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So, you want to make something? Great! We’ll be happy to help you at the fabric store, if you remember a few simple guidelines:
1. Before you come into the store, measure whatever it is you’re covering / whoever you’re making an outfit for / otherwise figure out how much cloth you need. Don’t just assume that we know how much fabric you’ll need to make a tablecloth for your dining room table. Tables come in all sizes. Similarly, don’t assume that our salesperson is the same size as the person you’re making the gift for, or the fabric counter is the size of the area you’re trying to cover; the odds against that are quite long.
2. Don’t give yourself airs. Chances are, you are not the only customer in the store. You wouldn’t want someone else to cut in line in front of you, or to interrupt your service, so don’t do the same to them.
3. If you are getting multiple pieces of cloth cut, don’t dump a few bolts at the counter, tell the employee how much you want of each, and then wander off to get more fabric. We have this wonderful invention, you may have heard of it, called a shopping cart (or trolley). With it, you can carry many heavy bolts of fabric without straining yourself. Just take a cart from the convenient location by the front door, wheel it around the store and put all the bolts you want in it, then when you’ve picked out all the fabric you want, then you can wait in line at the cut counter. It’s no different than the grocery store; you get everything you want before you get in line.
4. Seriously, it’s really rude, not only to the employees but to the other customers, to keep going back and forth, changing your mind and taking up the employee’s time at the cut counter. S/he could’ve served several other guests in the time it took you to go back and forth and decide whether you wanted the chiffon or the georgette.
5. If you’re browsing the fabric racks and decide you don’t want the fabric you picked out, put it back the way you found it. Not upside down, not in the wrong rack, not dumped on top of the racks or on the floor. Would you want someone to make a mess of your place like that? No? Then don't do it to ours!
6. You tell us how much fabric you want, and we will roll it out to measure and cut. You do not ask us to measure out all the fabric on the bolt, then say you only want x yards. We have to reroll all that excess fabric back onto the bolt, and that takes yet more time.
7. This is America. We still use inches and yards to measure. Yes, I know the rest of the world uses meters, don’t ask me why we’re still using inches and yards, don’t mock me for it, it’s not my idea. No, we don’t have a conversion chart in the store (I’ve looked), but there are many available online, so you can figure out how much you need before you go to the fabric store (see Rule 1).
8. I am an employee of the store. I am not your personal servant. Again, I have other customers to help; I cannot spend several hours on you. I do not care how important you (think you) are, or how much you’re planning to spend. Get your act together beforehand and we can both get done more quickly.
You may ask what brought all this on. I’ve commented before that I’ve had very few sucky customers. Well, this guy made up in quality what we’ve missed in quantity.
This really arrogant, pretentious guy and his girlfriend/wife/female friend/other (I had no interaction with her) came into our store and first made a mess of our special occasion fabric section (the fancier stuff, like satin and chiffon), leaving bolts here, there and everywhere. I didn’t know they’d wanted them, so when I started to put them away, he commandeered me, told me he wanted the fabric and wanted me to cut it.
So I took it to the counter and asked them how much they wanted. They didn’t know. They hadn’t done any measuring. The guy assumed the area was the size of our cut counter, so he measured it, grumbled about how we use yards instead of meters, and then asked me how much fabric was on Bolt 1. I measured it out. Five yards plus. He wanted it all.
He wanted all the fabric measured out on Bolt 2. Seven yards plus. He wanted it all.
He wanted all the fabric measured out on Bolt 3. Eight yards plus. “Give me six and a half.” So I had to re-measure from the beginning and re-roll the remainder back on the bolt. He did this several more times, then wandered off to get more fabric. He kept bringing up new bolts of fabric for me to measure, deciding if he wanted it or not and how much, and wandering off for more fabric again.
Meanwhile, there are other people waiting in line and I cannot help them as my handheld has the guy’s order, I cannot suspend it and he’s still bringing up more and more.
My coworker on the cash register was due for her break, and I was scheduled to relieve her, so I printed out the guy’s ticket, let my cut counter coworker know what was going on and went to relieve the cashier. Several minutes later I see the guy and lady walk out the door with no fabric. My cut counter coworker came up to me (there were no customers around at the time) and told me that he’d come back to the counter and demanded, “Where is the servant?!”
I have to admit, I kind of lost it there. Not out loud verbally, but my hands spasmed as if I were trying to strangle someone, then I grabbed my scissors and started stabbing the air, like Norman Bates attacking Janet Leigh in the shower. My coworker was amused; she thought he was a jerk too and advised me to just laugh it off.
Apparently he’s going to come back later to buy the fabric. Fine, let him. Hopefully, the manager who has no problem telling off jerks will handle him.
