Anger and Loathing... at the thrift store.

Update: Sept 2016.  Better. The main person that seemed to be sending employees over to specifically police me is gone. The still do things like act like the customer being there is keeping them from getting their jobs done... but the harassment has waned.

I left a yelp review today.  Not something I do very often.  It is for:
134 S Clayton St
Lawrenceville, GA 30046
Here it is.  They really made me lose my cool this weekend.  They suck. 
I shop here regularly because I make costumes for a not-for-profit. I usually donate the costumes I create. This store gives me the best bang for my buck, and I tend to find interesting pieces. However, the staff makes me not want to come back. 

I feel like they see customers as a hinderance to doing their job. They are busy forcing as many items onto the rack as possible and if you are flipping through a rack, they will just push by you and close the little opening you have made to look... sometimes catching your fingers.   They might say excuse me, but it is after they have pushed your cart into your stomach. They are rude and downright mean. 

The final straw was this past Sunday. I had been shopping for an hour and had grown tired. I'd heard them announce many times to not put hangers on the floor, and to take the items off of hangers before coming to the cashier... I know the drill, I have been there many times.  I found a quiet corner where I could do this job of separating the clothes from the hanger and I was berated in a hostile way.  They
didn't want me doing it in that corner, because they had to put up a cloth tie barrier so they could start loading the back of the store... but no one was loading the back of the store, and that never happened in the time I was there.  I asked for 5 minutes, nicely, then more forcefully as I had already taken everything out of my cart to remove hangers... Another cashier, one who is always hostile came over, clapping her hands at me telling me to separate my clothes at a particular rack.  If you shop there, you know the drill, but you also know that that place is at the beginning of the most busy aisle, and people push by you and get annoyed, so I went by the line to check out to once again start separating  my items.  The cashier comes back screaming at me... I am sorry, but I screamed back... a person can only take so much.  

Her words "I tooolllldddd you to do so-and-so" really set me off... after she saw how angry she made me she left me alone.  At the register, I tried to tell her that the behavior of the workers makes people feel like they are not valued as customers.. she nodded and spoke to someone else in spanish... rude.  I tried to have a conversation with her, and she kept walking away.

Unless something changes, I am done!  

A lot of people shop here for various reasons.  Many to donate like myself. Many to buy items for their own second hand stores. Many for sport. There are some who are poor and can't afford to go anywhere else.  The people who work in the store see all the customers as poor schlubs who can't afford to go anywhere else and treat us like trash. (not that ANYONE deserves this treatment... this is just how it feels.)

So here are my questions to management... What are your goals for this store?

Is it a numbers game to get as many items on the floor as possible and making it hard for anyone to actually buy anything?

Or.  Is it to actually sell items and have repeat customers come back week after week?

If the cashiers saved stocking the store for the quieter hours and did not make a big deal over some one using a quiet corner to sort their stuff. 

If the cashiers didn't push big Z-racks down crowded aisles blocking people in.  (2 blocked me in from both directions last time, with no regard to the fact that it bothered me greatly.) 

If the cashiers used common everyday courtesy, I would be there EVERY WEEK.  Instead, I dread going there and instead go to Goodwill and get 1/10th amount of stuff because I can't handle the aggravation. The not-for-profit suffers.  

And by the way, I have been known to spend $2-300 in a month when I buying items to make costumes... does that matter at all?

I may try again in the future to shop... but one last time.  If the attitudes don't change, I can't shop there again.  I suspect the people who run this store won't care though. 

Signed... a prolific shopper.

1 comment:

Happy Elf Mom (Christine) said...

I wonder if the management of the store is aware of how the employees treat customers. It's true that in the thrift store, one does not expect to be waited on hand and foot but really, that's a bit far.

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