As some of you may know, I work in a high-end ladies consignment store.
We have some male clientelle, which is fine. We are fairly accomodating, including calling when large sized spangly shoes come in, as well as arranging personal meetings with our seamstress who won’t object to fitting a Vera Wang gown to a 6’ tall fella named Bubba.
Hey - maintaining two wardrobes is expensive, particularly if the female half is sequened gowns - we know this. We have no problem with this.
But listen cheesehead, when you phoned to find out if you could come in and shop, I said of course. When you asked if we had personal changerooms with mirrors in them, I said we did. When you asked if I could provide assistance in finding you items, I answered in the affirmative.
I was professional and friendly. So, why-oh-why, did you have to go and start ranting about how having a woman choose your clothing for you gets you off. I don’t care buddy. I’m not interested. I’m particularly not interested in having you come in, haul 15 of my dresses into a change room and get romantic with them, if you know what I mean.
You wanna shop, be my guest- but this is not a sex shop and I don’t appreciate you testing my professionalism by acting like it is.
Good gracious - being a terrible wimp, if I were buying a dress it would take all the chutzpah I had not to pretend it was for my nonexistent sister’s birthday. I can’t imagine making a comment like that.
The thing that really annoyed me was the fact that some of our male clientelle have had other people in other shops be very mean to them just for looking.
If those other people had to deal with piggy boy, I can almost understand their bad attitude. (Almost.)
erm im confused… are theyre men going to your store to try on these designer clothes? or is it just that you pick out the clothes for them and they give them to other people?
Yes there are men who come to my store to by ladies designer clothes. They are called drag queens or transvestites - however, at my store it’s mostly drag queens.
As to what I said to him, verbatium, what I said was:
"Listen up - if you want to come in and shop, that’s perfectly fine, but no one here is interested in you going in a room with 100 items and getting romantic, OK? If you would like to come and try some stuff on with the intention of buying it, fine. One of us would be happy to help you pick stuff out, but only if you’re a serious shopper. Get it?
He said OK. Perhaps he thought we were bonding or something. Yich.
I mean, I don’t give a flying patootie if he wants to dress up as Dorothy and do naughty things with his dog Toto, I just really don’t need to be part of the fantasy, if you know what I mean.
alice, save yourself a lot of heartache in the future. Impose a limit of three items in the dressing room. If Cinderfella wants to get all het up over his size 12 Oscar de la Renta, fine and dandy (so long as he doesn’t stain it). By limiting the customer to three items, he will achieve his ends without leaving you with a massive cleanup job afterwards.
When circumstances permit, you may freely relax the three item limit for your reliable and well-mannered customers. Otherwise, it’s it and that’s that.
No can do - we have no limit on the number of items.
And frankly, I’m not interested in the guy jacking off in my dressing room, even if he only has one item. No items, even. He can jack off at home. If he wants to come in and shop thats fine but if he has some demented fantasy involving a shop keep, he’s gonna have to find it at a different shop.
Thing is, I had assumed the guy was either a) gay or b) a young transexual just starting out with the “live as the opposite sex for two years” business - both of which we’ve had in the past.
Even if the guy was a straight transvestite I wouldn’t have minded, but he had to go and turn it into something sexual. I mean, if he wants to come and buy stuff and go home and wack to his hearts content, fine, but it sounded like he thought we had men coming in to get their rocks off all the time and that we had no problem with that. Yick.
A guy that needs help finding a dress to flatter his big butt I can accomodate. A guy that’s trying to get his jollies, I have no interest in.
If your store specifically has a “no limit” try-on policy, then yes, discourage this particular customer in the future. There is simply no reason why you should have to put up with improper advances, rude telephone dialogue or indecent conduct inside the store (dressing room or no). Do you have written records on this customer? Is there some way of tracing their whereabouts? Perhaps management would be willing to fire a shot across this person’s bow to prevent any future occurrence of this situation.
Zenster - he just phoned about the possibility of coming in - I have no idea who the dude is - for all I know he could be the guy that works at the drycleaner next door.
I’m beginning to thing that featherlou is correct - I just spoke to one of the owners and apparently one of the other sales people received a similar call.
So now we have an official policy: “If you think the guy is gay/transexual/transvestite and really wants to shop, be as helpful as possible. If he starts acting like a perv, hang up.”
Telus (our local phone company) would be more than willing to fire a shot across this guy’s bow if it’s warranted - they don’t take obscene phone calls lightly around here at all. Hanging up is great; if it persists (some obscene callers like the hang up - it means they’re getting to you), call Telus.
I’m still confused. Was the customer’s complaint that all the employees in the store were women? Does “ranting about how having a woman choose your clothing for you gets you off” mean “complaining…” or “waxing poetic…” about the fact that when a woman chooses clothes for him he finds it stimulating in the erotic sense?
If it’s the latter, maybe he was thinking that it’s a good pick-up line? As in hoping for the response “I am excited too when I choose clothes for a man. Come in here and let me dress you up you bad boy.”