1. Before you come into the store, measure whatever it is you’re covering / whoever you’re making an outfit for / otherwise figure out how much cloth you need. Don’t just assume that we know how much fabric you’ll need to make a tablecloth for your dining room table. Tables come in all sizes. Similarly, don’t assume that our salesperson is the same size as the person you’re making the gift for, or the fabric counter is the size of the area you’re trying to cover; the odds against that are quite long.
2. Don’t give yourself airs. Chances are, you are not the only customer in the store. You wouldn’t want someone else to cut in line in front of you, or to interrupt your service, so don’t do the same to them.
3. If you are getting multiple pieces of cloth cut, don’t dump a few bolts at the counter, tell the employee how much you want of each, and then wander off to get more fabric. We have this wonderful invention, you may have heard of it, called a shopping cart (or trolley). With it, you can carry many heavy bolts of fabric without straining yourself. Just take a cart from the convenient location by the front door, wheel it around the store and put all the bolts you want in it, then when you’ve picked out all the fabric you want, then you can wait in line at the cut counter. It’s no different than the grocery store; you get everything you want before you get in line.
4. Seriously, it’s really rude, not only to the employees but to the other customers, to keep going back and forth, changing your mind and taking up the employee’s time at the cut counter. S/he could’ve served several other guests in the time it took you to go back and forth and decide whether you wanted the chiffon or the georgette.
5. If you’re browsing the fabric racks and decide you don’t want the fabric you picked out, put it back the way you found it. Not upside down, not in the wrong rack, not dumped on top of the racks or on the floor. Would you want someone to make a mess of your place like that? No? Then don't do it to ours!
6. You tell us how much fabric you want, and we will roll it out to measure and cut. You do not ask us to measure out all the fabric on the bolt, then say you only want x yards. We have to reroll all that excess fabric back onto the bolt, and that takes yet more time.
7. This is America. We still use inches and yards to measure. Yes, I know the rest of the world uses meters, don’t ask me why we’re still using inches and yards, don’t mock me for it, it’s not my idea. No, we don’t have a conversion chart in the store (I’ve looked), but there are many available online, so you can figure out how much you need before you go to the fabric store (see Rule 1).
8. I am an employee of the store. I am not your personal servant. Again, I have other customers to help; I cannot spend several hours on you. I do not care how important you (think you) are, or how much you’re planning to spend. Get your act together beforehand and we can both get done more quickly.
You may ask what brought all this on. I’ve commented before that I’ve had very few sucky customers. Well, this guy made up in quality what we’ve missed in quantity.
This really arrogant, pretentious guy and his girlfriend/wife/female friend/other (I had no interaction with her) came into our store and first made a mess of our special occasion fabric section (the fancier stuff, like satin and chiffon), leaving bolts here, there and everywhere. I didn’t know they’d wanted them, so when I started to put them away, he commandeered me, told me he wanted the fabric and wanted me to cut it.
So I took it to the counter and asked them how much they wanted. They didn’t know. They hadn’t done any measuring. The guy assumed the area was the size of our cut counter, so he measured it, grumbled about how we use yards instead of meters, and then asked me how much fabric was on Bolt 1. I measured it out. Five yards plus. He wanted it all.
He wanted all the fabric measured out on Bolt 2. Seven yards plus. He wanted it all.
He wanted all the fabric measured out on Bolt 3. Eight yards plus. “Give me six and a half.” So I had to re-measure from the beginning and re-roll the remainder back on the bolt. He did this several more times, then wandered off to get more fabric. He kept bringing up new bolts of fabric for me to measure, deciding if he wanted it or not and how much, and wandering off for more fabric again.
Meanwhile, there are other people waiting in line and I cannot help them as my handheld has the guy’s order, I cannot suspend it and he’s still bringing up more and more.
My coworker on the cash register was due for her break, and I was scheduled to relieve her, so I printed out the guy’s ticket, let my cut counter coworker know what was going on and went to relieve the cashier. Several minutes later I see the guy and lady walk out the door with no fabric. My cut counter coworker came up to me (there were no customers around at the time) and told me that he’d come back to the counter and demanded, “Where is the servant?!”
I have to admit, I kind of lost it there. Not out loud verbally, but my hands spasmed as if I were trying to strangle someone, then I grabbed my scissors and started stabbing the air, like Norman Bates attacking Janet Leigh in the shower. My coworker was amused; she thought he was a jerk too and advised me to just laugh it off.
Apparently he’s going to come back later to buy the fabric. Fine, let him. Hopefully, the manager who has no problem telling off jerks will handle him.
and a mental, "here we go again." But the arrogance, the condescencion, the "I'm your master and you are my slave" mentality...that won this guy the Pretentious Putz Of The Year award, in my book.
) The worst were the designers (we were a home decor only fabric store...no clothing stuffs! Thank god!) who would come in a expect you to drop everything and catering only to them. ugh...or the people who would come in wanting to change their home decor (drapes/sofas or a full scheme change) and only have a very vague idea what they want and expect you to know!
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