I like Mary Portas since I watched Mary Queen of Shops. Now it is turning into borderline admiration. I might not go that far as I reserve my admiration to great artists or intellectuals . Still, Mary Portas's new show, Secret Shopper, got me rooting for her. I distractedly watched it most of the time, but I love her attitude and I am all for giving the shops of this country some decent customer service.
I don't like shopping in general, except when it is for books, but I always find it more difficult here, clothes shops especially (this is partially why most of my clothes are getting old). In Québec, I feel the staff more helpful. Maybe it is a cultural false perception and I just feel more comfortable buying things from home. But still, I was pampered by people who actually knew their stuff back home (one of Kanuk's employees who sold me my winter coat was dealing with four other clients and I never felt left alone once AND I still love the coat), and here whatever I buy I end up buying it without help, empathy or.
Maybe I am more sensitive to this issue because I work now in the private sector (trying to be competent and professional myself), maybe it is because I dream of making less difficult this necessary evil that is shopping, but I hope Mrs Portas's campaign succeeds.
Okay, next time I blog about something more profound, promise.
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4 comments:
You may not consider this blog entry profound but it's struck a deeply personal note with me. I am yet to meet anyone in a clothestore who gives a fig! I suppose it must be a pretty soul destroying job, but they certainly do a good job of damaging mine when I go clothes shopping. As a result I wear my clothes until I begin to resemble a scarecrow :-) Clothes shopping, any shopping is scary stuff!
I don't think every blogpsot needs to be too deep, Guillaume (look at mine, after all...!!) I love Mary too - such a real person, who speaks for so many of us. I'm sick of stores with overstretched, underpaid staff who don't care about their products or customers, just about getting through the day. Piles of clothes on the floor, looking like a jumble sale. I shop so much online because of this! Hope she succeeds in shaking the industry up a bit! Rachel xo
@Anonymous-I find people working in shops too often unfriendly and careless. In clothes shops, there are too many people, too many clothes, but oddly not enough choice.
@Mozart's Girl-But your blogs is linked to Mozart, so every topic has a depth brought by his music! I love Mary Portas's no nonsense attitude. Oh and I always wondered what you thought of that episode of Mary Queen of Shops, about the bakery. I blogged about it: http://vraiefiction.blogspot.com/2010/06/bread-and-animosity.html
Well I come from a different perspective....I actually love to shop! It's not really even the actual act of purchasing that I so enjoy though. As an artist, I love to be visually stimulated. So I just love to walk around and see what colors are in style, and what styles are in style. I catalog all the trends and styles and colors into my mind and revisit them when I sit down to create something.
But unlike you and the other posters here...I have a completely opposite reaction to the shopping experience, in that I actually prefer to be left completely alone when I enter a store. They can say hello, but anything more and I get instantly irritated. For me shopping is a personal, solo experience and I DO NOT want any assistance from well-meaning, pushy or even helpful sales people unless I ask for it first. I despise someone following me around trying to ascertain what it is I am shopping for. If I wanted them to know, I'd tell them.
I want to take my own clothes to the dressing room by myself, and choose which stall I want to enter without my choices being made for me. And I really don't care to discuss how something fits either. The only place I find where might like a little expert advice is with electronics and such...but then I never fail to end up with some incompetent employee who wastes my time.
I know I may be an extreme example, and certainly seem rather anti-social, which I'm truly not...and maybe it's because I am introverted. But I truly prefer to do things for myself and be left alone while shopping! You'd think internet shopping would be more my style, but I have definite need to see and feel everything for myself...ha!
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