Krissy E.
Yelp
The following is an email that I had sent to the head office of the Nutty Chocolatier in Port Perry. My intention was to hopefully receive an apology directly from the Beaches manager. She has apparently refused to do so.
How professional.
While attending the Beaches Jazz Festival in Toronto on Sunday, my boyfriend and I decided to take a look around your 2179 Queen Street East location. I actually have fond memories about this location as I used to regularly attend the festival in years past and so naturally I was excited to see what they had. Upon arrival we were greeted by an apron wearing employee. We began to browse around and came upon the chocolate initials that sell for $3.99. I quickly picked out my first initial and showed it to my boyfriend. He then swiftly (and lovingly) pulled together all the letters to spell my first name. Admittedly, the last letter fell off of the shelf a few times because it had a lean to it. The relevance of that comment comes shortly.
So with the name spelled out, a woman with-out an apron called to us -FROM ACROSS THE STORE- and asked if we were 'playing' with the letters. I replied that my name had been spelled out. Now coming across the store and walking up next to us, she continued to speak in a volume that allowed anyone in the store to hear. She did not ask us politely to not 'play' with the boxes, no however she did go into a little spiel that I was less than impressed with - again a little too loudly. She rudely began explaining that people are always 'playing' with the letters and that sometimes they fall off of the shelf and crack. Well, that was $4 out of her pocket, not corporates but hers. And she can't afford for letters to continue being damaged.
THEN on a tangent, she begins to complain about how she is not making money. She gestured to the sales floor and pointed out that she currently had more staff then customers.
She THEN offered up the fact that her rent is double because it's assumed she makes lots of money due to her proximity to festivals/concerts. Not to imply that we do not care about her woes but I certainly do not appreciate being admonished for doing something I felt was harmless and certainly not an attempt to ruin inventory. It occurs to me that if it this was in fact a serious issue, as she made it sound, then she was neglectful to not have posted some sort of signage asking patrons to be careful with the precious $4 chocolates.
Needless to say I was insulted and angry as I was made to feel as if I were the substance that she scrapes off of the bottom of her shoe. As she strode away like a peacock, my boyfriend and I exchanged confused and disgusted looks. I immediately lost interest in looking through the store any further and I was clearly not going to buy the assortment of truffles I had planned to purchase.
Unfortunately I too have worked in retail. Six arduous years. I know people are rude and believe that the customer is always right. I also know when to smile, albeit with clenched teeth and not be offensive when explaining about something within the store. Whomever it was that spoke to us I assume was a manager again because she was with out an apron. She was approximately 5 foot 7 inches tall, had a fair to tanned complexion and had rather frizzy looking dirty blonde hair down past her shoulders.
To be completely honest I do not know what to expect from my explanation but really a simple apology from the source certainly would be appreciated. However for the foreseeable future, I will NOT visit the Queen St. location but instead go to the Port Perry shop. It makes sense too because I am from Oshawa. Suffice to say I traveled a fair distance to be scolded like a child.
