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Hey readers!

  I haven't been to Kensington Market a while, and used to have a blast going digging for vintage when I was
younger, so my sister and I decided to drop in yesterday to check it out.  I couldn't believe the lack of good quality customer service in a lot of those shops!  No "Hi", no smiles, nothing.  Just cold, snobby employees in almost every store we went into.

  We were starving and wanted pizza, so the first pizza place we saw was on College Street, called Planet Pizza.  The first guy greeted us with a smile, but that was probably because it was his first day on the job (dude, if you're reading this: please don't lose that great attitude), but then when I asked where the bathroom is, he pointed it out, then the older guy who was sitting in a chair by the cash register chimed in and said "It's out of order", while giving me this dirty look.  Then I asked where the nearest bathroom was, I had to ask him 3 times before he suggested the 711 somewhere nearby (when he could have suggested maybe Second Cup across the street). Rude.  The pizza had old-looking pepperoni, the slices were a decent size though (like a quarter of a pizza sliced into 3), and the dipping sauces were not refrigerated, so that must have been what got me sick later in the day.  I don't even recall being asked if I wanted a drink, nor was I pointed in the direction of where the drinks were.  If it weren't for the new guy being so nice, I'd rate the customer service and overall experience a negative 3 out of 10.  Horrible.

This car was awesome.
  I've walked into shops where staff members would be doing stuff on their smart phones, rather than being attentive to customers walking in.  I've been to this one huge shop called Exile (that happens to have the best selection of vintage that I've probably ever seen in that part of the city) where one of the older, blonde women who worked at the back of the store was on her cell phone complaining about how she's stuck at work, while gossiping- call me crazy, but something about that screams unprofessional.  The staff at the cash register were nice though.

  Other cashiers in smaller shops would just stare at you like a corn child and not say a word, so I would step in, feel uncomfortable, then walk over to the next shop.  It's bad enough the shops are tiny and a nightmare to claustrophobes like me, but if I actually got a warm welcome, maybe I would have toughed it out to scour the racks and shelves of vintage gems.

  This one shop called Courage My Love, that has a reputation of housing unique beads (a jewelry maker's dream), as well as vintage threads, had a few girls working there: two of which were just sitting behind the counter talking to each other, not even paying attention to the customers.

  I have no complaints about the cheese shop, the Army Surplus, the shop with all the Indian rugs/belly dance
costumes/decorations, the former Hotbox Cafe (now it's a coffee place), or Roach-O-Rama (where the new Hotbox Cafe is located behind).  I'd say we skipped maybe 5 stores in Kensington.  The art work you see while walking around on the streets is awesome, as usual.

  After all that, we headed to Queen Street and had better experiences there.

  So, people who work in Kensington: why so stuck up and miserable?  Is this just Kensington, or is this a city-people-working-in-retail thing?  I get it:  it's not glamorous working in a small, stuffy space that smells musty.  Some stores (the non-vintage shops) smelled like 10 dogs urinated on a carpet.  Regardless, it's not like you're any better than the people who go there to buy old, used (yet, awesome and cool) crap, but are also the reasons why you have a job in the first place!   If you don't like to deal with people, don't get a job that requires you to deal with people!!  If you've got enough balls to act like you're too good for the place you work in, then quit if that's the case.  Customers don't need to feel your shitty energy while trying to enjoy a day of shopping.

  I remember a while back there was news of Kensington Market being shut down and replaced with a WalMart... shouldn't there be more happy people working there, or are all these staff members just a bunch of trust-fund babies who took on a retail job to make it look like they're actually useful to society?  If that's the case, these snobs should do us all a favor and maybe give up their jobs to people who will actually make the customers feel welcome.

  Either way, I am glad Kensington Market is still up and active, but proper customer service, and general friendliness needs to me taught, apparently.

@JerZGrlinCanada

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