Cookware Customer Kvetch

Q: Funny thing is, I bought my Le Crueset dutch oven precisely because I wanted to make Osso Buco and needed a pot that went into the oven. But I wouldn't expect someone to say this is the pot you want if I asked for a lightweight pot, that's for sure. I think the woman should go to a restaurant supply store.

A: After having spent the last 30 years in various forms of retail and customer service, I have to say Dim itri is the type of person who gives customers a bad name. I currently manage a store that primarily caters to our senior population, and it is no easy task. The majority of them are extremely "with it" others are in various degrees of being "with it" and some are completely clueless. I deal with this situation everyday, and the hardest part of the job is trying to please someone with an impossible request for merchandise that either does not exist, or that I do not stock. From my reading of Brian's post, he showed the woman every thing that might possibly fit her criteria in what turned out to be a no win situation. The woman wanted a lightweight, dishwasher safe, FRY PAN. Not a sauce pan for heating Prego, or Dinty Moore. She rejected everything available in this particular store. Good fry pans by nature are heavy, cheap ones are lightweight. It is not the clerk's job to pry into the personal life of a customer, we are in retail, not social services. And yes, he could have steered the customer to another store that sells cookware, but if I were his manager, I would extremely unhappy if I overheard one of my employees telling a customer where to find competing merchandise. His job is to sell the merchandise in the store he works in. Just because Brian chose to post his frustration here among friends, does NOT mean he was behaving in a "condescending" manner towards the customer. Nor does it mean he is an "obnoxious self centered twit". Perhaps you should learn to read posts as they are written, and not attribute your own agendas to them.

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