After working in retail for half of my life, not too much irritates me more than terrible customer service or all around bad retail business practice. I can't even count the number of times I've walked out of a store without buying something simply because I thought the customer service was terrible. I'll do all the stores in the Twin Cities a favor and not name names (for today, anyways).
Yesterday I ventured out to the Mall of America, which is a rarity for me. One, I hate crowds. Two, there aren't many stores there that are worth dealing with the crowds, parking or generally stupid people that tend to frequent the Mall of America. Three, I've managed more than my share of MOA stores, and don't have any interest in spending any more time there. Ever. Work one holiday season at MOA and you'll feel the same way.
Nordstrom Rack is one of maybe three stores I'll venture out to MOA to visit. I'm a TOTAL sale shopper. Those of you that know me know that I find amazing deals on all of my designer stuff. I've never cared about what's on trend or who says I need to wear what. I wear what I like, and I couldn't care less if it's from last season, last year or five years ago. Probably six out of seven days of the week I'm at home in sweats or yoga pants anyways.
I've been searching for brown knee-high boots for two weeks to go with an outfit my mother-in-law sent me for Christmas - a super cute Benetton sweater dress and brown leggings (fyi I have the awesomest MIL ever). Tonight we have reservations at Manny's, so yesterday was my last day to find the boots if I wanted to wear the outfit.
So of course I find THE cutest boots EVER at Nordstrom, and to top it off they have a little red sticker on the bottom of the boot that says 50% off (and 50% off the sale price, no less). Effing sweet, right?
I'm all stoked, and get in line to pay.
"These boots are actually not on sale". Ummmmm, what?
"But they're marked 50% off...".
"Yes, but they shouldn't be". (as she is peeling the sticker off with her fingernails)
"This is basic retail - you can't mark something 50% off and then charge me more...".
"But they were mismarked".
"But they say 50% off".
"Yes, but they were mismarked".
"But they say 50% off".
This conversation, the same sentences, were repeated about eight or ten times. I think she finally realized I had allllll day to have this conversation, and called her manager, who ultimately approved the discount. Mama got $400 boots on double markdown for $65. Yea for me and my new hot boots. :)
My OTHER hot new find is my new spring bag (which I am already using).
Layered pink tulle on a bag? How can you not love that. Thank you, Elodie.
Shortly after my confession about Jax's nightly bottle ritual, I ended up taking him into the Pediatrician due to his inability to sleep at night and his increase in nightly bottles. For a few nights in a row, he slept for only a few hours (which means that I slept for maybe an hour), and I was again desperate for sleep. She checked him over and as she looked in his mouth saw that all four of his molars were coming in, and diagnosed him with nothing more than being fussy from teething.
We discussed his bottle ritual - I told her I had been watering down his nightly bottles, but that he was sucking down anywhere from two to four bottles in his crib on a consistent basis. She was actually very understanding to the situation, and just said to continue to water them down and that he eventually would not want them anymore. She assured me he would outgrow this habit.
Then we had a miracle.
Starting that night, he has been sleeping through the night. It has been five nights in a row. No bottles, no waking up. Complete sleep from 9pm-7am. This is the first time since he was born that he has slept through the night consistently.
Sometimes I can't believe the lack of basic business knowledge and basic business courtesy in the professional arena. It just amazes me sometimes, and I will absolutely not deal with vendors and businesses that lack common sense and common courtesy. This is a great example - I sent an email to a textile company inquiring about their organic fabrics yesterday. This is a copy of the email I sent:
Hello, I am interested in obtaining samples and pricing on your organic fabrics, as well as lead times, min orders and information on how long you stock your fabrics. Thank you, Ann Evans
Ann Evans President & Founder butters&beans, Co. www.buttersandbeans.com
This is a copy of the email I got back:
Ann-
Thank you for your inquiry.
First of all, we do not stock any finished production fabric. All is made to our customers orders. We run a variety of organic cottons; Bamboo and Bamboo/cotton; Hemp and Hemp organic cotton; Tencel; modal/poly; bamboo/poly; modal/acrylic; ProModal........all knits, so I don't know what you refer to as :organic". The only fibers we certify as organic are the organic cotton and Bamboo's
Our production minimums are 650 yds/color for 7 oz fabric and 1200 yds for 4 oz fabric
Tell me a little about your company. What do you make? Whats your distribution? How long are you in business?
Advise
Michael
First, all of the questions this vendor asked could have easily been answered had he clicked on the link to our website that was sent in the original email. Isn't it HIS job to do his homework considering I would be the one paying him? Second, I clearly inquired about organic fabrics. How do you not know what I am referring to as organic? How is that confusing? Organic is organic - there is no varying definition.
Let me tell you the most amazing experience I've ever had with a vendor. To this day, it absolutely blows my mind. Some time ago, I was a buyer for a swim company. One of our sales reps for a rather large swim line was very pushy and someone I tended to avoid as we often butted heads - I normally let someone else deal with her, as I didn't liker her and didn't do well hiding it. While at fashion week one year, I got extremely ill and had a rash covering my entire body. My skin was swollen seriously like a half-inch high, and I was starting to run a high fever. I woke up one morning feeling absolutely terrible, and had to let my business partner handle our appointments that day to view different collections. One of the appointments that day happened to be with this specific sales rep that I wasn't very fond of. When my business partner got to this appointment with this sales rep, she asked why I wasn't there. My business partner replied to her that I was sick and couldn't make any appointments that day, and that I was at the hotel in bed. Her reply to this was that "maybe she shouldn't have been out partying all night - then she could've made her appointments today".
