The *Friend*

[ms.marymac]

Quote:

Originally Posted by redambition oh god, yes this sucks. i've witnessed it at a counter a few times and i have always let the MA totally finish up before serving me... because you know that these bossy know it alls are going complain that the MA ducked away for a minute to grab the eye shadow i know i want. i saw one where the friend was literally standing right behind the MA, peering over her shoulder as the MA did an eye look on the customer. i don't know how the poor MA managed to work like that

You get used to it. Honestly, it doesn't bother me as long as they are polite.

 

[missmarkers]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CantAffordMAC I'm sorry to hear that you guys go through this. It seems silly. Personally, when I go to MAC I bring my boyfriend (because he's the one who takes me there) and I ask him if he likes something (he's not dumb enough to say no lol) but even if he gave me his critique, I'm the one wearing it. and if I want it or like it, then thats the only thing that matters.

You wouldn't believe how many people can't form opinions on whether they like something on their own or with someone's help. As I said in a different post, if a customer doesn't like something, be honest and say so. I can always try something different until we find something that the customer is happy with. I always think in my mind "it's now what I (the MA) think, it's what YOU think." and you'd be surprised at how many people can't think for themselves.

 

[astronaut]

I was just at the store today and I noticed this for the first time. The person I think was maybe in the military and she had "the friend". She had makeup applied on her with her friend always butting in sounding like she knew all about makeup more than the MA. I thought nothing of it and just walked away and looked at some more stuff. I came back and the friend had her eyes all done and saw green shadows and really wanted to try juxt but the friend did not approve. She was kind of bossy. It made me sad. The MA came by and asked if they needed more help and the friend spoke for her "Oh, well, she wants try some kind of green shadows for going out". The MA handed the friend green smoke and the friend handed it over to the actual girl after looking at it. I could hear the friend saying "It's dark...". I was standing there screaming in my mind, "give the girl some juxt! She wants juxt! Please give it to her! Her friend won't let her have it! Saaave her!"

 

[erine1881]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bernadette There is a difference between bringing someone with you and asking their opinions and bringing someone with you that inables us from doing our freaking job. Bringing someone with you that bosses us around, wastes our time and prevents us form actually helping or teaching the person whose makeup is getting done is what Nyla is clearly refering to. Whether you are the one that can't form an opinion of your own or the one bossing us around, it is rude, annoying and like I said a waste of our time. There is a difference between asking a friend what they think and asking them after every single step. Anyyyway, Nyla, I totally agree. I had one of the bossy friends last weekend. She wanted the eyes changed and ended up making my customer feel insecure about it until she agreed. The eyeshadow was already very natural but the friend told me to lighten it five different times. It ended up looking like it was just woodwinked on her entire eye. She wasn't overly mean about it like some people can be. I think the worst is the clueless friend who you know you can actually teach something to and give a look to that they would have at least some chance of wanting to recreate but their bossy friend is sitting there telling you what to do. What I usually do is in a kind of joking tone say "Well she is the one that has to wear it so what she says goes." I even told a girl once in a joking voice "You've been vetoed." and the actual customer laughed and seemed relieved that I kind of halted her friends ideas, it broke the ice and calmed down the demands.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bernadette I'm sorry but I have to ad that I think it's ridiculous that we can't come on here and voice opinions about situations we deal with in our jobs and can all relate to without having some know-it-all that has never been in our shoes coming in and either telling us "That is your job, you have to deal with that" or "You shouldn't have taken the job then." or "I can match a foundation from a picture and I'm not even a professional" blah blah blah. You know what, you don't have our job and you don't get to tell us how we are doing it or what situations you have not been in are like. We should be able to come on here and discuss these things without having to hear that BS. I think whoever mentioned having an artist only section where we can talk about work situatiosn was really onto something....

you rock!

 

[kensbarbie1017]

LOL. "the friend" which is sometimes..the mom..the daughter...the husband..can drive me insane. My favorite is when they take the brush right out of your hand and start doing it themselves...Seriously, than why did you even come here?

 

[amoona]

OMG THE FRIEND!!!! I hate that bitch haha. Why am I doing your make-up if you have your very own make-up artist as your best friend? Hell when I have my coworkers do my make-up (yea I'm lazy and get my own make-up done before I go out sometimes) I give my opinion but I never tell them how to do what they do.

Maybe I should come with my bf to his accountant and tell his accountant how to fill out the tax forms for my bfs company.

 

[..kels*]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kensbarbie1017 LOL. "the friend" which is sometimes..the mom..the daughter...the husband..can drive me insane. My favorite is when they take the brush right out of your hand and start doing it themselves...Seriously, than why did you even come here?

i've never had "the friend" grab a brush from me but one of my customers wanted to do everything herself the other day. she needed help finding a bronzer so i picked one out & pulled out our demo chair for her & asked her to take a seat. she frowned at me & stayed where she was standing. so i did my thing.. sanitized the product (she frowned again & asked what i was spraying on it - try alcohol?), got out a brush & started applying the bronzer on her. i pulled away for like 2 seconds to see how it was looking & she lunged for the mirror. she was like "i usually do it just on this part" & points to the apples of her cheeks. so i held the brush out to her & i was like "do you want to do it yourself then?" & she goes "well, i *guess* it's okay how *you* were doing it....." but then she grabs the brush from me & completely overbronzes her face. then she proceeds to take a loose bronze shimmer powder (in an unsanitizable sifter - ew.) & brushes it all over. her face looked like a dirty disco ball. needless to say she left without buying anything.

