Yarn store grumble

Whine, whine, it's my blog and I'll whine if I want to.

I went to a yarn store yesterday. I generally don't go to this store. A few years ago I went there to buy a needle, and stood there by the counter holding the needle for a full fifteen minutes while the worker chatted and knitted in the next room, ignoring my attempts to get her attention. I finally put the needle back and drove to a yarn store in a different community so I could buy the needle from some one who might possibly give a flying freak.

But I went there again, yesterday, because they're the only local place that sells the sock yarn I was looking for. The worker was helping another customer. She asked the customer a question, and while the lady was starting to answer, she breezed past me and asked, "Are you finding everything okay?" Actually, I wasn't, and I needed help, but the circumstances--she in the middle of a conversation with another customer--demanded of my own personal etiquette that I answer the most truthfully I could without engaging her, "For now." When she finally finished with the customer, I turned to ask my question, but she whipped out her cell phone and dialed, telling the person on the other end that she was just leaving now. Then, right on cue, another employee walked in, and they had to greet each other and discuss each other's health. By the time the first employee left, I had been wanting help for twenty minutes, and was starting to run late. The new employee said, "I'm guessing you don't need any help, or else she would have been following you around." Funny, that, what an inflated idea she has of her coworker's customer service practices. I responded, "Actually, I'm interested in this pattern here" and finally got the info I needed. She was very nice, and offered pattern assistance if I needed it.

By the time I got out of there, I was late for my coffee date, but fortunately, everybody else was later. All good, there.

Days like that make me not sorry to order things online. It still puzzles me, how common it is to read stories of yarn stores with lousy and adversarial customer service. They must not really need consistently good customer service, I guess.