My (old) experience with V&D (Part 2)

Apology from V&D
December 9th, 2008

Friday last week, my bf & I left a complaint letter at V&D mailbox. And guess what??? Today we got a call from V&D. They apologized. I did not talk to the person from V&D though. Did not feel like talking to her although she wanted to speak to me in person. She told my bf that it was not supposed to happen that way and also offered me a cup of coffee by V&D. Oh yeah, she was not the shopkeeper but the supervisor of the shopkeeper who maltreated me.
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To this day, this experience is still fresh in my mind.
Whenever it crosses my mind, I still get furious. Like a cup of coffee will make everything all right. That shopkeeper should have been fired.
And to this day, I still can not say that I'm very happy with the quality of service here.
There is no such thing as 'the customer is the king' here.

But to be fair, I have met a few friendly people here.

My (old) experience with V&D

This post is also posted in my friendster blog. The reasons I post it here are:
1. I am not active in FS anymore.
2. I want to have most of (if not all) my postings in one blog.
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Klantvriendelijk??? NIET!!!!
November 28th, 2008

I went to V&D this afternoon at around 2.15 pm in my city. V&D is one of the major department stores in the Netherlands. Bad experience with one of the shopkeepers there.

I went to the fitting room to try on some clothes - 2 long-sleeved T-shirts and a pair of pants. There was no one to watch the fitting room… but this is not unusual at V&D. And I’ve been to many V&D’s for so many times so I know the routine. I went in… looked for a ‘room’. I saw one of the bigger rooms was empty… naturally I went for that. Who would not if you could get a bigger room??? Someone had used the room. I saw a hanger and a price-tag lying on the floor. That is also not unusual in a changing room. So I went on trying my clothes. None was good. When I went out the fitting room, a shopkeeper with short blond hair and blue skirt (V&D uniform) was taking care of the clothes left-behind by other fitters. That was not unusual so I took no great notice of that and went on my way to return my clothes to where they were. In front of the fitting room, I stopped to look at some other T-shirts. The shopkeeper who seemed to be around 30-40 approached me and asked for the clothes that were still in my hand. I still had the clothes that I meant to return to their racks. I thought… ‘now… unusual’. They don’t usually ask for the clothes you bring out of the changing room after you are well away from the changing room… But I did not think much about it because by giving her the clothes, I would not have to return them myself to their original racks. So I gave her the clothes. Then she stuck out the hanger with the price tag from the ‘room’ I used. She said something. I assumed she was asking about why there was a left hanger in the room. I said, in my limited Dutch, that it was not a clothing I tried on and that I did not know anything about it. She asked to look inside my bag. I started feeling that something was not right. I felt that she suspected me of stealing the lingerie that used to hang on that hanger. But ok, they do that all the time - look inside someone’s bag if they suspect something. Usually if the sensors by the shop’s entrance/exit make those beeping noises, though. But I was nowhere near the entrance/exit. I was IN the shop, still shopping around. But ok, I did not want to cause a scene so I let her look inside my bag. So she did and saw nothing there. I thought that was that. But no. To my irritation she pressed on. She asked if I could come back to the fitting room to see if I did not have the lingerie on me. I said “I did not even try the thing on.” She said, “Are you sure? Because now you still have a chance…”. A chance for what? A chance that she would not turn me in to the police if she found the lingerie on me???? I said again “I’m sure. I did not even try it on.” She pressed on. “Are you sure? Because you had so many clothes…”, she said again and she went through the clothes I tried on, which by now already hung at her “clothes rack”. By that time I was so irritated that I spoke louder that I usually do. I said,”I am sure. You can look if you want.” She kept pressing on. She asked if i could open the coat I was wearing so she could see the strap of bra!!! That was outrageous. But I am by nature not a person who is confrontative. And it was embarassing so I just wanted it to be over as quickly as possible. So I did what she asked. She saw no stolen bra and she said ”ok”. That’s it. No apology. NOTHING. She had on a long face during this ordeal. Not even an ounce of politeness.

Never in my whole life had I been treated like I was a thief before - and an already convicted thief at that. Whatever happens to ‘not guilty until proven otherwise’? Whatever happens to ‘klantvriendelijk’ (client-friendly)? Whatever happens to ‘politeness’?

This kind of klanvriendelijk-NOT can only be experienced in the Netherlands. Last year, when I was still a student, I also got a bad experience with one of the chain clothing stores in the NL, namely H&M. But that was not so bad compared to this experience at V&D. By H&M it was just a teenager shopkeeper who made a mistake but he did not apologize. Today was a much more irritating and degrading experience.

Klantvriendelijk???? These dutch people should have their dictionary check. Which part of klantvriendelijk that they don’t understand???
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A new note on this: If I could, I would have done it differently. I would have fired my anger at this particular shopkeeper right there right then. Next time something like that happens to me again, I WILL get angry and demand to see the person in charge.

The Netherlands and The Weather

Why do the Netherlands like to talk about the weather?
I never really thought about this until one day an educated Dutch told me why. This educated Dutch was (and still is, I guess) a professor of a Hogeschool (and no, hogeschool does not mean highschool). He told me that it is most likely because the weather is the only thing that a Dutch can not control nor plan.
The book Doe Maar Gewoon by Hans Kaldenbach also says similar thing. It says:
"In hun wereld waarin alles geordend is, blijft alleen het weer onvoorspelbaar" - meaning "In their world where everything is in order, only the weather remains unpredictable" ('their world' mean the Dutch world).

But however often they complain about the weather, not many Dutch would want to move to a place with a different climate.

My friend A for example. He complained about the cold during this winter but still he would not want to move to Indonesia where it is warmer. And now he 'complains' about how hot it is but still he would want to move to Iceland or Norway or anywhere else that is cooler.

Noisy Neighbour

I know the Netherlands always talk so loudly but this is too much.
It's 00:35 sunday morning and the neighbour across the street had some friends coming over. They talked and laughed so loudly and the music was also loud.
Don't they have any manners at all????

Ah... finally the last guest went away and I can now go to sleep.
But I still wonder about their manners.