Total lol title, but my God, I have never been so enraged by a shopping experience in my life. I just have to vent, guys. It's a long one.
Ok, just so you know, I'm a woman ( >: ( is pretty androgynous, I know). I was planning on building a DIY protein skimmer over the weekend. I'm not great with DIY and such, but I work with a lot of power tools in my ceramics class, so I felt pretty confident.
Well, my lil bro came home earlier than everyone else and saw some weird guy looking in through our windows, so my mom decided she'd come to Lowes with me and pick up some wooden dowels to jam the windows with, just in case.
We went to the lumber yard first, and picked out some nice, strong oak dowels 3/4 inch in diameter. We rang the little bell so the guy could come cut them to length for us, but no one came. We understood they might be busy, so we waited about five minutes and rang again. Ten minutes later no one had shown up, so I waited by the saw with the dowels while my mom went to find someone. Meanwhile, some guy with a board of plywood on a dolly comes up and gets in line behind me.
When my mom finally comes up with this so called "Rocky," I see him gesturing emphatically and speaking in a tone with my mother. Now, my mother will take a certain degree of BS, but I won't.
He came up, pointed to the dowel and said "I can't cut that. It's a dowel." He had a tone with me right from the beginning, and I hadn't even said anything yet. I asked him why, and he simply said it was store policy, still in a rude tone. I asked if a dowel wouldn't work if we get a 2x4 or something, and that said he couldn't use the saw because "it's a plywood saw. You guys don't understand. It can't even cut 2x4s." Very condescendingly, he didn't even bother explaining how the saw worked, which I would have understood if had bothered telling me. I told him I saw him cutting 2x4s when we first walked in for the guy who bought a truck load of lumber, and the only difference I saw between the two orders was the amount of money they cost.
I asked what he could cut, and he told me if I wanted a dowel cut it would have to be one foot in diameter. Then we asked if he could cut a sheet of plywood down to size, and he said no. I informed him that Home Depot had the same saw, and they had no problems making the cuts we needed. He said "Then, you can go to Home Depot if you want, I won't cut it." He was literally yelling.
Ok, I was pissed by this point, so I told him he was effing rude and that just because I was a woman didn't mean I was stupid. I told him he had no right to keep us waiting for service for twenty minutes only to be yelled at and to have him refuse to find us an appropriate piece of lumber that he could make cuts in, or to suggest something else that we could use. He expected us to just give up and go away. I told him we were going to complain, and he said he didn't need to be polite because he was the "department manager." He told me that I was rude because I yelled at him, but he had yelled at us first, and treated us like we were morons.
Needless to say, we talked to the store manager who got us PVC pipe in the lengths we needed, and for free, too. But, I didn't bother with the parts for the protein skimmer, I was too angry. And, I'm pretty much giving up on the DIY thing because I'm afraid I'll be disrespected again. I'm just as capable of understanding a tool as any man, if I'm presented the proper information. I know it sounds dumb, but my feelings are really hurt. I don't get why men have to be like that. It's not the first time I've been treated that way in a hardware store, it was just never this bad. I'm so mad, I'm actually crying. Most of you guys are cool, so I know you'd never treat a girl that way, but there are too many men out there who do.
Any other girls ever had anything like this happen? Guys, maybe?
Ok, just so you know, I'm a woman ( >: ( is pretty androgynous, I know). I was planning on building a DIY protein skimmer over the weekend. I'm not great with DIY and such, but I work with a lot of power tools in my ceramics class, so I felt pretty confident.
Well, my lil bro came home earlier than everyone else and saw some weird guy looking in through our windows, so my mom decided she'd come to Lowes with me and pick up some wooden dowels to jam the windows with, just in case.
We went to the lumber yard first, and picked out some nice, strong oak dowels 3/4 inch in diameter. We rang the little bell so the guy could come cut them to length for us, but no one came. We understood they might be busy, so we waited about five minutes and rang again. Ten minutes later no one had shown up, so I waited by the saw with the dowels while my mom went to find someone. Meanwhile, some guy with a board of plywood on a dolly comes up and gets in line behind me.
When my mom finally comes up with this so called "Rocky," I see him gesturing emphatically and speaking in a tone with my mother. Now, my mother will take a certain degree of BS, but I won't.
He came up, pointed to the dowel and said "I can't cut that. It's a dowel." He had a tone with me right from the beginning, and I hadn't even said anything yet. I asked him why, and he simply said it was store policy, still in a rude tone. I asked if a dowel wouldn't work if we get a 2x4 or something, and that said he couldn't use the saw because "it's a plywood saw. You guys don't understand. It can't even cut 2x4s." Very condescendingly, he didn't even bother explaining how the saw worked, which I would have understood if had bothered telling me. I told him I saw him cutting 2x4s when we first walked in for the guy who bought a truck load of lumber, and the only difference I saw between the two orders was the amount of money they cost.
I asked what he could cut, and he told me if I wanted a dowel cut it would have to be one foot in diameter. Then we asked if he could cut a sheet of plywood down to size, and he said no. I informed him that Home Depot had the same saw, and they had no problems making the cuts we needed. He said "Then, you can go to Home Depot if you want, I won't cut it." He was literally yelling.
Ok, I was pissed by this point, so I told him he was effing rude and that just because I was a woman didn't mean I was stupid. I told him he had no right to keep us waiting for service for twenty minutes only to be yelled at and to have him refuse to find us an appropriate piece of lumber that he could make cuts in, or to suggest something else that we could use. He expected us to just give up and go away. I told him we were going to complain, and he said he didn't need to be polite because he was the "department manager." He told me that I was rude because I yelled at him, but he had yelled at us first, and treated us like we were morons.
Needless to say, we talked to the store manager who got us PVC pipe in the lengths we needed, and for free, too. But, I didn't bother with the parts for the protein skimmer, I was too angry. And, I'm pretty much giving up on the DIY thing because I'm afraid I'll be disrespected again. I'm just as capable of understanding a tool as any man, if I'm presented the proper information. I know it sounds dumb, but my feelings are really hurt. I don't get why men have to be like that. It's not the first time I've been treated that way in a hardware store, it was just never this bad. I'm so mad, I'm actually crying. Most of you guys are cool, so I know you'd never treat a girl that way, but there are too many men out there who do.
Any other girls ever had anything like this happen? Guys, maybe?
Sorry if I offended anyone.