Little Things Mean A Lot

My silver top is a Chico's top from three years ago.

“It has long been an axiom of mine that the 

little things are infinitely the most important.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

 In the last week or so, I've gone into Chico's four times. I haven't gone into the same store (There are eight in Las Vegas, and most of them are close to where I live.), nor have I bought anything. Mostly, I like to go in to see what's new, what's on sale, and what I can't live without (which, in the four or five times I'm talking about, has been nothing). Still, since I am a Chico's Passport holder, I tend to stop in when I can.  (The Passport, if you are unaware, is Chico's reward for customers who have spent a certain amount of money in hopes that the privileges that come with the card will encourage them to spend more.)


I don't want to go on and on about why I shop at Chico's.  Suffice to say that  I like being able to buy a pair of jeans where the waist hits in me in the waist an not the hips.  (Speaking of which, while I was working at Office #2 today, I noticed someone who obviously does not shop at Chico's sitting at a table near me [Below]. Good grief, girl! Pull up your jeans!) I also like the way Chico's sizes their clothing.  If you don't know, you can find the size chart here.  Basically, I wear a size .5 or a 1 in their stores.  Tell me. Where else can *I* go and buy a size 0.5 or 1?  You have to admit that .5 and 1 sound better than 6, 8, 10, or 12, no?  It's a mind game, and I play it. But I digress...

Someone who does not wear Chico's jeans

So, in the past week, I've walked into four different Chico's stores just to see the new and sale duds. Each time I went in, everything I was wearing—except for my shoes—was Chico's. Everything. Sweater.  Shirt. Jeggings. Trust me. The sweaters and jeggings were unique to Chico's, and even though I have a lot of their clothes that are several years old, what I had on both of those days were from 2014 and 2015.

In each of the store, clerks greeted me as soon as I walked in.  "Welcome to Chico's," they all said. "Today, all regularly priced clothing is an additional 30% off, and markdowns are an additional 50% off. "  Jackpot, I thought. I like 55% off of sale prices.  The clerks in two of the stores told me to let them know if I needed more help.  The other two continued to talk to me.


"Have you shopped with Chico's before?" each asked me as I walked by them, and both times I stopped in my tracks.  I rolled my eyes, turned around slowly, and, pretending I was on "The Price is Right," swung my arm out (Ta da!!) to indicate what I was wearing.  Arm out, I stood there looking at them and said, "Ummm. I think so."  In both cases, they stared at me, clueless.  (Let me point out, by the way, that neither of the women was new to her respective store. I've seen them before.)

I took my Chico's red sweater and black jeans to Italy.

Now, I understand that in the grand scheme of things, the fact that those two women didn't recognize the fact that I was wearing the store's line was no big deal.  If I owned the store, I'd be pretty upset because employees should know the product.  Lately, I've noticed things like this happen in too many stores. Let me share just a few instances other than the ones I noted above.

• For the third year in a row, Starbucks has sold their coffee and tea tumbler starting on Black Friday. If you pay $40 for the tumbler, you get free coffee or tea every day in January.  When we went in to buy the tumbler this year, the gal at the register told us they were not doing it this year. "Yes, you most certainly are," I told her. "Not this year," she insisted.  I called over the manager, and she brought with her tumblers for Mike and me. 

• One of the mascots of the magazine is a bumblebee, and I wanted to see about getting a bumblebee charm. I looked on the Brighton website and saw that one of the Brighton stores in Las Vegas had the bee I wanted. I walked into that particular store recently and asked about it. "Brighton doesn't have a bee charm," the employee told me.  "You have two, actually," I replied. I went to the charm bar and pointed out one.  "I want the other one, though."  Embarrassed, she turned red. "I'm sorry," she apologized.  "I don't think we have the other one, though. I've never seen it."  Long story short, I now own the "other one that they didn't have." 

My son wears Mickey Mouse, and I wear Chico's leopard print.

• The Smith's Grocery by us recently remodeled and finished while I was in Italy. When I returned, I could not find anything.  I was looking for burrata cheese a few weeks ago, and I could not find it because they'd enlarged the cheese and deli departments and put everything in different areas.  "Can you tell me where the burrata is now?" I asked one of the clerks. "What is burrata?" she asked me. I explained that burrata is fresh mozzarella filled with mozzarella and cream.  "We don't carry that," she said. "I've bought it here before," I told her. She shrugged.  I walked away and searched every refrigerated compartment they had until I found where they'd put it.  I grabbed a carton and took it over to the girl.  "You *do* carry it," I told her as I showed her the container. "Oh," she said and shrugged again.

Again, none of these things was life-shattering, but the fact that these employees did not even really try to find what I wanted until I either insisted or did it myself drove me crazy. I owned a store for nine years, and Julia (my dear employee for six of those years) and I knew our inventory and our product.  We went out of our way for our customers.

The four stores I mentioned above are not small, locally owned stores, and perhaps that's the problem. Since employees have no investment in the stores themselves, perhaps they care only to go in and do their four-, six-, or eight-hour shifts. Losing a sale doesn't affect their pay.  They don't think, however, that losing sales could affect their company's bottom line which, in turn, could cause them to lose their jobs.

Oh, well...