Comments on: Dressing Room Chaos

By: BeenThere

BeenThere — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 02:40:28 +0000

I have worked in retail as a fitting room cleaner/floor straightener in a well known store. I am appalled at the messes people make. The store I worked in did not allow us to give numbers or limit merchandise. Sometimes in this job a straightener might be only scheduled 4 hours in a week – the fitting rooms would pile up with clothes – torn off price tags – total messes – stuff left inside out – trash and garbage – attendants aren’t given any gloves to clean up stuff that has touched naked bodies (if I worked in a nursing home I would be required to use gloves). Most of the employees – think they are too “good” to clean up messes in fitting rooms – so it just lays there – until the 4 hour a week person gets there. It is no wonder you ladies are finding messes – retailers don’t want to schedule people who will do the work. On the other side – people (men leave messes too) should have some manners and clean up after themselves. The price tags could be laying there under the merchandise for a week – and the fitting room attendant was in trouble because stuff was stolen in the week they were not scheduled.

By: Joanna

Joanna — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 05:10:24 +0000

Re: Make-up marks

I currently live in Japan and here there are special covers for face to put on when trying on garments in the fitting room. The instructions are pictorial, so the language is not a barrier. I think it is a great idea, for the shop and for the customer: when I decide to buy the well fitting garments it does not have my own make-up marks on it!

By: Annie

Annie — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:55:41 +0000

I worked as the ‘fitting room attendant’ at a large retailer during my college years and it became ingrained in me to return the clothes to their hangers. I could not imagine leaving a mess for someone else to clean up. I think it goes back to the way we are raising our children.

By: Gail

Gail — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:45:40 +0000

At Target, you are given, by the dressing room attendant, a coloured tag according to how many items of clothing that you have to try on.

After trying them, you bring them back to the attendant, and she will hang them back onto hangers, (if unsuitable), and then onto a rack to be put back into the shop. Usually the attendant is quite pleasant and friendly and asks about the clothes, ie whether suitable or not.

I like this idea because you naturally bring the items of clothing back to be accounted for.

Touch wood, I haven’t come across anything really gross.

By: Holly

Holly — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 19:57:04 +0000

I think the sloppy dressing room behavior happens everywhere, ESPECIALLY in high-end retail stores. It does matter the age of the customers, and in fact most of these customers are probably age 30+. I believe this is a problem because this segment has become accustomed to the idea that it actually IS the salesperson’s job to “clean up” after them. They consider taking the time to rehang items, etc to just be a chore that takes away from their shopping time.

I have been in places many times where the attendants take my clothes and “set up” a dressing room for me while I shop, in order to make shopping easier. They even were serving drinks (non-alcoholic) to the customers. That is nice and all, and I appreciate it. But these high-end shops are where I’ve see the LAZIEST customers who refuse to do ANYTHING for themselves. I can gladly and honestly say that I have been the exception to that rule.

As far as juniors dressing rooms, I think that all goes back to the parenting. Really. If a child has been taught that throwing things everywhere and expecting them to “magically” be cleaned up later… well there is no reason that child would behave any differently in public.

By: Marti

Marti — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:05:07 +0000

I agree that the dressing room chaos is out of control, but I have another issue. MAKEUP! I can’t count the times I have fallen in love with a piece and found that a previous customer left makeup on the garment. It is always the last one in my size. As a result if I know I am going clothes shopping I sometimes do not wear makeup even though I won’t get a feel for how something looks if I don’t look my best. We used to have a store here that had something that women wore (memory fades) over thier heads when trying on clothes to protect the garment from makeup. I was at a high end store last month and saw a clerk busily trying to remove makeup from an item.

By: Martha

Martha — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 02:28:50 +0000

I have also worked in high-end and discount retail. In both cases the fitting rooms were a challenge to keep clean, but the discount retailer considered a dedicated room attendant a waste of personnel. We were expected to periodically scoot back to the rooms, grab the clothes, haul them to the front in a cart, and re-hang them with one hand while running the register with the other. Of course we could never keep up, and since the rooms were at the opposite end of the store from the registers and it ‘cost too much’ to hire an attendant, we were well known as an easy mark for shoplifters!

I now purchase 90% of my clothing from consignment and thrift shops. They are cleaner and better staffed and have better quality merchandise for less cost, and after picking up after sloppy shoppers – rich and poor – I know how “new” clothing is treated before it ever leaves the store. In my opinion it is all used.

By: Julie W.

Julie W. — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:13:56 +0000

If you think peeing is bad this is even worse… I use to work retail for a major department store(now out of business) in the missy department. Went in one day to clean out a room and a woman left her baby’s cr@appy diaper on the floor and used the fabric curtain to wipe their rear. I thought I was going to gag from the stench.

The other was a woman left her bloody used maxi pad on the floor. The stench was so bad, they had to close the whole dressing room area for two days. After that, I transferred to the men’s area.

By: Diana

Diana — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:34:11 +0000

Hi Mary,

Given the other tales told here, it’s nice to know there’s at least one retailer out there with excellent customer service. I’ll be sure to spread the word.

-Diana

By: Diana

Diana — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:31:16 +0000

Hi Shelly,

OMG! I hadn’t heard a tale quite like that, but it brings the saying “You never know what goes on behind closed doors” a little to close to comfort for me. Yikes! I think I’ll be using those dressing room hooks to their full advantage from now on…

-Diana