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.

but the sample lady was an employee, representing her company. While
she could politely explain that those samples weren't ready yet, I
doubt very seriously that it would be acceptable to her employer for
her to be rude or abusive about it, regardless of the customer
reaching into the prep area.

She slapped her hand. She is lucky it wasn't the hand of someone who
would escalate the situation in a more direct manner and smack her
back. The OP chose to write a letter explaining what happened. It is
inconceivable that anyone would be making an arguement that would
indicate their belief is anything other than she should not have
touched her.

" employee, representing her company" those words always make my
teeth grind. Mainly because it's often used in conjunction with being
rude to an employee and then being very offended when one gets back
the same thing they gave.


Cos by that reasoning, because someone is an employee they have to put
up with any treatment from a customer, including someone being
impatient and reaching into the food prep area without waiting to
ask.

Or such an action being called "an unintentional" mistake - as if the
hand was possessed like in Evil Dead 2 and had a will of its own?


But as people suggest that there are those who will excuse any
employee action there are those who also try to excuse and downplay
any customer action also.


Sometimes one of life's lessons is that how you treat others usually
gets you the same back. The only difference here is that since the
other party was an employee, her boss can be pulled in to punish her
for reacting as a human instead of a servant.

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.

"While I may be wrong to reach over this board for a sample"


You're complaining about the employee's "lack of restraint"... while
you couldn't restrain yourself from reaching into the food prep area
to grab samples.


Clearly you could have just asked her for a sample. But you reached
into the prep area, helped yourself, and then ... SHE was the one at
fault cos she called you out on it?

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.