My wife just finished treatment for stage 4 cancer last September. It's been a long and hard road to recovery, but she was finally feeling strong enough to celebrate with a trip to Disneyland. She's needed new clothes ever since chemotherapy. However, she's a very frugal person that refuses to spend money on herself most of the time, so I was very happy to hear interest in a pair of overalls we saw at the D-Lander Shop in Downtown Disney. She still needed some cajoing, but we decided to drop by the store on our way home from our two day Disneyland trip to get it.
Unfortunately, the experience we were met with when we returned for the overalls was shameful, aggressive, and a shocking display of a severe lack of problem solving and social skills that ultimately turned us away from the store.
Tarryn from Durban, South Africa was the cast member assisting with the changing room at the time. My wife, who had put on a dress in the morning, did not have a shirt on when she was trying on the overalls. She wanted to be sure that the overalls were a good fit, and so she called for me to take a look with her. I entered the changing room with her and was immediately told that the store had a one-person-at-a-time policy for the changing rooms, which is very reasonable. Working at an international tourist destination, I'm sure that the cast members have to deal with very damaging behaviors from patrons at the store often, and so we were empathetic to that rule. Tarryn told us that my wife had to step out of the changing room to show me the overalls. We explained to her that she arrived with a dress and so did not have a shirt on. Tarryn then offered a compromise for me to prop the door open while helping my wife assess fit, but was oddly anxious and uneasy about it. We took her offer and I propped the door open with my shoulder while inside the changing room. I made sure that the door did not latch, but also wanted to make sure that my wife was out of view from the rest of the store while in her underwear, and so held it open very slightly.
Less than five seconds later, we get a very loud series of knocks on the door. Tarryn had called for another cast member, who yelled from the other side, in full earshot of the whole store, about the store policy and how we needed to step out because I was not holding the door wide enough. I again explained that my wife did not have a shirt on because of her dress. She was not interested in the explanation and, citing store policy, yelled her ultimatum: either my wife and I step out to view the overalls together in the open, or she calls security. This was extremely shameful, embarrassing, and a ridiculously aggressive first response to a very reasonable situation. My wife decided not to purchase the overalls and changed while I waited for her outside. Tarryn averted eyes from me and completely ignored me while this was going on. I could feel furtive glances from her and the rest of the staff and patrons.
My wife and I approached Tarryn afterwards to try to express our anger and disappointment at how the issue was handled. We asked her if there was a manager we could contact to help us navigate the situation, to which she replied almost tauntingly that there was no number for us to call. Since Tarryn was being so oppositional, we approached another employee for help. This one was able to bring us Kimberly from Norfolk, CA, who was much more helpful. While still citing store policy, Kimberly offered to let us return to our hotel room with the overalls, or for my wife to put on a shirt from the store so that we could adhere to store policy while still letting me help my wife with fit. Unfortunately, after having been shouted at in such a public place, we were too embarrassed to follow through with the transaction.
We would have jumped at Kimberly's suggestuon to borrow a shirt as a compromise before the unpleasant interaction. I wish Tarryn and the other employee had just taken a beat to problem-solve together with us. I'm extremely disappointed at the quality of service skill we experienced. read more