Friday 24 June 2011

Bad advice from experts......

As a responsible consultant I was perusing a magazine about the latest trends in wedding makeup, been a busy year for natural faces thank you Kate and Wills, anyway I came across a really interesting little article.
Martin - I can get anything cheaper - Lewis says that to save money on your wedding you should get your makeup done on counter for free.

Okay, Umbridge taken there and I don't mean a fictitious village from Midsummer Murders.

 Firstly all companies on the high street charge a redeemable booking fee for makeup appointments. Why?
Because their highly trained makeup consultants are there to make money. We work in shops, not museums, charities or bargain give aways. To spend the money it takes to make an artist responsible for the most important day of a brides life, means that the company needs to recompense that money by selling the products.
If you are going to spend between £500 and £5000 on a dress then why are you skimping on your face, and frankly I find it quite insulting on behalf of all qualified makeup artists, that their services and abilities should be so trivialised.

I've said it before and I will say it again, you cannot bargain for a blow dry so why should you be able to bargain for makeup that lasts you all day and will last a lifetime in the photographs - if you stay married!

This will explain the upsurge of women that are shocked when we tell them the price of our booking fee, because that is not what they were expecting.

 Get your facts right money man !

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Enter T**t of the year.......

You would think that after all this time blogging we would have reached a place where the weirdness of shoppers can no longer shock, outrage and generally freak us out. But NO......

Enter the Hall of Plenty one young man who beats all of the others. A man to whom the word 'no' is not simply a red rag but a pair of firm toreadors buttocks in brocade knickerbockers, to a bull. In a spectacular show of ignorance he flipped out over.....wait for it........a deodorant. Yes, a deodorant, one that didn't even belong to us. Miss White had the audacity to explain that he needed to return his purchase to the company who made it. A company that employ people to make sure their logo is displayed worldwide, a company who trains its own consultants to take a return of it's products, a company six yards away, who know if their product has been used by a customer. Not to us who are limited to the products our company make, all one hundred different lines that we are experts in.

Apparently, we all need retraining because rather than lift sir up and carry him on a solid gold platter about the Hall of Plenty, throwing rose petals in his wake, we simply pointed him in the right direction to deal with his problem.

There is an etiquette across the shop floor concerning returns - we don't just take other peoples stock back without getting them to check it. We don't know what other peoples stock looks like brand new. If it is sealed in plastic, no problem, however it is only fair to inform the particular counter if someone has brought something back because they may have no good reason for it and that stock goes back on to the system thus changing the sales figures.

Unfortunately, sir did not like any of the advice he was given, flipping out all over the counter and various other members of staff, some of whom were just staring innocently at the scene he was causing. Ranting about  verbally 'agressive' staff, 'awkward' behaviour and 'antagonistic attitudes', one did have to swallow the question of why he could not have used any complaints that didn't start with the letter A, as it would probably have made his head explode.

It turned out, he was parked on double yellow lines - our fault of course. He spends loads of money in our store - funny we had never seen him before. He knew his rights - pity he doesn't know ours, and he was going to complain to EVERY ONE in the chain of command above us. Mrs Pankhurst was pointed out as particularly 'antagonistic' for not giving him the home phone number of the Overseer, something that could have left her unemployed if she had.

Oh, go boil your head sir! It was a deodorant! Walk the twelve feet back to where you bought it and return it yourself. We are not here to listen to your elaborate bullshit about why you don't want the thing, just to save you some embarrassment over returning it. You said it yourself, you are 'Parked on double yellow lines....' Well, if you are too cheap to pay for parking , then don't buy designer deodorants!

 The whole rehearsed nature of his complaint and the fact that he knew what the structure of command  in a department store was, smells of somebody who does this to get recompense from major brands and snivelling apologies.
I know some people don't believe it, but they are out there, professional complainers who get hundreds of pounds in apology gift cards by causing fights with staff.

We have a word for them .... ARSEHOLES.... that starts with A as well.