Saturday, December 13, 2008

Bah humbug, hipsters!


Today we were shopping in the Little 5 Points neighborhood in Atlanta. It is sort of Haigt-Ashbury meets London, in a hippie meets punk sort of way, with a little Rastafarian flavor thrown in for good measure. Anyway, from that description you can probably infer that Brett and I are not your typical L5P patrons, but we can usually fake our way through pretty well. Or at least drive through on our way to Target without issue.

Today we were on our way back from a Target run (hey-I'm not gonna lie, come on, yuppies unite!) and decided to stop there to go to a skate shop (not ice skates, skateboards) to buy some skinny jeans for Brett's 14 year-old little brother, James. I should add that he is part of the Big Brother Big Sister program and that his biological little brother is 26. Gosh, there are a lot of tangents in this post! So we go into this lovely little shop and inquire politely about some skater brand James likes and the dude "working" there is all, "that is not a skate board brand. You might find that at the mall but not here." Then he proceeds to lecture us about how it's really hard to buy jeans for teenagers and it's really like finding a needle in a haystack (he really said that. How's that for slick hipster jargon?), all in a very snotty way. Um, I have very little retail experience, but normally when a potential customer enters your store eagerly trying to make a purchase, you ENCOURAGE it, maybe even go for the upsell. "Sorry, guys, I'm not familiar with that brand, but check out these great shirts, the kids love 'em. We also have a rad selection of trucker hats and some sweet new DG shoes... " Something like that. 

Um, thanks. We'll try Pac Sun. 

3 comments:

Zoo Keeper said...

ah -what customer service has come to these days....

Courtney said...

One would think, in a recession...

Hip-chic doesn't pay the bills, people!

emr said...

wow. when that store closes because of hobo economy, that dude will be sorreeeeee.

also, this reminds me of the time in college when my friend meredith went to hot topic looking for pokemon stuff and the hot topic staff told her that their store only carries 'hip, up to date merchandise.' whatever fools.