Parents will you help out here

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I was trying to buy sunglasses at a sunglasses hut in a particular mall. There was three sunglasses hut. One was in Macy's and another was on level 2 and the third one was on level 3. I called one of the stores and asked this guy what level your store was on. He told me it was above the food court. The food court was on level 1.

Here was the problem. They were both above the food court. Level 3 is above Level 1 and Level 2 is above Level 1. I asked him will you please give me the exact level number because I don't know what you mean? The guy got an attitude with me. He would not give me the exact level number. I had to get off of the phone because I was about to have a meltdown. What exactly did I do wrong? In my mind he gave me an vague answer and I was asking for clarification.

To my way of thinking, I believe that would have meant the one on the 2nd floor, or the floor directly above the food court. But there's nothing wrong with asking for clarification if you're not sure what someone means, and even if the guy didn't know why you weren't understanding him, he is nevertheless an employee of a company and needs to have better customer service manners than that!

I don't know how the entire conversation went from beginning to end, but with what you posted, you're fine.

Sorry you went thru that, but good job getting off the phone before you had a meltdown.

Generally speaking, when someone says '____ is above ____', they mean right above. As in the next level.

This guy probably got an attitude with you because most people get the vague term and so don't think about it much. He either thought you were messing with him (prank calling) or doesn't deal well when he thinks someone is stupid.

or maybe he thought you were thinking he was stupid and got offended that you didn't understand him when he put the directions as clearly as he could?

The guy acted like a jerk when he didn't have to.

He could have told you the floor, and he could have even asked, 'What kind of sunglasses are you looking for?' and started a little bit back and forth conversation, which is what pre-sales is. He could have even said 'Please ask for ________ when you come in.'

But apparently, all this is above him, or he has a severe dose of customer-itis, or whatever. It is his problem.

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The only thing you can do in such a case is to fold the hand. Maybe practice one or two general bailout skills such as saying 'Okay, thank you,' and hanging up the phone.

This is definitely a possibility.

The guy sounded like he was from the ghetto.

Actually, I did say the exact words you said.

I don't understand missykrissy. I was attempting to give him a model as well and show him how to clarify it for me. I was trying to tell him to consider the bottom floor as number one and to go up from there. The food court was on the 1st floor. One sunglasses hut was on the 2nd and the other was ont he 3rd.

I think he would have answered to the following... are you one or two floors above the food court? If he couldn't answer that way, then he was just stupid and was doing the best he could.

I've learned most people find this to be either condescending or stupid, depending on how it's worded.

In essence... it could have been either one.

No offense to you intended as it sounds like he acted very unprofessionally to say the least, but have you considered that perhaps he picked up on the attitude expressed in this post? When we judge people like this, it can come through in our words without us really being aware of it.

I just realized when I reread this. I was not meaning to judge him to be a bad or good guy. In fact, I wasn't trying to judge him at all.

Hi,
This kind of miscommunication happens to NT people too.

Above is assumed to mean directly above. Otherwise, they would tell you "above on the X floor." He may not even have been aware of the other store, and that other store was not above the food court, so he probably couldn't think of any other way to say it. Happens with NT's who don't require such precise language; question answered, and not understanding the confusion, just can't think of a way to rephrase.

I am sorry you got so frustrated, and had a bad experience.

My out for all these things now is the honest, "I'm sorry, I wear hearing aids, and I'm not sure if I heard you correctly. To help me out, can you tell me if you are the store the directory says is on the 2nd floor, or the store the directory says is on the 3rd floor?" Amazing how useful it can be to explain you're going deaf. People get a lot nicer because now they know I"m not trying to be annoying or dense, I'm just disabled.