Contempt. It's not just a film by Jean-Luc Godard. It's available at your local shopping center.
My recent experience being treated with contempt started at Nordstrom. As the pandemic was winding down, I started shopping again. At Nordstrom, I bought a few things; that is, after trying on alot of items. After years of staying home, it was exciting to put on new clothes.
"Those leg lifts are working," I bragged to one young saleslady. On my way to the register, I picked up a couple more shirts, purchasing a total of five items, which a different, petite saleslady took the credit for. I remember her tiny frame and silky brown hair. She looked like a Marin County mom - trim, tan and elegantly dressed.
The last-minute items were impulse buys and I returned them a few days later. While returning them, I saw the petite saleslady, and I said, "I hope you don't get dinged." And she responded, "We do!"
Next thing I knew, anytime I went to Nordstrom, the workers with curly ear pieces would stare at me. The salespeople would follow me. Once with my 1st grade child, we went to the kids' section upstairs to buy school clothes, and the teenager working in that department regarded me with actual horror. With contempt. Another time, I overheard one saleslady say to another: "they told us to watch her." Rude. Way off base. And confirmation of my suspicions. So, I started shopping elsewhere.
A couple years later, I drove into the parking lot of the Container Store and REI and a parking lot security guard came up to my car and looked at the license plate as I put the cat food I had just purchased in the trunk. We were heading to Alaska the next week and I needed a pair of hiking boots. I entered REI and the guy with the curly ear piece started following me and hovering over me as I looked at shoes. I asked him if he could get me a pair of hiking boots in my size, and he said he would get a salesperson. So what was he? Security? Said salesperson never came over, so I left and went to Alaska with the old hiking boots I already owned. Stewing over being treated like a Criminal, I vowed to never shop in Corte Madera again.
Then, at Target City Center in San Francisco, when my child and I brought something to return, we were approached by a Security Guard. With kevlar on. And holding a MACHINE GUN.
At this point, this Asset Protection situation had become life-threatening. So I found the Nordstrom manager's contact information online and notified him in writing of this situation and the likely illegal profiling of me. He wrote back immediately, said he was apologetic, and said he would clear this up with his Asset Protection department.
I work in retail real estate, so this profiling of me as a shoplifter has likely had deleterious effects on my career. Here we are, four years after the Nordstrom saleslady lied about me being a shoplifter, and when I go into a different store - Neiman Marcus, in San Francisco - I have manager-type people following me around, frowning at me, watching my every move. Apart from being annoying, it makes me angry. It also makes me want to revert to mail order.
It makes me wonder if these erroneous asset protection reports are what damaged my competitiveness at Kimco Real Estate, Regency Properties and Pier 39, where I have gone to the 4th round of interviews at each, but not received offers. They have CCTV programs. Am I listed as a criminal? It really spikes the anxieties! Don't Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus have "Know Your Customer" programs? We did at Citibank, where I was a VP in the real estate department. Why would these shopping centers allow such incorrect profiling to rage on?
In 2015, I had my identity stolen by a gang in Oakland after they took an entire file cabinet of people's credit files from the Volkswagen dealership. The criminals were caught at Bloomingdales in Livermore and I was so thankful to that security guard. Apparently, they had my photo attached to my Bloomingdales credit card, and they recognized the imposter and called me to verify if I had authorized that girl gang to use my account. I was stressed over the 10-day shopping spree against my credit and I immediately shouted over the phone, "Arrest them! Arrest them!" And they did. But I had to file police reports in five different counties over the next few weeks and deal with the fallout.
Still disgruntled over the Nordstrom affair after all these years, I expect I'll have to file reports with the managers at all the shopping centers in the Bay Area in order to clear my name. What a nuisance.
I did re-visit Nordstrom recently to see what's in fashion, and you can imagine my surprise when I saw the same petite saleslady with the silky brown hair. She still has her job! She also saw me from across the fashion department. But no security guards cared that I was there, so perhaps the manager did clear it up... at Nordstrom. But it seems that now, the network of asset protection has me in their proprietary dark web, due to the fabrications of one petty saleslady. Their energy would be better-used if they had "Know Your Customer" programs in place.