I hardly ever go shopping for stuff. Stuff that isn't food, that is. I hate it. It's enough to be a big breasted non stick insect to make clothes shopping a depressing and confidence destroying activity, but wandering round the shops in Lisbon is made all the worse for the shop workers who don't want to sell a girl anything if she's not famous, glamourous or one of her friends. Occasionally with a little time to kill, I walk round Lisbon shops, looking in windows, spotting little things inside and being tempted by little objects of shoe desire and the rare bit of clothing that might suit me or even fit me properly, and am often stopped in my tracks by sullen, grumpy, judgmental shop staff. I don't want to go in their shop if, as I've approached the door, they've just stood on the doorstep, smoking a fag, and given me the obligatory Portuguese "down to the shoes, up to the hairdo, down to the shoes again" scrutiny, followed by a scowl. I'm not going to give them my money. I'm not going to give them the time of day.... and there goes the beautiful pair of FLY shoes that I covet and might have bought on an expensive impulse.
In the last few years, there has been a marked change in treatment of the punter by shop staff here in Grand Lisbon, but it is mostly only where there are brazilians employed or in the multinational chains that this has happened, where you can tell there is a large corporate baseball bat behind the counter, saying "BE NICE OR YOU'RE OUT". Buying a phone is usually a pleasant operation now, or going into Natura to buy pseudo-ethnic stuff (if only it would damn well fit), and my favourite is the Nespresso store. You can almost feel the multinational force-field as soon as you walk in the door, and the staff treat we customers, we who have been sucked into the [delicious] Nespresso vortex of fashionable nonsense, almost reverentially. It pleases me, as I shoot in there to pick up my fix, dress
ed not as glamourously as the Portuguese deem to be respectable for an almost 40 year old, to be received graciously, GRACIOUSLY, by a young attendant, smiling, gently welcoming, head bobbing and with their hands clasped together, and not stuck akimbo on their hips, annoyed to be bothered by yet another someone who pays their wages.
Leave behind the big corporations, though, and you are lost to the grumpy misanthropes who don't like you, don't want to leave their mobile phone call for you, don't want to help you with anything and don't seem to want your money.
I've been looking for a newish car recently.... dreading it, as my only experience of car salesmen is in the UK, a bunch of pushier, more annoying, slipperier people one is unlikely to meet outside of an estate agent's office. But having visited several car stands in the last couple of weeks, it struck me that not one of them has tried to SELL me anything. I have a certain idea of what I want, but when I have gone in to ask the reticent looking blokes behind the desks looking at porn on their laptops if they have a fluffy pink three wheeler that runs on potato peelings, not one of them has said "No, luv, but I do have a velveteen green one, or maybe I can interest you in a car that has FOUR wheels? They really are fashionable this season...." or anything, just "no, we don't have one like that" or "yes. it's here" without even asking if I'd like a closer look or a test drive or to buy the damn thing.
It's a wonder anyone ever buys anything really. It's a wonder the smaller boutiques keep going. It's a wonder I have ANY shoes. Oh, I remember. I bought the last lot in Scotland, from a very nice Polish lady.
Trackback(0)
|
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed
