The employee behavior you received makes me simmer with frustration; it would not have been tolerated in my former shop.

That being said, though, with your comment about the clerk needing help from another employee to complete your transaction and board recommendations for the shop, I wonder if it's possible the shop was under-staffed or temporarily staffed due to other employees/owner being at a show somewhere. Sometimes it's hard to manage things as an owner when you are spread over two or more locations for the week/weekend.

I'm certainly not excusing them; just wondering (kind of hoping?) if there were extenuating circumstances this time.

Jan in VA

Sounds like a very unhappy place to work. I own a wholesale beauty supply and we greet every customer that walks in with a Hello and 98% of them we greet by name. I can't imagine not visiting with my customers, without them, we wouldn't have a business. Someone needs to tell the owner that Happy customers spend more $$$

There's few things that other me more than what you encountered. I hate the feeling that the employees in establishments are so busy chatting with each other, that they can't be bothered to greet you, assist you or acknowledge your presence. It's as though you are interrupting something. In either case, I just leave. I don't expect a fanfare, just people to be pleasant and do what they are supposedly being paid for. I'm sorry this happened to you.

I sent an employee at JoAnn's home one day. She loved to get another employee in the corner and visit rather than work. Needless to say, the word was passed and it didn't happen on my shift after that. Chatting with fellow employees during the course of a day - yes, of course. Standing around and talking - not on my clock.

I'm very sorry you had this experience. I would have waited on you for as long as it took just to hear your lovely accent.

I drove 3 hours to a new shop in Washington to buy fabric as I heard they had a fantastic store. When I went in, I was blown away. But there was no one in the shop! After a while a woman poked her head out of a classroom and looked at me and went back in. I thought she'd be right out. I was wrong. I kept shopping. I took bolts of fabric to the counter and kept looking and finally finished and waited at the counter for 10 minutes and no one came out of that room. I could hear voices talking and laughing and I knew that they knew I was there. So, I walked out, leaving all the bolts sitting on the counter, hoping they would realize that they lost a good sale. I've never been back. And it's sad, because they had a lot of nice fabric and a lot of it.

Sorry to hear you had that one bad experience in Colorado. I used to live there and enjoyed visiting all the various stores. They each had a different personality. I am curious if it was a quilt store in Colorado Springs. There was one store there many of my quilt friends would not go into due to the lack of service.

As someone who lives and shops and at one time had a business here in Colorado I would love to know what shop it was that was so rude. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Not being greeted when I enter a store or even acknowledged and then talking with somebody and ignoring a customer. Sorry for the rudeness of our citizens but it seems to be the norm nowadays. Hope you come back.

The only place that I have experienced employees chatting away and ignoring the customers is one store in a large grocery chain here in the east. My husband and I were at the deli counter waiting and waiting and waiting while 2 employees stood a few feet away and looked at us several times as they were talking and laughing. I was boiling...my husband has a little more patience than I do. I told him...I have to walk away because I am going to explode at them right now. Of course when we left the store then he showed his anger....lol.

Annesthreads, thank you for coming to visit our country. So sorry you had a bad shopping experience. Just know that you weren't ignored because you were a visitor, they do that to the locals as well. I have walked out of several stores and a couple of restaurants after being ignored by staff. I just figure they do not want or need my money and I'll happily spend it elsewhere.

So sorry that you experienced this. You can almost excuse it with teen workers - because either they don't know better or they haven't been properly trained. But in a specialty store, it's unacceptable. When my transaction has been interrupted by a phone or another customer who won't wait her turn, I will - depending on how bold I feel that day - remind the staffer that I was here first, please complete my transaction before servicing the caller or next customer.