Let’s say that someone out there had great grandparents in a big city and during that time the emphasis on a big department store in a big city went something like this
Store must be open from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m.
Store must be swept; windows, shelves, and all base cases dusted; lamps trimmed, filled and chimney’s cleaned
Doors and windows open
Pail of water and a bucket of coal brought in before breakfast
Attend to all customers who call
Store must not be open on the Sabbath unless necessary; and in only a few minutes
The employee who is in the habit of smoking cigars, being shaved by barbers, going to dances and places of amusement, will surely give his employer reason to be suspicious of his integrity and honesty
Each employer must not pay less than five dollars per year to the church and must attend Sunday school regularly
Male employees are to be given one evening a week for courting, and two if they go to prayer meetings
After 14 hours of work in the store, the leisure time should be spent mostly reading
Now, grandma lived in the country; she would’ve bought her oatmeal in bulk as did she with most other products. Vegetables were canned, meat was butchered, rabbits were snared and milk came from a cow, which she, like Tillie Jarshaw loved to milk! And the catalogs from Sears-Roebuck and Monkey Wards were her mail order dream books.
When grandma did work in town, the restaurant was open from early morning until late at night and the food that they served was expected to be of excellent quality. Everything was done by hand, including washing dishes at the café. We remember this from reading earlier posts that she was a fast dish washer. Service and quality.
Which brings me to mother. My observations as a small child showed me that places of business were truly there to help. We know that at the Woolworth stores, there was always someone behind the counter with the candy was sold. We know that if you went to a good dress shop, they were willing to alter the garment to fit with no additional charges. The stores in our fair city, were open from nine until 5:30, except on Friday nights when they were open until nine. One of the shops, called the Fashion Shop, covered their merchandise with cloths each night. The intimate garments would not put on display but rather in cases behind the counter. We know from reading old newspapers, that most of the stores had previously been open from nine to six. This changeover happened, during the early war years and may have been done to save on electricity.
Old trunks was a product of that era. When you went to buy under garments at a quality store, you were fitted. The idea of buying them off the circular display, rummaged through by others, was unheard of. If you bought a dress which was too long in the waist, it was taken up, almost to the point of being remodeled. If you had a garment that had gotten too large, you took it to the cleaners. The cleaners had a seamstress. One would stand on a stool, and turn ever so slowly while she pinned in a hem. Attention to detail.
Movie theaters had ushers to seat you. Music stores and complementary booths so you could listen to a record before you bought it. Jewelry stores cleaned your jewelry free of charge. Restaurants had waitresses look at you when you ordered and did not present the bill until you were finished. The telephone operator said number please and thank you and we learned from an early age to be pleasant on the telephone. Who pumped the gas? Who washed the windshield? Individual attention.
Imagine the shock of what would be later called a big-box store, then referred to is a discount house, where they sold seconds and overstocks and really poorly made garments for little or nothing. No one helped you. If you asked, they pointed. Dressing rooms were private. Try on garments all by yourself! But one could get an armload of clothing at one of these stores for the price of one pair of pants at a quality shop. It was an era when people didn’t have to say please and thank you. The only communication you had with an employee was when they said what your due bill was. Free roaming.
My children started their lives out with this sort of merchandising. Nobody bothered you when you were shopping. One of the few places where you actually got hands-on help is when you bought fabric. The best employee for my children to be subjected to was the man at the Kwik Shop who treated them all like real people and acted as if he knew each one of them personally.
It wasn’t until Sam Walton started his stores that the idea of saying please and thank you came back into our society. Will we begin to see courtesy once again? What will bring on this long over due type of merchandising back?
Old Trunks doesn’t like being interrupted by employees when ordering a hamburger by asking if I want cheese on that. When you are old like I am, and order at a fast food restaurant, you already know what you want and it just makes me have to repeat what I said over their annoying suggestion that I should have cheese on my husband’s hamburger. Suggestive selling.
And what’s the deal with asking if I found everything I was looking for because when you say no, nothing is done. Except of course yesterday, when the 12-year-old who was checking out my groceries, went into a spiel. And when I said no, and told him what I was looking for he suggested there was no such thing. Which really irritated me. Well, double knot my bags!
But now instead of stores being open from six o’clock until nine o’clock at night, they’re open 24 hours a day. And although it seems unique to the 40s and 50s, home delivery of groceries from local supermarkets is once again available. Does it matter to you if someone carries out your groceries? Or has a store convinced you of how much you’re saving by doing it yourself? My question, is are you?
I wonder if my 10-year-old granddaughter has ever been helped by a salesperson to pick out her size in clothes. I wonder if she selects her shoes without help of someone running to a back room to find the size. Do all clothes fit each size off the rack? What about the clothes in the back of all of our closets that, don't-fit-right, don't-feel-right, too-big here-two-little-here? What if alternating was an option?
Have we gone to Internet buying because we can learn more about a product than a weekend salesperson could ever know? Do we shop 24/7 because it’s convenient? Or because the product can be found? Never-ever tell the mattress salesman at a furniture store that the product he showing you use substandard to what you want, unless of course, you want the answer, “It doesn’t matter, it is how it feels”! He doesn’t know how many springs are in the box, he just knows he is on commission and every person that walks into that store lines his pockets. Unless of course, you have a mattress made, then you get that sort of customer service we all deserve because you really do get what you pay for.
Wait for an answer when you ask an inexperienced used-car salesman if that Corvette over there comes in 4 x 4. ( I am grinning, I hope you are too)!
When you ask a computer salesman for a mid-priced laptop with 2 GB of RAM, what you think is answer is going to be? Do we know the answer before we ask? After all, we are not great-grandmothers of a hundred years ago who had to rely on the salespeople to know what we were buying. Is that clerk going to take you to the highest dollar item because that is where he thinks your ideal might be? How many of us have made a major purchase of electronic equipment on line before we actually went to buy? What happens to the price if you have your computer built? Rather than one off the 'rack'? Ten years ago, Old Trunks had a conversation with her son. Bud wanted a computer to have specific features. Now they do and are produced mass market.
Let’s hope all of know the clerk in the produce department who will help us pick out two good avocados. Let’s hope the butcher knows his cuts. Let’s hope if we need prescriptions for medications the druggist will tell us about it or if the pill has a ‘new’ look they will point that out, rather than giving us an 8 font draft quality sheet with instructions. Let’s hope that when my grand daughter is my age, she will have examples of true service in retail merchandising.
And let’s do our part by saying, PLEASE and THANK YOU.
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