I decided this past weekend to head to the mall, which is not a new idea for me, but this time I went with a purpose. I needed, ok strike that, wanted a new dress for my birthday that is coming up. I went to the Boca Town Center Mall because they have all the main stores under one roof. Nordstrom, Sacks, Bloomies and Macy's, as well as all the wonderful boutique stores. I was there for about 4 hours and I left with 1 skirt and 1 top and neither was the dress I went there to get. I was having the worst lucked finding what I wanted, capped off by rude store employees. I went into Cache and was trying on a dress when I asked the saleswoman if I could have it in another size. She looked at me like I had two heads and then finally said to me, oh that fabric gives when you wear it. That's great, I told her but the fabric was 97% cotton and was going to shrink which would do nothing for the little bit of give the fabric had. She told me that I should just buy the size I had on and then when I wear it to either handwash it or Febreeze the dress. I went back into the fitting room fuming mad. Wouldn't it have been a lot easier to just get the next size up instead of finding ways to tell me how to just live with the size I had on. Well Cache is a commission based store, so I used the best line I could think of, and quoted Pretty Women "You work on commission right? Big Mistake!" On top of the dress I wanted to buy I had three pairs of capris and 2 shirts. My bill would have been around 450$! Instead I left with nothing. Then I went to Macy's. Now I love Macy's, it has some tremendous sales. I had three dresses in my hands that I had got off of the clearance racks and the salesman came up and asked if he could start a fitting room form me. I was thinking yes some good customer service! I had found two more dresses and went to locate the salesman that was helping me so I could try them all on. Well in the course of 15 minutes he went home and the other women working could not locate the dresses he was holding for me. They looked in all three rooms and then said they couldn't find them. When I asked what should I do now, they gave me that same two headed look and said I could just try on the two dresses I had and then look at the rounders to see if I can find them. She said it in such a way, I yet again left another store empty handed. Then came the straw that broke the camels back. I went to Bloomies just knowing that I should have started off here. They always have good sales on their dresses and the woman that usually works in that department is always friendly. She makes sure if their is a flaw in the dress that the seamstress that is on staff fixes it at no charge. As my luck would have it, she has Sundays off and was not working. The woman that was working in that department was all by herself, was new, and spoke very minimal English. She was confused, couldn't find they keys to the fitting room, overcharged a customer and was shaking really badly. I waited for her to figure out how she overcharged the lady and for her to correct the problem. The lady she overcharged spoke some Spanish so the two were able to figure it out. Then I asked her if she found the key to fitting room and could I try the dresses on. She looked at and just said no. I said no she couldn't find the keys or no I couldn't try on the dresses. She said no again and then started repeating no. She kept getting louder, and louder. She must have said no about ten times. I went and located a manger. By the time the manager could get there the lady was yelling a bunch of stuff in Spanish. She grabbed her purse and ran out of the store. The manager was just as confused as I was. After that I was just not in the mood to shop any more and cut my losses by calling it a day!

I just do not understand what has happened to customer service as of late. It has completely disappeared. I guess it is just more thing we have to get used to! With continued hope - Mel