🚀 go-pugleaf

Thanks for letting us know--it is good to know which places to avoid.  
May I suggest that you transform your post into a letter and send it to 
Macy's?  That is really the  only way to let them know how unhappy you 
are, and it may even get a particular tall, forty-ish snob in trouble!  :)

Maria

Arielle Kagan, Frumious Bandersnatch (akagan@osf1.gmu.edu) wrote:
: [summary:  Macy's rude; Bloomingdale's, China Closet, Williams-Sonoma good]


: My fiance and I went to the Jessica McClintock at the Galleria at
: Tysons Corner Saturday night to pick up the bridesmaids' dresses.  After
: putting them in the car, we went to the Macy's at the Galleria to register
: for a nice stainless pattern and possibly some china (we hadn't decided yet).
: We needed to make sure they had the particular stainless pattern we wanted
: (they had that brand, but we didn't see that style on the floor), so we
: waited by the desk in the registry area where a woman was working.

: We stood there for a few minutes (about 3 feet away from where she was
: on the other side of the counter), waiting for her to acknowledge us.  She
: looked up at us a couple of times, but said nothing.  She then walked
: past us onto the floor to help someone else.  She came back.  She still
: didn't acknowledge us--no "I'm busy," no "Just a minute," no nothing.
: We said something to each other loudly enough for her to hear us; nothing.

: Two other women went in and out of the back room.  Neither of them
: said anything to us either.  The first woman ignored us again to talk to
: someone else who had come up to the counter, so it's not that she didn't
: notice anyone was at the counter.

: I had taken the sample spoon out of my purse and was holding it so it
: wouldn't take me too long to ask the question:  Could we register here
: for this pattern; and if so, how much would it be?  I tried tapping it
: against my ring, in case these women somehow hadn't noticed us standing
: by the counter.  No response.  The later two went back out onto the 
: floor to help other people; the first one turned her back to us and 
: looked (very slowly and deliberately, it seemed to us) through a notebook
: for several minutes.  

: Perhaps waiting patiently wasn't the best method.  Other people were 
: standing by the counter with us at this point, also waiting for someone
: to help them.  Disgusted by the lack of service and the rudeness of the
: saleswomen, I took my spoon and rapped it (a la Krushchev?) against 
: the counter.  STILL no acknowledgement.  Nothing.

: So we said, very loudly, to each other and to the other people waiting,
: "Gee--there are several other department stores at this mall and at 
: Tysons I [and named some]--we'll go register at one of those."  Still
: nothing, so we started to walk out.

: As we got to the escalator, I saw a gentleman at a counter at the other
: end of the registry area.  He was helping someone.  We decided to give
: Macy's one last chance and went over there.  As soon as he was done with
: that woman, he helped us--looked up the pattern, found out the cost, 
: and said that yes, we could register for it there even though they didn't
: stock it.  He went to another desk to find more information for us.  He
: was basically very friendly, even helpful--told us we didn't need to
: register for [various glassware and extra china pieces] if we didn't
: entertain formally; he marked "important" [place settings, serving pieces]
: items on the sheet for us; etc.

: His name is Brian Laiken (Leiken?); he's the only one worth dealing
: with of the ones we saw that night (the one woman who was really rude
: was tall, about 40ish, light layered hair; the others seemed to be her
: assistants and were shorter and much younger).

: We thanked him and took the sheet to the other end of the mall for a snack
: while we thought it over.  I wasn't sure which other stores carried our
: pattern, so I didn't want to completely rule Macy's out since this one
: guy had been nice.  If it wasn't for him, we would have walked out for
: good--there's a Macy's at Springfield Mall, and the folks there haven't
: been rude the several times I've shopped there.

: To see if we looked bizarre or something, we went over to Bloomingdale's
: at Tysons I.  As soon as we got into the flatware area and started looking
: at the patterns on the wall [we saw our pattern hanging on their wall
: display], a nice gentleman came over to us and asked if he could help
: us with anything.  When we said we were there to do a bridal registry,
: he brought us over to the desk where that stuff was kept and gave us 
: a folder with information and forms.  He said the person who did most
: of the registries wasn't in, but gave us her card.  He advised us to 
: think about one room in our house at a time while planning what to choose
: for the registry.

: In short, he went out of his way to be helpful and to give us the 
: information we needed.  We were dressed the same and acting the same 
: as we had been earlier at Macy's, so we've concluded that those women
: must have been having a bad day or just didn't want to be working
: there or something.

: Even though Brian Laiken/Leiken had been helpful, we decided that we
: didn't want to encourage Macy's to continue with the way they're running
: their registry by giving them our business.  We were going to go with
: Bloomingdale's, but we found out Sunday that the China Closet  
: at Loehmann's Plaza in Falls Church had our pattern for much less than
: the department stores.  They were very helpful on the phone, so we
: went over there.  They not only could get our pattern, but they had
: lots of other stuff we liked (more than at the department stores), so
: we registered with them.

: Thanks for reading all of this...I don't think we've ever been treated
: so rudely by salespeople in a department store (and certainly not
: by anyone at a bridal registry, and we'd already registered with 
: Williams-Sonoma), and we wanted to let everyone know.


: Arielle & Shawn, 10/07/95
: --
: Love to eat new systems...	  <--thanks to Kliban, Williams, et al.  
: New systems what I love to eat:	 
: Bite they little heads off;	        akagan@gmu.edu (Moonbeams R Us)
: Nibble on they tiny keys...        http://osf1.gmu.edu/~akagan/air.html