentiments from people who have never been in customer service in such a capacity (og bless their souls), and I believe they wrongly vilify customer service people.
I can understand the difference in perspective but I don’t really believe the sentiments match the reality of the situation accurately. For starters, no salesperson or other customer service person, would do anything to potentially drop a sale if it looked as if a sale were likely. However, when you deal with the general public, you start to encounter a LOT of people on a very regular basis who are far from the standard “customer” walking into a place that many people imagine. After a while, the General public begins to mean something different to the customer service professional than it does to the normal civilian. The general public is literally EVERYONE who is not currently institutionalized or comatose. This does not exclude folks who are drunk, high, just got out of jail after 10 years, people who think they are jimmy Carter, Elvis, or the love child of Jimmy Carter and Elvis. Granted, there are not a lot of them as a percentage of the whole, but many more than the average non public customer servant person probably realizes.
SO, your friend, who admittedly does not look like someone who could afford this item, and, in fact, by his manner of dress and hairstyle is actively procuring an image of one who does not buy such an item; goes into the dealership at an age significantly younger than almost anyone who can buy this item and for some reason gets highly offended when the sales manager has the audacity to question the means and motives of your friend and has the nerve to be somewhat agitated at the thought of having his time wasted? Oh, I get it, he should have somehow known that THIS was the time that some hippie barely out of high school was going to walk in and pay full price for a corvette in cash - and not the 97th time someone came in with some equally outlandish story and did nothing but waste a lot of time and energy of the salesperson.
Now I know this may sound like asking a LOT of the customer, but maybe there could have been a little bit of effort to look like a legitimate customer in order to facilitate this transaction more smoothly. Or, here’s a thought, he could walk up to the sales manager and say, “Hello sir, I know this might seem unusual, but I really like your product and I have been saving for a long time to buy it” and so forth and also have access to the cash at the time you start talking to the sales manager. But no, your friend has some point to make, your friend couldn’t care less about what is appropriate when people do business, or for that matter has no real regard for this salesperson as just another human being or respect for his profession. There’s some sort of statement your friend is trying to make, probably something along the lines of sticking it to the “man,” and this poor sales manager is really just a pawn in this silly game. The funny part is, the sales manager most likely as far away from being the “man” as anyone, he has bills to pay, possibly kids to feed. Most likely, he does this work to achieve these ends and not any other particular reason, he really probably couldn’t care less about the whole agenda your friend has.
And, finally, I find it a little sad and pathetic that your friend describes this as the best day of his life.
Just a few thoughts I had on the matter, thanks for reading!
But you don’t know for sure which person who looks as if she has no money to spend actually doesn’t. Confirmation bias. In the specific case I described, the places where I was ignored were not all that busy. They place I was treated properly not only got my money that day, but for several years thereafter.
I still recall, and still occasionally tell the story of when Angel Sword was at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival back in the 80’s. I was flush with cash and interested in checking out and definitely buying a fairly pricey sword. I walked up, asked the guy if I could see it, and he instantly dismissed me, saying “You don’t look like you can afford it.” I turned, walked away, and have never done a dime of business with them. At the time, I probably could have dropped a couple of grand in their shop and not even blinked. But they lost me as a customer forever because of one asshole who blew me off.
Maybe I should have dressed nicer? I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. To a Renfest. What the fuck was I supposed to be wearing, something like this? :dubious: Pretty sure I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt when I bought, oh, pretty much every car I’ve ever bought, the iPad I just bought two days ago, etc, etc.
You treat me rudely and dismissively, you never get my business.
As for other times, I dimly recall doing this to an occasional store or even fast food restaurant if they seem to be making me wait for no damned reason. Certainly doesn’t happen very often.
I can’t say I’ve ever been treated as some of you here…
…but I will say this: It amazes me how badly some of the places I’ve applied at will treat me. Miss interviews or just be rude and dismissive. These same places would shit their pants if a guest found a single hair in their water for fear that this person will tell all his friends never to eat there…but they’ll be rude to me because I’m a potential employee? Like I don’t have the same network of people to complain to about their establishment?
