Supermarket Snobbery

grunnie

I had a neighbour who was always expensively dressed. I once said to her how beautifully dressed she always was and her reply was that I could wear anything as I was educated.Doh!!

wondercollie

baggins11 said:

Wondercollie I love your description of your son - basic mountain man.   Buying your first house is a real milestone and it was very mean (and foolish) of her to treat him like that.   

We live near the Rockies.  He lives in jeans and tartan flannel shirts, even has a Hudson’s Bay blanket coat for winter.   Found the coat in a thrift store,  could never pay the price they charge now.  The coat was around 60 years old when he bought it according to the dry cleaner!
He just isn’t into flash.  For years he drove a beat up pick up truck that was made the year he was born,  $300 and case of beer was the price. 
He does clean up well for events and work meetings.
so, if anyone is under 30, female, and would consider relocating......

Rosa_Damascena

Waitrose has nothing going for it IMO. The disgusting free coffee is an active reason to avoid the store.

Waitrose's plan to capture a larger market backfired on them - locally all the time-rich pensioners occupied the cafe seats and read the newspapers all morning, and didn't bother to spend a dime 

Slinky

I've never bothered with the free coffee in Waitrose, whether buying anything or not. Once I've got what I went in to buy, I just want to get in my car and go. I'm not one that walks down the street with a bottle of water either. If I want a drink whilst out, I want to be able to sit down and drink it out of a proper cup (and not one of those horrid clumpy Starbucks mugs either).

When I went shopping for my wedding dress, aged 40, I went on my own.  I saw a few dresses on the rails I liked the look of and asked if I could try them on. The assistant said 'Is it for you?'  OK so maybe I wasn't their youngest customer, but do people really go trying on wedding dresses for other people?  I was wearing my engagement ring at the time. I decided the second dress was the one for me whilst trying on the 3rd one as I couldn't stop looking at the second dress.  As I was meeting a friend for lunch, I asked them to put it aside for me to come back with my friend after lunch. When I came back, the champagne came out, because by this time I'd paid for the dress.....

On another occasion we were looking for a new car, having visited a few garages on a Saturday and decided on the one we wanted, we called the garage to make an appointment to go and sign up. The original salesman was off that Sunday (we knew this and he had given us his colleague's name to deal with). The colleague was out in the yard when we called, so we left a message for him. He couldn't be bothered to phone us back for 3.5 hours. After 2 hours waiting we'd decided to use another dealership for the same brand who had been a lot friendlier. That 3.5 hour delay cost the dealership the sale of a brand new BMW.

Rosa_Damascena

This came through to me today - not sure how true it is, but its a good story:

*HARVARD & STANFORD*

                          

A lady in a faded grey dress and her husband, dressed in a home-spun suit walked in timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office.

The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard and probably didn't even deserve to be in Harvard.

"We want to see the President "the man said softly.

"He'll be busy all day "the secretary snapped.

"We'll wait" the lady replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president..

"Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave" she said to him. 

The President, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.

The lady told him "We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus."

The president wasn't touched..in fact he was shocked.

"Madam "he said, gruffly, " We can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery."

"Oh, no," the lady explained quickly” We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to your Harvard in his fond memory."

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, and then exclaimed, "A building!

Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs?

We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard."

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now.

The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university ? Why don't we just start our own?"

Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.

Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the University that bears their name, *Stanford University*, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

vulpix

Hmm wondercollie how could we introduce your son and my daughter!

wondercollie

vulpix said:

Hmm wondercollie how could we introduce your son and my daughter!

The internet?  How do young uns find themselves in line. 

scottishminnie

Baggins - not quite coffee but your post reminded me of an incident some years ago.  We were looking to change our 4x4 and, at the time, Mercedes had launched their first four wheel drive. I arrived home from work reasonably sharp one Friday evening and hubby suggested we pop into the nearest Mercedes dealership and see if they had one of the new models.  Hubby was straight out the haulage yard, clean but very much in working clothes. I was suited, booted and polished as my job dictated at that time. 

We arrived at the garage and I headed into the showroom. Hubby meantime had held back  to look at something outside. I was just inside when a salesman came hurtling towards me. 

He was positively gushing about how wonderful it was to welcome me to the garage when I sort of half motioned towards hubby who had finally made it through the door. Before I could say a word the salesman looked at hubby, wrinkled his nose and said “ oh, I’m not helping him. I don’t even know why he’s in here. He doesn’t look like the type who could afford anything we have. Anyway, what is it I can help you with.”. 

My response, “absolutely nothing. The he you referred to is my husband and you most certainly will never be helping me in any way”. 

I flounced out in my high heels hissing at hubby en route that we were leaving. He was a bit bemused as he’d missed the comment. 

 To this day I will never set foot in a dealership owned by that company and I won’t ever buy a Mercedes. Frankly I’d walk first. 

Absolute snobbery that cost that company a lot of money. We were cash buyers who went elsewhere. We also made sure that as many people as possible knew what had happened.

that was probably 20 years ago but I don’t think attitudes have changed completely since then. 

JIL

I find that if I have my scruffs on at the weekend and go into a clothes shop I get followed but noone ever asks if I need any help. If I have my smart clothes on it's a totally different experience.  

Rosa_Damascena

JIL said:

I find that if I have my scruffs on at the weekend and go into a clothes shop I get followed but noone ever asks if I need any help. If I have my smart clothes on it's a totally different experience.  

I tend not to get this so much, although I'm not scruffy I am deliberately not overdressed to blend in with the environment (this is where my Regatta duffle coat - a chazzer bargain at £1.50) is particularly useful). 2 things about me that don't change like my clothing are a ring I wear which is undeniably expensive and very visible if I'm looking through racks of clothes, and the other is my accent. It's scarily posh for Essex (I call it the grammar school legacy) and does intimidate some.

 
Re: Mercedes salesmen - I"m not making excuses for him, but I have a feeling that part of the "training" the sales force is given drives the message of the premium brand into their heads and they are also given profiles of the typical buyer. So in his hot pursuit for commission, he may not even have realised how rude he was. Which makes him plain ignorant above anything else.