Going shopping...

This weekend Brother Clarke, my MCom professor, assigned another random blog project. I was supposed to go shopping in nice clothes and in shabby clothes and see how I was treated by store employees. So I brought my friends Jamie and Katie along with me and we headed to the University mall Saturday night.

I let Jamie and Katie decide what stores I should go to and they picked Allyssa's Bridal. So dressed in my cutoff sweats, a wrinkled t-shirt, and my hair falling out I marched into the store and told them I was looking for a wedding dress. They asked me when I got engaged- a question I didn't anticipate- so I told them I was 'unofficially engaged' and was just looking for the style of dress I wanted. :) The girl was nice and gave me two magazines to look at and their website. She wasn't able to help me much more because I didn't know what dress I wanted and the store was closing in 30 minutes, so I thanked her and left. I was surprised how nicely I was treated. Either Allyssa's has very good employees or I'm not a very good actor- probably both. My friends said I didn't look 'shabby' enough.

So I decided to try again. We went down to Bath and Body Works but before I went in I made myself look crappy (definately not what I'm used to doing before going shopping). I put soil from the plants under my fingernails and put my hair in a ponytail right on top of my head with pieces falling out everywhere. Then I walked in the store waiting for worker to come tell me all the sales. We walked over to the sink and waited, but no one came over. I kept looking over at one girl, but everytime she saw me she looked away. This happened three times before she came over to me and asked if I needed any help. I told her that my hands were dirty and asked if I could use the sink. She said sure, very impatiently. I asked her if I could use the sample soaps. She snapped something back at me like 'that's what they are for.' I said alright and she left without saying anything else. I could tell that she was tired and was ready to close up and go home. I actually wasn't offended at all, I was just glad that I my experiment worked. It was interesting that when I was dressed shabby I received completely different service in two different stores.