 

[calbear]

i will add to 'the friend' dilemma...when the side bustin, hater partner has the ability to speak another language and proceeds to do so only to criticize your work, but speaks perfect english when she is running u around like a slave i.e. 'she needs a mirror' (even though u already tried to give it to shy girl and she didn't want it) or 'she needs some blush' (even though shy girl and you are in the middle of a conversation about mascaras) or where are the wipes (next to your hand thank you very much) etc.

Now I don't profess to speak anything but English well enough but to maybe ask where the bathroom is in a pinch but i have some colors memorized and the obvious frown on the friends face as she is pointing out that u shouldn't have used (insert any old color here) to make that look smokey or that the browhighlight is too light or not light enough for her is enough to know that this is not going to go well.

 

[User67]

Quote:

Originally Posted by amoona OMG THE FRIEND!!!! I hate that bitch haha. Why am I doing your make-up if you have your very own make-up artist as your best friend? Hell when I have my coworkers do my make-up (yea I'm lazy and get my own make-up done before I go out sometimes) I give my opinion but I never tell them how to do what they do. Maybe I should come with my bf to his accountant and tell his accountant how to fill out the tax forms for my bfs company.

.....

 

[User67]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ..kels* i've never had "the friend" grab a brush from me but one of my customers wanted to do everything herself the other day. she needed help finding a bronzer so i picked one out & pulled out our demo chair for her & asked her to take a seat. she frowned at me & stayed where she was standing. so i did my thing.. sanitized the product (she frowned again & asked what i was spraying on it - try alcohol?), got out a brush & started applying the bronzer on her. i pulled away for like 2 seconds to see how it was looking & she lunged for the mirror. she was like "i usually do it just on this part" & points to the apples of her cheeks. so i held the brush out to her & i was like "do you want to do it yourself then?" & she goes "well, i *guess* it's okay how *you* were doing it....." but then she grabs the brush from me & completely overbronzes her face. then she proceeds to take a loose bronze shimmer powder (in an unsanitizable sifter - ew.) & brushes it all over. her face looked like a dirty disco ball. needless to say she left without buying anything.

.....

 

[..kels*]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nyla2120 Most of my cutomers seem to think that the bronzer is supposed to make them look like an orange disco ball, most times when I apply it they want like 3 more layers because "they can't see it". And I HATE it when you are helping a customer & they grab some un-sanitized product & put it on themsleves. It's a big problem with lipsticks especially. All the MA's know what a long process lipstick picking can be, sometimes they act as if it's a life or death decision. So needless to say if they still haven't found the perfect shade of not too bright, too matte, but not to shimmery, not too pink, pink after 5 tries, I sometimes have to step away to pull products for customers who already know exactly what I need. But, even though I have explained about how we sanitize the lipsticks & have already cleaned the 5 she has already tried on right in front of her, when I get back to her she has smeared a several different dirty lipsticks on her mouth, *cringe*. Oh & I love it when a customer opens a lipglass tester & then marches up to me & acts as if I'm an idiot while she goes "How are the customers supposed to try on the lipgloss if there is no applicator in it?"

hahaha oh dear god.. those ladies drive me crazy! it doesn't matter if you suggest exactly what they asked for; somehow it's never THEE lipstick.

 

[Kiseki]

The "Friend" deserves to be shot down, and sometimes the friends isn't a friend at all. I've seen time and again supposed friends saying horrible friends about their friend's looks that are downright insulting.

On *THEE* lipstick comment, I was a friend who suffered TWO freaking hours for my friend to pick out the perfect shade of pink lipstick at Clinique, it was so sufferable that I even said "Gods, Vanda, you're taking so long that suicide is seeming like a reasonable outing for this nightmare.", I felt bad for the poor MUA, she just rolled her eyes when my friend hated every single shade of lipstick...

 

[FacesbyNiki]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bernadette I'm sorry but I have to ad that I think it's ridiculous that we can't come on here and voice opinions about situations we deal with in our jobs and can all relate to without having some know-it-all that has never been in our shoes coming in and either telling us "That is your job, you have to deal with that" or "You shouldn't have taken the job then." or "I can match a foundation from a picture and I'm not even a professional" blah blah blah. You know what, you don't have our job and you don't get to tell us how we are doing it or what situations you have not been in are like. We should be able to come on here and discuss these things without having to hear that BS. I think whoever mentioned having an artist only section where we can talk about work situatiosn was really onto something....

Whew.. So agree with you!!!

 

[DirtyPlum]

I enjoyed reading this thread... lol... I am a newbie, have only been with MAC for four weeks but have to say that I have already come across a number of 'Friends' with her silent 'doesnt wear any make-up friend'!!!

