Sinister Sample Lady

I would assume the samples were not ready, as they had to cool a bit.
Should you have burned your mouth you would probably have then written
a nasty letter complaining that the demo failed to stop you in time to
prevent a heat injury to your mouth. ??????

This is a complaint from a nonpaying customer that didn't want to wait
for the free sample. OK, got it.

To avoid contamination, the rest of us would appreciate it if you did
not reach beyond the plastic divider.

The OP admits that she made a mistake.

However, the sample lady should not have smacked her hand.

So an employee can strike a customer making an unintentional mistake
and it is okay? They should be fired.

This site can be a joke sometimes.

It's amazing how we are now. Our economy is struggling, people are
out of work, customers want more and more while businesses supply less
and less to cut costs. It's so bad now we even complain about stuff
that someone gives us for FREE! I can't imagine what would have
happened if this happened with something that had to be paid for. TTT
- we'll all be ok.

You make a valid point about patience and I did admit reponsibility
for that in my initial letter. The samples were on the back of the
table with no signage telling me not to touch behind the small
divider. The point here is that while my actions may have been hasty
there is never any reason for any employee to hit a customer on the
hand.

You state "Clearly you could have just asked her for a sample."

So, are you suggesting the letter writter should interrupt the
conversation that the sample lady and another customer were having to
interject and ask for the sample?

On the other hand, if the customer had decided to wait until the
conversation had a lull in it, so she could thgen politely ask her
query, there's no telling how long she would've been standing there
and waiting while the sample lady and the customer continued to talk
and ignore her presence.

After all, it was two women talking in this situation....and nobody
knows how long they would've decided to contiunue talking....heck, a
half hour could've elapsed before the OP got her sample in this
scenario....

In your "what if" example you make it sound like the OP had no other
course of action available except to reach a paw into the food-prep
area and just grab whatever was wanted.


Sure you've decided the conversation could have lasted 30 minutes
but... it could also have lasted 30 seconds after the OP showed up.


There's nothing wrong in exercising some patience. Or attempting to
ask or wait first.

I didn't want to interrupt and it looked like any other tray of
samples to me. She should have said excuse me to the woman she was
chatting with and addrssed me before this occurred...or just move the
tray to the area where it's okay to take from.

I was hoping that something "sinister" had actually happened.

I have to say, this is one of the best letter titles here ever!

So you're admitting to the store that you don't have a membership but
you use a friend's instead of having your own? I don't think they'll
be too inclined to do much.

I believe that the people handing out the samples are not employees of
the store. The store manager should be able to provide you with the
name of the company that is in charge of them.