Thoughts on high-end shoe salespeople RANT

[prohornblower]

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I get similarly annoyed when waitstaff at high-end restaurants act this way towards people to whom this is obviously a big extravagance and quite likely a special occassion.

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lol. Not necessarily high-end, but I absolutely loathe when a waitor/waitress says "Is this your first time here??", when I'm sitting at Bennigan's or Outback or something. Yeah, I'm 27 years old. This is my first time out of the house. I've been saving for years for the opportunity to come blow $8 on a lunch. Which end of the fork do I hold!?!? PLZ HELP ME!!

[Kneel B4 Zod]

I don't generally shop at high end clothing stores. The nicest places I'll usually go are Brooks Brothers or Polo, so I only partially understand what you're talking about. I think a lot of it comes down to an attitude that "to be respected I need to act like a pretentious jerk" which often times covers up for insecurities in the salesperson.

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I get similarly annoyed when waitstaff at high-end restaurants act this way towards people to whom this is obviously a big extravagance and quite likely a special occassion.

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oh yeah. The best waiters are nice places are clearly the ones who understand the food/wine/etc, but also make you feel like you are a special table for them, and unerstand that he doesn't need to act like a jerk to be 'fancy'. When I ask a waiter for a wine recommendation, and he points to only the most expensive section on the list...well he just cost himself some money.

[ChipStorm]

El Diablo,

I hate service people like you've described, and I find myself never going back to a store where I'm treated like this. Ditto for restaurants and waitstaff. Ditto for hotels and inappropriately aggressive bellstaff. I just smile, and I'm gone forever.

Clothing-wise, two places have never, ever disappointed me.

Nordstrom people are consistently courteous and never lecture.

The best of the best for clothing is Boyd's of Philadelphia. The people are top notch (like the store itself), most of them having been there 10 years or more. I've been going there for 13 years.

It's a place you can go to every 3 or 4 years, spend a few grand, and be fully outfitted for another 3 or 4 -- and when you go back, the salespeople will remember you 4 years later.

If you swing by Boyd's the next time you're in the neighborhood, you'll be very glad you did.

[daveymck]

Just buy online much easier, dont have to deal with anyone then.

[danvh]

I used to sell high end shoes as one of my many jobs in high school. I can tell you the constant pushing for those care items may be due to bonuses. We didn’t get commission where I worked, but we got bonuses for selling those items. They kind of brand it into your brain that you need to tell these people that having these products are part of buying the shoe. I guess some people can push those products well, while others come off like the people you dealt with did.

[bigbootch]

Slightly offtopic, but potentially useful anecdote:

I had a similar experience at Bartolotta at the Wynn. I went there with 3 guy friends of mine. We are all in our 20's, quite well off, and dressed appropriately. But, we don't have the movie-star-son-of-a-sheik-big-balla look by any means.

Anyway, our server at Bartolotta treated us like a couple of teenagers that didn't belong there. The most egregious example is, when we were ordering and I asked for the lobster, he pauses, gives me this look, and says, "Sir, that's a hundred dollars." I was so flabbergasted by this and didn't know how to respond in the moment, so I kind of stammered and was like, "Ummmmm, yeah, uh huh... (And?)"

I (and my friends) really didn't want to make a scene, so we didn't say anything and just left a meager tip (thus probably confirming, in his mind, his suspicion that we were a bunch of cheap teenagers that didn't belong there).

As an aside, the other restaurants at the Wynn that I've been to, I enjoyed immensely - SW Steakhouse, Okada, and the Country Club.

[thabadguy]

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Slightly offtopic, but potentially useful anecdote:

I had a similar experience at Bartolotta at the Wynn. I went there with 3 guy friends of mine. We are all in our 20's, quite well off, and dressed appropriately. But, we don't have the movie-star-son-of-a-sheik-big-balla look by any means.

Anyway, our server at Bartolotta treated us like a couple of teenagers that didn't belong there. The most egregious example is, when we were ordering and I asked for the lobster, he pauses, gives me this look, and says, "Sir, that's a hundred dollars." I was so flabbergasted by this and didn't know how to respond in the moment, so I kind of stammered and was like, "Ummmmm, yeah, uh huh... (And?)"

I (and my friends) really didn't want to make a scene, so we didn't say anything and just left a meager tip (thus probably confirming, in his mind, his suspicion that we were a bunch of cheap teenagers that didn't belong there).

As an aside, the other restaurants at the Wynn that I've been to, I enjoyed immensely - SW Steakhouse, Okada, and the Country Club.

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This kinda [censored] happens too often in the USA because people put up with it.
Last fall, when i got back to the USA, me and my boys went out to have dinner to talk about what every1 had been doing while i was gone, and we go to this really nice steakhouse.
I ask for a bottle of tequila, this is how the conversation goes.
Me : Id like to order a bottle of tequila.
Him : Ok, sure, what kind.
Me : U got Patron Anejo
Him : I dont know
Me : Ok how about you go find out
( I am already not happy cuz if hes gonna ask me what i want he should know if they have it or not)
Him : OK, i guess i can do that
(Comes back ...)
Him : We do have Patron Anejo but it is $200 a bottle, so u might wanna order something else
Me : Get your manager, im not having a condescending [censored] like you serving me.
(I might have been a little over the top, i just had a 19 hour flight)

[turnipmonster]

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I get similarly annoyed when waitstaff at high-end restaurants act this way towards people to whom this is obviously a big extravagance and quite likely a special occassion.

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few things make me want to hurt people, and this is definitely one of them.

[asofel]

Diablo,

Next time this happens, I think you know what you must do to that little PANSY who is even WORSE than MICHAEL JORDAN....JACKSON.....

[Dids]

Sales people who attempt to make something special their job by painting themselves as some sort of subject matter expert basically suck. If I'm buying anything over like $200 I can pretty much promise you I've done a weeks worth of research and don't need your [censored] opinion or advice on things.