Thursday 12/28/17 (early afternoon): I was trying to spend a $500 Talbots gift card. I intended to spend the entire gift card that day. No one helped me on the floor, and they were rude when I asked for a dressing room. An employee finally let me *and my husband* into a dressing room.
Twenty minutes later (while I was in the middle of trying on clothes), an employee banged on my dressing room door demanding my husband leave. She was SO RUDE. She made a huge scene and it was embarrassing. My husband was assisting me and we've never had a problem with him sitting in my dressing room -- at Talbots OR any other retail clothing store. He was genuinely helping me select work clothes. I told her I needed to get dressed before I would open the door.
She came back 30 seconds later, banging on the door while yelling "PLEASE LEAVE" to both of us. She escalated the situation to the point where we were afraid she was going to call the police on us. She was treating us like my husband was a sexual predator in a girl's restroom. It makes no sense given how private the dressing rooms are. We could overhear her complaining to other employees and customers about it, saying things like "Well, she says she can't leave yet because she's not dressed, but HE should be dressed."
When we came out of the dressing room, we had difficulty finding the employee who had yelled at us. She quietly sat at the entrance of the dressing room giving us the most judgmental and appalled look. When we told her we've NEVER had a problem at any Talbots location with my husband assisting me in the dressing room, she snootily claimed it was "Talbots policy." We informed her there were NO SIGNS posted anywhere in the dressing room to inform customers of that policy. It certainly did not warrant being yelled at and kicked out of the store in front of customers, especially when another employee let both of us into that dressing room.
As a result, I RETURNED the $500 gift card at another location. After we were ejected, we went over to Banana Republic, JCrew, and Gap, and they happily let us into their unisex dressing rooms. If it really is a policy, Talbots needs to get with 2018, and that employee still had no excuse to yell, berate, and eject paying customers from the store. read more
