Friday, February 27, 2015

It's Not All Roses: Burlington

Burlington Coat Factory is basically across the street from my new office.  It's been cold so I haven't taken that walk yet, but last week I had an eye appointment and had arrived early enough so I stopped on my way home.  I allowed about an hour of shopping time; there are other stores like TJ Maxx very close by, if I had enough time to shop.

I was still looking for passable women's shirts.  I found one that was perfect ~ only in an S.  I'm several letters away from that.  I also found a really pretty dress; they had a lot of similar dresses but this was the only one I really coveted.  It was available in M, which was still the wrong letter (but only off by one).

I looked at pants and found two dress pants, one black, one grey.  Both were passable but in addition to what you can see there's a couple of intangibles: crotch room and hip shape.  There has to be enough of the former and not too much of the latter.

It was try-on time.

Women's is downstairs; men's is upstairs so I had to go up to try on the slacks.  I found the dressing rooms.  I also found the dressing rooms lacking.  There was no place to sit, and no hooks on the wall. They had saloon-style doors (which means someone can easily look over while I'm in my undies).  I tried a few different rooms.  How can you have a dressing room with no place to put down your clothes? 

The only variation was, one door didn't even latch.  I gave up and figured returns are an option.  I still had over a half-hour before I had to leave.

I continued shopping.

I had those new breast forms that were smaller than my usual ones ~ probably a 38B instead of a C.  I went to the intimates department where I found the area flooded with 38C's (which I have enough of) but only one or two 38B's (which I didn't like).

I did find an article of shapewear I wanted to try and I picked that up too.

Checkout lines weren't very long but they were very disorganised and it seemed shoppers were incapable of buying just a few items.  Carts were full, and after several minutes of not moving, I had an idea: upstairs, when I (almost) tried on my clothes, there were more registers.

I headed up.

One register was open.  One person was in front of me and they just had a jacket.

But at the register was a woman buying men's sneakers for feet bigger than mine.  It seemed for each pair the customer had to pull out her drivers license which the clerk had trouble scanning or checking (even though she just did it).  Then she'd struggle to get the shoes in a bag.  Then she'd do the next pair.  There were still several pairs and I headed back down.

Now, lines were almost gone.  One woman seemed to be finishing up and I would be next.

Except there was a man standing near the register who had a couple of suits that looked as if they came out of the cleaners (bagged).  The clerk took him.

I figured he was waiting and I hadn't noticed him.  I was at my self-imposed leave time, but one person, two suits....

It took several minutes to check him out.  But I'm next!

A woman was standing behind the guy with the suits.  She had a cart full of who knows what.  It looked like she was stocking a garage sale.

I dropped the slacks and left.

In spite of finding exactly the hard-to-locate items I wanted, Burlington is off my list.





6 comments:

  1. Meg -

    Excluding the issue of my size, I ruled out Burlington years ago, simply because of their overall environment. The same thing went for Syms (when they were in business), even though they had better stock - without good places to try on clothes - why bother?

    In places where they have private fitting rooms, it's easy for people like us to take a garment off the rack, try it on, and know whether it fits before buying it. Macy's, Penney's, Sears, etc. all have acceptable fitting rooms. And the high end stores have even better fitting rooms. So I make the trade off to pay more money, and be sure that what I buy fits right, as well as not having to wait on long lines....

    Now if only I could pass muster with other women looking at my body. We can dream, can't we.....

    M

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    1. I never checked out the fitting rooms at Syms, but I loved their stores, especially the clearly colour-coded size tags!

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  2. I've had similar experiences with Burlington in my town: not enough cashiers, no discernible fitting rooms.....used to be a good place to shop, but not anymore.

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  3. Meg

    The BCF near me is quite different. The fitting rooms have lockable doors, with a place to sit and everything. The only problem is the "guard" at the entrance to the fitting rooms, men to the left, women to the right. I've tried dresses on there. let them laugh; I don't care. BTW, the store i in Fairfax City, just west of down town.

    Steffi

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    Replies
    1. I believe that one's brand new.... Maybe that's the key.

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  4. Oh NO! Know that location, and it always was a disaster. i feel for you! Good thing it was a while ago now, lol! sara elise

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