This is an open letter to Bena Patel and his wife, owners of Bena's Hallmark in Tucker, Georgia:
Get over yourselves and treat your customers with respect.
Seriously.
You have pissed me off for the last time and maybe it makes me a horrible person, but I will do everything in my power to convince folks not to shop in your store because you and your wife are so very rude.
The first time you pulled your shit, I swore I'd never sit foot in your store again. Sadly, your store is really the only convenient gift shop and card shop in the town if I don't want to go out of my way or go to a store like Target.
When my son was two, we came into your store just before Christmas, hoping to find a cute Christmas ornament to mark the first Christmas when he knew what was going on. He got so excited at seeing all the ornaments and chose one...a $15 firetruck with Santa on top. He was delighted and so was I.
Until you came over and yelled at a two-year old little boy and told him not to touch anything. Not to touch any of the non-breakable ornaments.
Jackass!
I left, embarrassed and in tears with my child in tears, because you yelled at us in front of a store full of other shoppers. When my child was doing nothing that could have damaged your inventory in any way.
So...I held onto my anger for a while, but when necessity dictated that I needed to return to your store a year or two later hoping to find some charming little something for my mother-in-law, I decided to forgive you. You were having a bad day. Maybe some less attentive mom had just let her child run hogwild in the store and you got a bad impression of all parents and children.
My next visit went smoothly, although I honestly don't remember if I had my son with me or not.
Yesterday, my son, excited about his new Crocs wanted to get those little trinkets that go on them. Yours being the only store in our neighborhood that sells Crocs, I saw no other option for finding them, and since you're right next door to the grocery I needed to visit, I thought we'd just pop in and pick up what we needed and it would be a fun and pleasant excursion.
Nope. Sorry. Your wife ruined it.
She locked in on us the moment we strolled through the front door and locked in on us like we were common criminals dressed in jailbird stripes, ready to pilfer and plunder the entire fucking store.
She followed us up and down every aisle, never asking us if we needed help, but telling me instead not to let my 15-month old little boy to touch the fucking Webkins.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Don't let a child touch the fucking toys you have in there to sell to children? Did you ever stop to fucking think that I might buy one? In fact, as soon as I saw that you had Webkins, I thought I would buy one, but you eliminated that chance with your stingy, grubbing, overzealous desire to make sure a child doesn't break anything in your store.
I cannot believe your store is still open!
If I hadn't been excited for my son who so wanted to buy those stupid pins for his shoes, I would have been out of there.
I guarantee you this, I will never set foot in your store again and I will let everyone I know not to go in there either.
Jerks!
Sincerely,
Me
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4 comments:
i love it!!
you are so right! i wish every store was target, just around the corner every corner!
You Rock!
Wow.
My parents ran a store for many years.
They had a (large) sign that simply said "You break it, you bought it".
I can NOT imagine being yelled at like that. You're right. Once is a bad day. Twice is a warning. Three times, it's amazing they're still open.
Perhaps it's a cultural thing?
And I totally respect that. And I would offer to pay if we broke something.
I used to work in retail and I try to be very respectful of stores and the employees and owners. I was a retail sales manager for several years and I never had any problems with small children. Teenagers were another story.
We actually would have teens come in and use the fitting room as a toilet.
There was also a men's restroom in the department I managed (petites') that had a gloryhole. The local PD set up a raid once. It was kind of crazy.
I also managed the Trim-a-Tree department and things got broken constantly. I understand that a major department store is not the same as a mom and pop store, but to a certain degree you just have to write it off.
I recently visited the Hallmark in Tucker, and their prices and selection on Webkinz aren't impressive. However, not too far out of the way at North Dekalb mall, you can go to SAV-ON PLANTS AND CARDS and they try to have every current Webkinz in stock all the time and their prices are fabulous! They always have a buy-one-get-one section, and the manager was super-nice and really helpful. Lots of fragile things in the store, but they treated my three year old son like visiting royalty. We will certainly do our Kinz shopping with them.
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