Rude staff at Mecca George St & Domestic Airport
Visiting from interstate and I went the George St store on two occasions this weekend. The first visit was alone and just to replenish some of my usual empties. It was quick and otherwise harmless.
The second George St visit yesterday was uncomfortable. I came by with Mum as she was after a foundation and to be colour matched. She is inexperienced with makeup and truly doesn’t need it, her skin is flawless. She however just wanted something lightweight like a skin tint. Nobody in store acknowledged her. While I know it’s a weekend and busy, I worked in retail for years during uni, I get that. However the only available girls that I could see were standing around a gondola and quite clearly gossiping about another girl. Mum waved one of them down and she begrudgingly began serving her. Not one smile and a patronising tone from start to finish. It was almost like ‘how dare you disrupt our chat’ — I would have preferred she pretend she was busy and allocate mum to another sales assistant. Mum told her about her specifications and she said “well we only have two things that could possibly fit your criteria” okay, so she swatched a random shade on Mums hand and mum innocently said “oh I think I may need a different shade” — to which her response was “no obviously this is a swatch” with a deadpan tone.
The only other example she was shown Mum ended up liking (thank heavens, it was uncomfortable) and she spent probably no more than one more minute with her. Didn’t ask if there was anything else she could help with, didn’t smile, just walked off after handing her the product.
I then visited the Sydney Domestic store this morning, just to have a look. Again I was ignored in an empty store, said a simple hello to two of the girls mid conversation and they ignored me. Is it a me thing? lol
As someone who has had nothing but positive experiences in Melbourne stores, this was dissapointing. It was Mums first experience in Mecca after hearing me rave about it for all this time, and I felt bad she was treated like she was a second class citizen. If she was a trendy girl in her 20’s or an influencer, I daresay the respect would have been there.
I also know this is a very first world problem, but I’m not a complainer in stores or a ‘speak to the manager’ type of person. So here you go, Reddit!