Terrible experience today at this location. It started off very good when my wife, daughter and I…read moreentered to look at ornaments. There was a young, blond-haired sales person who was very friendly. My daughter showed an interest in some stuffed bears, and the young lady pointed us to another end of the shop where there were more stuffed animals. I took my daughter to that side of the store so my wife could shop, and there we found some more large stuffed animals placed on the floor. Another employee (older lady, short hair dyed some shade of pink) stationed herself to look busy apparently to keep an eye on us. My daughter went to play with a large stuffed unicorn that was sitting on the floor, and ideal place for a child to play with it. She wanted to try sitting on it and went to do so when this lady immediately chided her and told her not to do it. My daughter is only 5 and not used to being spoken to harshly like that, so I asked the lady to please address the parent, not the child. Parents should always be addressed rather than children. It is impossible to know if the child has any impairments or anxiety issues and it is proper for the parents to address any issues with their own child rather than a stranger. If the lady had been patient enough and not sarcastic we would have happily explained why we feel this way. The lady took offense to this request, apparently, so she restated her exact statement very rudely and sarcastically to me. Here is where I may have made a mistake in dealing with someone who already appeared to be imbalanced. I said, "there is no need to be a wiseass, ma'am". At this, she went ballistic - 'you will not speak to me that way in my store!, You will leave here right this instant", and so on. Well, no offense to this lady, retail is a hard job, but she was only getting from me what she was giving to me. I let her know that I had no problem leaving the store and started making my way to the front. However, she continued to follow me. She continued with the 'get outs' accompanied with dramatic finger pointing. At this time, I came upon my wife by the cash register who was still accompanied by the friendly, younger sales person. I asked the older lady her name, and she said "I'm not telling you. I don't owe you anything". The older lady started threatening to call the police. I told her to go ahead. First of all, I had done nothing wrong, and second, I was clearly on my way out. The older lady ordered the younger lady to call the police. The younger lady, clearly a more reasonable person, just looked at her and said "I am not sure what is going on". I explained to my wife that our daughter was trying to climb onto a stuffed unicorn in the back of the store when the older lady decided to snap at our daughter. The older lady claimed that these toys break. My wife, who was still not sure what was going on, said, "Ma'am, if we broke something, we would pay for it". The older lady said the toy was broken, and that was why she was speaking to my daughter. The older lady continued being offensive, loud and a bit of a last-word freak as we left the store. I turned and told her that I wished her well and that looking at her, I could see the death of retail.
So, two major things here, one of which I am drafting a formal complaint to both the BBB and the Dept. of Consumer Affairs about and will also be contacting Hallmark, Inc. tomorrow:
- This store knowingly has broken merchandise on the sales floor that is accessible and attractive to small children. There are no signs indicating such, the toys are inviting to children, and if what this lady is saying is true, and that toy is broken, then this store is knowingly endangering small children.
- There are so many better ways to deal with people than the way this lady has chosen to behave. You could ask the other sales person who was working. My family and I were in there to shop, we were very nice and reasonable people. However, this lady (I am afraid she might be the 'Kim' in Kim's Hallmark if she was being literal about 'get out of MY store') chose to: 1. snap at someone's child over an issue that was the store's fault, 2. act sarcastically and rude when she was asked politely to address the parent, not the child, 3. act in a high and mighty fashion to a customer. Even if she was 100% right (she wasn't, but I would be able to meet her halfway), she was still wrong and horribly rude at the same time. Our daughter was in tears about this as we left the store - she had no understanding of why someone was threatening to call the police on her parents. She is now afraid to shop at this mall.
So, nice work, older lady with the pinkish hair. If you are Kim, then you should be ashamed of yourself for allowing such a small situation to escalate to a point where you are making empty threats to call the police (no grounds to do so at all). Your younger colleague has less years on this planet but way more maturity and grace.