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Long time lurker, very occasional commenter, and first time topic starter.
Okay, so imagine you're doing some clothes shopping. You've gathered up a selection of items to try on, and head for where you know the nearest fitting room is located.
You find that the entrance is blocked off by a moveable wall on wheels, with a gap of less than six inches either side. What do you do?
If you either head for where you know the next nearest fitting room is located, or ask an employee where they can find a fitting room, then congratulations, you're an intelligent human being.
If you ask if the fitting room that is currently blocked off by a moveable wall is open, then... okay, you're having a stupid moment, in all honesty. Still, we all have those, and I for one operate on a policy that it's better to ask the stupid questions if you're honestly in any doubt, rather than follow the third option...
If you squeeze through the miniscule gap on either side of the wall, or push the wall aside, or for all I know, phase through solid matter, then you're the large group of customers I had on Friday.
Okay, basically we had no one watching the fitting rooms that night from about 5pm through to 9pm. If we leave the fitting rooms open, we're guaranteed to get ludicrous amounts of theft, and the fitting rooms will be an utter mess for the foreseeable future (it once took myself and a coworker a whole day to tidy up the mess of six hours of unsupervised fitting rooms, and that was just the actual cubicles). So, since we have two other open fitting rooms on the same floor, we decided to close this one off... with a bloody great moveable wall.
Not that stops our customers, of course. I had to stop several groups of people from entering the rooms that night, and none of them seemed to realise that a blocked-off entrance means that the place is closed... or maybe they just didn't give a damn.
Then you have two other types of SCs associated with this situation. The first will ask myself or a coworker where the next nearest fitting room is. We will then point towards the mens' suits department (there are many reasons why this is the one that is always open, not the least of which is that suits do require more intricate fitting, generally with help from an employee from that department), about fifty metres away. They will then say something along the lines of "All the way over there?" in a tone that implies that we just told them to cross the Nullarbor. I'm curious as to how these people find the strength to walk from the car park all the way to our store.
Finally, you have the people who, upon being told that the closest fitting room is closed, will just try on the clothes on the selling floor. Now, this is menswear, so it is socially acceptable for our customer base to walk around in public without shirts (and, thank God, I've never seen anyone try on pants outside of the fitting rooms). But if you're so willing to be in public without anything on your torso, then why would you even consider a fitting room to try on a shirt, anyway?
Yeah, fitting rooms appear to be my mortal enemy in my workplace.
Okay, so imagine you're doing some clothes shopping. You've gathered up a selection of items to try on, and head for where you know the nearest fitting room is located.
You find that the entrance is blocked off by a moveable wall on wheels, with a gap of less than six inches either side. What do you do?
If you either head for where you know the next nearest fitting room is located, or ask an employee where they can find a fitting room, then congratulations, you're an intelligent human being.
If you ask if the fitting room that is currently blocked off by a moveable wall is open, then... okay, you're having a stupid moment, in all honesty. Still, we all have those, and I for one operate on a policy that it's better to ask the stupid questions if you're honestly in any doubt, rather than follow the third option...
If you squeeze through the miniscule gap on either side of the wall, or push the wall aside, or for all I know, phase through solid matter, then you're the large group of customers I had on Friday.
Okay, basically we had no one watching the fitting rooms that night from about 5pm through to 9pm. If we leave the fitting rooms open, we're guaranteed to get ludicrous amounts of theft, and the fitting rooms will be an utter mess for the foreseeable future (it once took myself and a coworker a whole day to tidy up the mess of six hours of unsupervised fitting rooms, and that was just the actual cubicles). So, since we have two other open fitting rooms on the same floor, we decided to close this one off... with a bloody great moveable wall.
Not that stops our customers, of course. I had to stop several groups of people from entering the rooms that night, and none of them seemed to realise that a blocked-off entrance means that the place is closed... or maybe they just didn't give a damn.
Then you have two other types of SCs associated with this situation. The first will ask myself or a coworker where the next nearest fitting room is. We will then point towards the mens' suits department (there are many reasons why this is the one that is always open, not the least of which is that suits do require more intricate fitting, generally with help from an employee from that department), about fifty metres away. They will then say something along the lines of "All the way over there?" in a tone that implies that we just told them to cross the Nullarbor. I'm curious as to how these people find the strength to walk from the car park all the way to our store.
Finally, you have the people who, upon being told that the closest fitting room is closed, will just try on the clothes on the selling floor. Now, this is menswear, so it is socially acceptable for our customer base to walk around in public without shirts (and, thank God, I've never seen anyone try on pants outside of the fitting rooms). But if you're so willing to be in public without anything on your torso, then why would you even consider a fitting room to try on a shirt, anyway?
Yeah, fitting rooms appear to be my mortal enemy in my workplace.
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