Well, I don’t want to name names… and won’t, because well: 1. She’s not here to defend herself; and 2. I feel like I’d be cruel if I “outed” her with my first impressions.
I won’t even say what town it’s in, because it’d be easy peasy to figure it out.
That all being said, I drove to Jersey (that much I will share) for a few errands related to throwing a surprise birthday luncheon for my husband (the town I chose to host it in is proximal for everyone invited, no one has too long of a drive), and figured I’d check out this one shop (to “vet” it for possible inclusion on future yarn crawls in that area), that I didn’t know existed in a town I frequently visit (my little stalkers might figure this out, if so, bite your tongues or sit on your typing fingers).
The drive down was nice enough; it was sunny, and I got on the road early enough to beat the Jersey shore traffic, so it was perfect timing to get to the shop roughly 1/2 hour after she opened in the a.m. (I reside about 50 minutes away, in NY.)
The shop itself is hard to find if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, and have to walk thru a little courtyard to get to it. Quaint enough to do that. I thought perhaps the store would be similarly quaint. This was my first mistake.
I walk in and the place was a wall-to-wall explosion of yarn and debris. Good yarn, don’t get me wrong. In fact I did manage to purchase some (yarn that is, NOT debris!); however…
When the owner finally showed her face to me, her shirt was buttoned lopsided, easily missing TWO buttons, so her shirt on one side dipped quite low. I contemplated mentioning this to her; however, I thought the better of it when upon closer look at her, she had a huge booger hanging out of her nose (HUGE!) and appeared to be in a full-on, menopausal flop sweat.
She made pleasant enough chit chat while I wandered about the small shop, which appears as if it hasn’t been vacuumed or organized in a LONNNNNNNG time. There were wrappings and yarn (full skeins, not scraps) on the floor. Just overall, the shop appeared to be as disheveled as its owner.
But I still managed to buy 8 skeins of yarn (3 different types of yarn; 2 skeins of one; 2 skeins of another; 4 skeins of another). She had all the usuals, tho I didn’t see Cascade and wasn’t looking for Malabrigo; however, she had some chunky Sirdar, and some Aurucania (sp?) derived from sugar cane which I never saw before.
Total sum I spent: $100+. I fell in love with the yarn I found and figured I didn’t want to have appeared to waste her time, but really, I loved what I bought. But really, had I known the final fuck you was coming, I would have just left before paying.
PROBLEM?
Oh yes. When I asked her to wind MERELY TWO of the eight skeins she seemed indifferent, and while she was winding, was mildly exasperated, and said something along the lines of how next time I could wind it.
Uh? No! If I spent about a half hour in your filthy shop and plunked down $100, there is NO ONE ELSE IN THE SHOP, and you have a swift and ball winder VISIBLE… UH NO…
WIND MY YARN, BITCH!
Disclaimer: Hey, I am someone who has PCOS and has perimenopausal-esque type symptoms, and who deals with depression on a daily basis. Hell. I’ve gone entire weekends wearing the same clothes I wore to work on Friday, because all I did that weekend was sleep. I’m used to flop sweats. Hell. I pick my nose. Even if I am HOME ALONE, BY MYSELF, I am tidier than this person who is in a position to deal with the public on a very personal and one on one basis. Yes. I was skeeved.
Anyway, here's two pics of the yarn I bought that day:
9 comments:
Don't you love when people are in the customer service business yet hate to service customers? Wind my yarn, bitch indeed.
Eeep! It's so sad to hear about this because of all the LYS's that have been going out of business in this economy. How in the world could one like this still survive? You'd think the standard of customer service has had to come up a notch or two! I HOPE you just caught her on an off day and that she's absolutely horrified now thinking back to your visit.
Regarding hoping she's horrified, um. No. She doesn't care about customers. I've been told by a friend who also knows this shop keeper, that the shop keeper could care less if she sells yarn. She wants to keep it all for herself. Which then begs the question, why bother with the pretense of having a SHOP where unwitting customers will amble on in with the mistaken idea that anything's for sale? :)
Looking back on my having made a purchase: I'm incredibly lucky. I could also have brought home a case of carpet beetles or some other insect lurking in all that debris and dust.
Eeeewwwww. But that green Araucania does look delightful!
@choperena: Yep! I fell in love with the yarn, and the purchase went thru on my charge card before the bit about the winding of the yarn. Had it been beforehand, I believe I would have walked out. Lesson learned! I won't go back! Besides, there's two other lovely shops in the same town that give decent service and are SUBSTANTIALLY tidier than this dump.
I'd have said keep your f*cking yarn, bitch. Pretty color or not(which both really are!), you're paying her bills with your $100! I'd take my money somewhere else.
@Dungeon: For me, it was more a matter of me taking the time and effort to even find the shop. The waste of time. $100 or not, I would have spent that on that yarn at that shop or elsewhere. I wasn't going to waste more of my time that day going to another shop. I was on a tight time constraint that day. So lesson learned! :)
I am from Jersey and know of a yarn shop something like this but now add she smokes in the shop.
@Lupie: Send me a PM on Ravelry and let me know the name of that shop!
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