Tuesday, April 7, 2009

This is about sunglasses and a very hairy shop person. Just so you know.

I just need to briefly sing the praises of Nordstrom. Because today has effectively handed me my ass on a platter, and Nordstrom - oh you bastion of lovely shoes and angel like customer service! - saved the day.

I bought a Very Nice pair of sunglasses about three years ago at Nordstrom. The CAPS are intentional there, because, you see, I'm the kind of person who often sits on her sunglasses, or drops them or accidentally feeds them to the dog. Ergo, I usually have several cheap pair lying around since I'm not adult enough to own any that are priced above $12. BUT! I eventually turned 30 and thought, "Jen! You are now old enough to own a nice pair of sunglasses!" And I was! I went out, spent a startling amount of money on a very chic pair of aviators and looked smashing for the next three years. Oh, how I babied those sunglasses! I kept them in their case! I rarely put them on top of my head! I never let anyone borrow them and put them to bed each night on a pillow made of butterfly wings and wishes.

Well, two weeks ago one of the screws fell out, leaving the left lens to bob and weave at will. I was unable to get them fixed for a while due to a busy schedule, but today, I took them to the mall to see if they couldn't be fixed. I first thought - Kate Spade! Since she made them, she ought to fix them! But NO! The shopgirl looked at me blankly, snapping her gum and said something to the effect of, "Um...no" all while very industriously digging in her left ear. So I said, "Um...EW!" and headed off to Sunglasses Hut. Wherein the shopBOY was busy shoving french fries in his mouth and said, through the fries, "I wish I had that kind of screw, but I don't." Yeah, I'll bet you DO wish you had that kind of screw. Ha! Sorry. Bad joke. So he sent me to an optometrist down the way who surely would fix my ailing glasses.

Well, the woman at the shop was SURE she had the correct screw and spent a good 30 minutes digging through various drawers and baggies to prove herself right. I, in the meantime, had broken out in a fairly serious smattering of hives due to Too Much Time at the Mall, which is an awful malady, solved only by copious amounts of tequila, or, in my case, a sandwich.

So the lady was digging, I was itching, and suddenly I heard, "SHIT!" emanate from the little room she was in. Hm. She came out and said, "Well, I have good news and bad." "Bad first," I said. "Well, I found the screw that you need, but I broke the nose piece installing it." GAH! And here's the best part, people, she wouldn't do anything about it. She actually said, ACTUALLY SAID, "Look, I was doing you a favor by fixing this...it's not my fault that you have faulty sunglasses." "Funny, they haven't had a problem in THREE YEARS. Not until you touched them, actually." She said, "Not my problem," handed me the glasses and turned to another customer. YOU BROKE MY $200 SUNGLASSES YOU HIRSUTE SHREW! It's true. She was very hairy.

At that point, I had to get out of there. I was so upset and annoyed and angry that she had been so dismissive and was right on the cusp of giving her an expletive laced piece of my mind. But then! I called Marc. He had already talked me off of the ledge a few times that day and said, in his infinite wisdom, "Jen, just go to Nordstrom. You bought them there, didn't you? They will probably just hand you a new pair."

And guess what? THEY DID! The girl looked at my glasses and said "Well THAT will never do!" and handed me the newer version of my sunnies...with lovely orange accents...AND with a pretty sweet case too, might I add. So Nordstrom's saved my day! Also, I just wrote a pretty inflammatory review on yelp.com about the hairy-sunglasses-breaking-lady place, and I'm advising all of you to avoid Prospectacles at Stanford Shopping Center. You've been warned.

2 comments:

Rod said...

LMAO. I love how this is your one and ONLY review on Yelp! And, for the record, for it to truly be scathing, you would've needed to leave the "HIRSUTE" part in. Now I need to round up all of our junk in the garage and prepare to haul it into Nordstrom tomorrow for a refund or credit or something. I'm owed.

Awesome said...

Love this post! I worked at Nordstrom for a couple of years from 19-20, and I'm ultimately thrilled and somewhat regretful I did so.

Thrilled, because I credit my time there with instilling a strong service focus/skill/obsessive need to problem solve that has served me well in the ensuing years. It was like military boot camp for the golden rule. They secret-shopped regularly and wrote up reports of how you performed. If a customer filed a written or verbal complaint, you were written up NO MATTER WHAT. Even if the person was a totally unreasonable, shoplifting nutjob, you were written up. The theory being that if someone took the time to complain, then you didn't diffuse the situation appropriately. I really respected that approach, and it felt good to work at a place where treating people well was the ultimate measure.

Why I regret my time there on some level, is it set a standard for what I expect. I lose my sh*t when I experience disengaged, dismissive or downright rude service. I cringed at your tale of the checked out, ear picker. Have some pride man! I have walked out of many a store, refusing to give my money in support of as*hole-ery.

So it made me smile to hear that you had a good experience that turned a bad day around. Go Nordstrom!

Also, I am staring at my shiny new apple green handbag that I just got from Nordstrom last night along with some black, patent stilettos. So I'm a girl in the glow.