Girlist Profiling

I dropped into a home improvement store this morning to pick up a specialty bag of potted soil. I'd looked it up online, and was pretty sure I saw that it was widely available at a nearby Home Improvement Megastore. (Let's call them HIM for the sake of this story. )

After a long while of roaming the massive home & garden area of HIM, I eventually stumbled into the masonry & lumber area, where a very nice staffer asked if he could help me. I told him the name of the product, and he thoughtfully walked me around to where he thought it would be, but he was pretty sure he'd never heard of this product. (It is made by a well-known manufacturer).

I lightly insisted that it was indeed the name of the product, what it did, and that I really believed it to be in the store. But because he was so nice about offering me alternatives and how these other products might work, I didn't push the matter and left empty-handed.

Of course, I get to a computer, and sure enough, the product was indeed in stock in my local HIM store. I know I should have pressed, but I always feel like I shouldn't have to insist so much. And I do believe that he was being as helpful as possible, but I do think he didn't take that "extra step" of looking it up because I don't think he really even believed the product existed.

This happens to me a lot.

[And don't think for a second that I don't know how to explicitly communicate myself; anyone who knows me knows for sure that I am super-detailed, do TONS of research, AND I'm real stubborn. ]

It just gets real tiring having to try just a little bit harder to get what I want because people don't take me seriously coz I'm (1) a girl, (2) young looking, (3) foreign looking <-- and I know no one wants to believe that, but it is true -- and/or (4) stupid looking.

Not only does this ALWAYS happen to me at the HIM store, but also in an electronics store*. I do seem to encounter a lot of people with Girlist attitudes. Yup, that's my word for it. Girlist. Because younger females (who don't seem to know what they're talking about) tend to get treated like this a lot.

Now now, before you get all riled up, I'm not talking about out-and-out sexism or racism, but just this generic preconceived prejudice that happens to women, youngsters, or stupid looking people. You folks in retail, is it really so hard to give customers the benefit of the doubt? I've worked in retail and fast-food, so I know it can be challenging dealing with some people, but c'mon... isn't that why we call it customer service??


Ok. I'm done. Your turn.

* Just imagine me trying to buy audio related gadgets, getting a sales pitch from some smug teenage geek. I LOVE pointing out when they're wrong. LOVE. How is their 2-day crash course in-store training supposed to compete with my college education in acoustics?? ROFL.