Wow.
Now, to those of you that know me, you know that I have been sober for several years, so this was a low blow. I had had dinner the previous night with the owner of a high profile swim company, but to say that I was out partying was a ridiculous statement. Who says things like this? And then wants you to pay them? It just amazes me.
I hate to end my posts on a bitchy note, so we'll end with some highlights of my swim career - sometimes I miss the swim industry dearly...
With Cindy Taylor at the Custo Barcelona show at Miami Fashion Week
This picture speaks for itself... :)
With Christian Audigier...
My favorite dress EVER - at the La Perla Mar party at the Gansevoort.
Yes, Mama did a bad thing, and I'll admit it. I made a mistake. I made a mistake with my child. Are you allowed to admit that, or does that go against every parenting rule in the book?
Jax doesn't sleep well, and he hasn't slept well since he was born. In the last 393 days, I've only gotten a handful of full nights of sleep (a full night of sleep in my book being from 12am till about 7am). Here's my admittance...when he was around five months old, I gave up and gave him a bottle in his crib to help him sleep at night. Major whoops.
Now give me a chance to explain myself. I was desperate. I needed to sleep so so badly, I would've done just about anything within reason at this point to get him to sleep. He was up anywhere from three to five times a night even at five months old. He never took a Nuk. I tried every written method in existence. I asked other people what they did, and tried their suggestions. Nothing was working.
Here's another problem: He was (and still is) sleeping in our room. I think he also wakes up so much because he knows that I am right there to get him whenever he pleases. He can see me when he stands up in his crib. We have a tiny house, and need to move terribly, but haven't been able to find a new house in our area within our budget. I'm very hesitant to move Logan out of his school district due to his Aspergers (change/new friends/new IEP team is a bad thing). Therefore, with our small house situation, either I lose because Jax is in our room, or Logan loses because he has to switch schools. We will probably be moving this summer, because Jax just cannot continue to sleep in our bedroom.
One more problem, and I will keep this short. We live in a duplex and have neighbors. Noisy neighbors. When Jax doesn't take his naps during the day - when he gets woken up due to noise made next door - he tends not to sleep well at night. I'll keep it at that as this is a hot-button issue, and I will probably have consequences just for writing this short little paragraph.
When he was about a month old we figured out he was a white noise baby, so we've been using a sound machine during his naps and at night from the beginning. That helped temporarily, but now it seems we just created another thing he relies on to sleep. He will also only sleep with a very specific blankie (thanks to the $39 PBK blankie gifted to us that I had to go buy four more of).
I finally resorted to the one thing you aren't supposed to do. I gave him a bottle in his crib. It backfired tremendously. Now he goes through two bottles a night on a good night, and five bottles a night on a bad night. I can seriously see the look of distaste on all of the other Mommy's faces as I write this. I already know I did a bad thing.
So NOW, I have a one-year-old that not only doesn't sleep (still), but drinks five bottles throughout the night. Way to GO, Ann. I typically get around five hours of intermittent sleep a night, and this has gone on for over a year. My oldest didn't sleep well either, and when I found out I was preggers, I thought for SURE God wouldn't do that to me twice. Apparently I was wrong, and God has a sense of humor.
Let me be brutally honest about the consequences for my mistake. First, because I made the mistake of purchasing Avent bottles (see previous post about how badly Avent bottles suck), milk leaks from his bottles onto his sheets. His sheets end up stinky and I have to change them daily. Because I don't have anything better to do than laundry all day. Sometimes his diapers get so wet from drinking so much fluid throughout the night they leak, so I end up having to change his clothes either immediately in the morning or in the middle of the night. Gross, right? Obviously. It will be much more difficult to wean him from bottles than with the average toddler because he drinks SO many of them.
I've been honest with my Pediatrician about my boo-boo. She knows. She's probably the only one I've admitted my mistake to, and only out of necessity as she needs to make accurate decisions, having all of the facts, regarding Jax's health. She didn't make a stink over it, but made it clear I should try to break this habit.
This is the hardest part to admit as a parent: I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to fix my mistake. This gives me major agita. I'm angry with myself, sad that I can't sleep and frustrated that I made such a stupid mistake. The obvious answer is to stop giving them to him, and I've tried (several times). The child has more crying stamina than should be humanly possible. I really don't know how to end this post - I'm not asking for advice. Maybe I just wanted to get this off of my chest, maybe I wanted reassurance that I'm not the only one to make mistakes. Maybe I AM the only one that makes mistakes like this. I don't know. I try my hardest every day to be the best Mama possible, and to know I made a mistake (a biggie) is hard.
So, just to lighten up this post a little, I'll include the following clip:
Yes, I am 32 years old, and farts still make me laugh. :)
All, b&b is trying to get on the "short list" for something called the Handmade Olympics! This is a cool little contest run by a blog called TheRikRakStudio. Nominations would be super appreciated - all you have to do is either nominate our brand or a specific item (in the kids category), put a link in the our website and/or the item, and state why you are nominating us! Judging will be done by the fabulous editors of CoolMomPicks.com (we heart them). The only issue we've had with this is that some days the nominations are showing up as "closed", and some days they are showing up as "open". Why, we're not sure, but your attempt would be appreciated!