One particular incident, I actually said to the Friend ''I'll leave a couple of brushes with you and you can apply the way you want to?'' (politely) Which they were a bit surprised about but said ok anyway... so I left them to it and served other customers...I kept going back to check to see how they were doing and they asked me about concealer and foundation. The Friend actually let me apply those and liked the results and in the end ending up buying both and just taking the names of the eyeshadows... I was like.. right, ok..so all that time was spent on the eyes for what exactly....???!!!

Its like they dont even know what THEY want and expect us to be able to read their minds and wave our magic wands/brushes and they'll look beautiful!! In fact, they dont know what they want, but then neither does the know-it-all Friend!

 

[KittieSparkles]

These are the times that I thank my lucky stars that I am a freelance make-up artist and only work with models. My models know the drill, you sit down, shut up, let me do my work. You are here to model not to do the make-up.

This weekend I went to the counter and saw this same exact thing happen to my favorite MA, So I went up to the annoying friend and said:

Me: "excuse me do you work here? I need help"
Annoying friend: "No, I do not work here"
Me: "Oh, you could have fooled me the way you are barking orders to the MA"

Not only did the annoying friend stop, the MA looked so happy.

I think you guys rule, that you can actually put up with this. I would have had a fit ages ago.

 

[Hikaru-chan]

Guess what, if you work in retail you have the right not to be treated like shit by rude customers.
God I'm so fed up with people moaning about how it's the MA's job to re-do a look 5 times, be patient and nice to a customer who clearly is there just to waste time.
I can only assume that "those people" have never worked in retail.
The MA's work hard and are allowed to let off some steam if they want to.

 

[GreekChick]

^^Yes! Lately, the demos have bee getting out of hand. Some counters have banned them, which was something waiting to happen.
Seriously, I love it when an entire bridal party will stop by the counter without an appointment. 5-7 girls will walk in with their hair done at the salon, wearing absolutely no makeup and ask to "please get their eyes done because they are running late" and "if it's a free service". Oh God, how we all dread those moments. They made an appointment at the hairdresser's, why is it different for the makeup? Then, when we say we are COMPLETELY booked out of our minds with appointments that day, they get pissed and start panicking and resort to making threats about our jobs and how they want the customer service number.
Ladies, you aren't customers. In fact, you rarely shop here. You somehow heard it from someone that MAC gives a "free eye makeup application", no appointment required, so you assume that it's okay to just march in here an give us orders and complain about the fact that you're running late, and that the photographer is waiting for you back at the bride's house, blah blah blah blah blah.

 

[Babylard]

Wow, i've read several of these threads because I enjoy learning about people's experience (from both perspectives of the worker and customer). I've yet to do a MAC demo and I've only been to MAC a couple times, so these threads really let me understand the importance of proper manners and etiquette. I don't have the money and courage to go get a proper appointment yet, but one day I will!

It saddens me when people attack one another (rude, unsightful, biased, etc) for venting their fustrations and experiences.

But anyway.. i'm trailing off topic. I hope you have better days

I try to be courteous whenever I go shopping and the employees always seem to appreciate it. Even if it's as silly as picking up an eyeshadow that an MA dropped and putting it back in place when she was reorganizing the display.

From the customer side, I really hate how some friends that tag along are so ignorant and closed-minded when it comes to having someone else apply your makeup. I really stopped asking for opinions when it comes to cosmetics. If I like how certain items look on me, then that's all that matters. I used to always ask my roomate whenever I do my own makeup and he always gives me the thumbs down.

There are just people out there who can't handle makeup colours beyond the usual neautrals and pinks. At school, I'd have to say I stand among the colourful people.

The friend reminds me of this time when I was in La Senza. There was a groupie of little pre-teens shopping. One girl was holding a bra that was padded (in my opinion would give her better support). Her buddies were like "NNOOO! DON'T DO IT! LOOK HOW THICK IT IS!" They seemed to be suggesting that she was being a whore or something for choosing a bra that will maybe make her boobs bigger. Then they pointed to the shitty super thin ones that I quickly passed over even though they were on sale for freaken cheap. Friends can have such a negative influence that it's sickening! I felt pretty bad for her.

Sorry for the long post.

I babble beyond belief.

 

[baybehbekah]

customers just suck sometimes

haha & people are just plan dumb sometimes

thats been my experience in the cosmetic industry!

 

[schiller16]

i agree, people that comment about "you knew that before you started, thats part of the job get used to it" ect. obviousley havent worked retail.
and personally i always seem to get the "mother" which is horrible because the mom always suggests the same colors, textures ect as she wears and there is how big of an age gap and you look nothing alike.
but its hard to say anything to those people because they think they know everything so much better than you do...ofcourse even though this is my job.

and "thee lipstick" thing gets me alot. i dont work at mac but i work at shoppers drug mart and a woman came in looking for a "watermelon" color mac lipstick that was l/e and i told her yes i know what your talking about its l/e but i can show you something similar. and i swear i was with her for a good hour and i showed her some very simliar things, and she kept saying NO! WATERMELON! over and over and i showed her this is what i think of and she said no havent you ever seen a f#cking watermelon? then she was just like fine ill go and get the one i had before from mac