You Break it, you Buy it?
By breepeace
@breepeace (3014)
Canada
January 23, 2009 12:18pm CST
I was just having a conversation with a friend about an incident that happened to us on Boxing Day.
We were inside The Body Shop at a mall in the next town, and it was hugely crowded. I went to examine a bottle of hemp hand cream, and a girl next to me stood up quickly and knocked her arm into my stomach, causing me to trip backwards. My purse hit one of the glass shelves, and a bottle of scented oil sitting on it smashed to the ground.
The girl that came to clean it up was extremely nasty to us. She came over glaring and was like, "What happened here?". When I explained that I had been jostled and hit the shelf with my purse, she asked us to MOVE out of the way, and as I was leaving, overheard her talking to another clerk at the store about how I should have at least offered to pay for the broken bottle.
At $10.50 for 4 ounces, I wasn't really prepared to pay for something I didn't purposely break, and was a little upset that she would think I should have offered when it was so clearly an accident that was out of my control.
What would you have done?
2 people like this
3 responses
@suspenseful (40192)
• Canada
23 Jan 09
I would not have offered to pay for it, as it is obvious it was not your fault, and had you done so, she would have wanted you to pay for it. The one who should have should have been the one who jostled you, but it appears that she would not have done so since she did not speak up immediately but slunked out like the coward she was.
2 people like this
@AnnieOakley1 (5596)
• Canada
24 Jan 09
She's just got to learn to write off some things as the price of doing business. Accidents do happen. I mean, I do beleive in "you break it, you bought it", BUT there have to be exceptions. This was caused by a two-person domino effect accident, so, really nobody is to blame. Not you anyway. I would say that the girl who got up is more responsible, if anyone were to be blamed even a little bit, but not you. You were completely innocent as far as I am concerned.
I would have told her what I thought. And told her that that kind of NASTY attitude would lose her potential customers by the fistful.
You live and learn. Knowing that she has many breakable things in the store, she should now be more aware and prevent people from crowding in so much. It makes for a higher risk of damage.
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
23 Jan 09
Consider the source...a clerk in a store in a mall, probably a seasonal worker and definitely not skilled in the art of customer service. I wouldn't have offered to pay for the item either because I wasn't neglectful in handling it. If the clerk had said something directly to me about paying for the item I would have asked to speak to the manager but in the case you mentioned, I would have simply left as you did. You definitely are not responsible for accidents in a crowded store that are beyond your control.
1 person likes this
