This past summer, my best friend Casey and I decided to go apartment shopping in downtown Raleigh- or rather, we went apartment window-shopping, since we never had any intention of actually renting an apartment. However, Casey and I frequently walked past new, beautiful urban apartment buildings in the heart of the city and just for fun, wanted to see what they looked like on the inside. We found one building that looked particularly trendy and hipster, and decided to walk inside and ask to see an apartment.
We walked into the beautiful entrance, filled with marble and waterfalls, and waited for someone to come help us. However, after about ten minutes of waiting, still no one had come out into the lobby. We decided to walk around a little bit on the ground floor while we waited. We past a beautiful bar, and indoor pool area, and many other extravagant, yet modern places to hang out. After walking around, we went back to the lobby and waited for about 10 more minutes before the front desk attendant finally came out. She walked out, without making eye contact with us, still finishing a bite of her lunch and said, “I didn’t hear you girls come in. I am on my lunch break.” Casey and I apologized for bothering her and offered to wait a while longer. She quickly responded, “No, I’m fine. What do you want to see?”
Casey and I explained to her that we pass the apartment building all the time and we just wanted to see one, since it was a big goal of ours to live in the building after graduation. The woman replied, “I’ll need to see your IDs.” She took our Ids, made copies of them, and then told us that she would show us her cheapest apartment. As she walked us to the apartment, we asked her about the different types of apartments in the building. She briefly described to us the four different styles of apartments, ending three of the four descriptions with “But that layout will be expensive.” After briefly walking around the cheapest apartment, Casey and I thanked the woman for her time and quickly left, with no desire to ever go back to that apartment complex.
The woman never asked us a single question about our budget, if we would have other roommates, if we had any amenities preferences, or anything else. Clearly, she didn’t see us as immediate or wealthy customers, and she didn’t want to waste her time on us. Rather than leaving with the same hope and excitement we had going into the apartment complex about living there in the future, we left with a bad taste in our mouth, feeling guilty about ever going in.
Although this woman probably wouldn’t consider herself a saleswoman, she still had the potential to paint a picture for us of what it could look like to live in the heart of the city ad 22 year olds, and solidified our goal to live in her building one day. Rather, she made us feel unwanted, and left us feeling determined to never go back. I think this just goes to show that even people who are not directly in sales can influence others and either sell them on something, or turn them away from something.
BoweryJE22
I can understand why she would have been hesitant, but she should have still given you the time of day and asked questions as if she could make a potential sale.
It seems to me that the lady judged you right from the beginning as people that weren’t really in the market for an apartment. I wonder if she had numerous “tire kickers” or “window shoppers” and was tired of dealing with them. Even if that was the case she seemed rude in how she showed you the apartments and made comments about how this one would be to expensive for you. I wonder if you would have had your parents with and asked for a showing if she would have treated you differently?
My heavens, what an awful experience! I had a similar experience when I went to visit Tennessee with my parents. We were looking at a school program there and we wanted to look into apartments, and when we went to check out the first ones, the sales woman just wrote us off completely. It’s amazing how people make snap judgements that will end up losing them money.