Arg. Arrogant salespeople.

I have never been so riled up in my life before. Okay, not so much angry but exasperated.
Okay, so I go to one of the Douglas fragrance shops (Sephora equivalent in France) today and this lady comes to help me. I go in with a list of fragrances that I wanted to check out. I pointed out whether or not they had the Meteorites fragrance by Guerlain (I didn't know it was discontinued until doing research now). I asked for the fragrance. She was like, "oh you mean the make up right? I said no no, the fragrance." She said, "It doesn't exist." I said, "I'm pretty sure it does. I heard much about it in the past." She said, "it never existed." She grabbed an older women and asked her, "does Meteorites, the perfume exist?" The woman said, "certainly not."

The first woman tells me, "we have every Guerlain fragrance ever made." This was a red flag for me. I was like, "have you heard of Djedi? Or Guet-Apens?" The woman responded, "they don't exist." I responded calmly, "they do. I'm sure of it. Thank you have a nice day." As I was walking away, she retorted, "I'm very certain that they do not."

So it's childish. I should have cut the thread to this conversation long time ago. I'm genuinely a nice, peaceful guy. I've never picked a fight in my life. For some reason, I felt I had to. I knew I was going to lose because of my broken French. No matter how it turned out, I'm going to be a laughing stock when I leave the store.

I told her, "I'm not here to be challenging. But one shouldn't say something doesn't exist if one is not completely sure." (I should have formulated this statement differently, like "One should have some flexibility and some uncertainty on the things that one has learned.) She said, "But I am completely sure that those three fragrances do not exist." She grabbed the older lady and the older lady says, "I've worked in this industry for 22 years and I've studied the house of Guerlain. They do not exist." I said, "I've studied a good deal of the history of fragrances too, and I believe that they do." She said to the woman, "He's a foreigner. (turns to me) Where did you get these names?" I said, "From reading, like books on fragrances. (In the back of my head... I lost an ebay.fr auction of Guet-Apens yesterday. And I did my research on that one. I knew at least that one for sure exists.)" She said, "Oh, well Guerlain is an important French brand and well, you're a foreigner. Probably all of the information is twisted and manipulated in your country." At this point, I'm thinking "oh my gosh, she did not just say that." She continues, "both me and my colleague have studied in the fragrance industry, we know what we are talking about." She peers me up and down (I'm 22, wearing a beanie, sweater, jeans, and Converses), giving me a what do you know kind of look... who do you think you are?

I asked them, "How about I give you guys proof?" The older woman nodded. I got the older woman's name. I asked for the younger woman's. She responded in a haughty voice, "Frankly, I want to see your proof. Claire." I walked out kinda pissed off about how arrogant these women were. At the same time, I was disappointed that I couldn't articulately and peacefully communicate what I wanted to say. Everything would not have gone down so childishly if it were in English. But their frustration of not getting me to back down only added fuel to the fire, as we duked it out. But at the same time, it wasn't really combative from my end, but I felt like they were attacking me the entire time. I couldn't help but feel exasperated.

They had absolutely no flexibility. Everything turned around after I walked through the Dior boutique, L'artisan boutique, and the newly opened Jo Malone store and talked up a storm, scoring cool samples and great contact information.

Nonetheless, I think French people are really awesome. What drives me crazy sometimes is that (I speak really broadly) many French people are so confident in themselves that their being wrong is impossible.

And correct me if I'm wrong. Djedi, Guet-Apens, and Meteorites exist. No? I'm 95% sure that they do, leaving some room for error.

[Addendum] The conversations are a bit watered down, but these women used strong definitives "I never heard of them. They never existed. You are wrong. I am 100% sure. I am right. I am very certain."

Good point. Well, I do this in order to make conversation with the great grand goal to practice my French. I never deal with sales associates in general (when I lived in America), but I'm always open to finding someone who is truly knowledgeable - I mean all these sales associates do go through perfume (not design) school to be where they are.

In retrospect, you are more than absolutely correct (I got your comment to its entirety - sharp). Again, I was more ruffled by their inflexibility.

Oh, I totally misread the tone of your post as sarcasm! For some reason, I thought you were saying that I proposed some names that were too difficult.


Frankly, I think basenotes is really a wonderful "institution". On is able to learn so much from the melange of everyone's contributions.

No, I got you! On the side, I was just saying how great basenotes is.

Narcus,

Excellent points.
-In hindsight, I think everything was more or less well communicated. I understood pretty much every word that they said and I'm pretty sure they of me. And with proper nouns, I was able to reaffirm everything on the notebook that I had with me. But one is able to detect the haughty attitudes from the get-go. Tuner_Watson is also right, my later critique of the woman didn't help the situation. And perhaps, based on the sharper American tonality/rhythm, I might have come off more combative than peaceful.
-As for your points about Sephora and visiting independent perfume shops, I absolutely agree. Sephora is indeed the better alternative, and I am a fan of Galleries Lafayette (a big department store), the older women there are more knowledgeable. The Printemps (another big department store) has excellent, warm customer service. I've scoped out several of the independent perfume shops and befriended the owners. These owners are the gems because they are always in contact with niche fragrance houses.

I'm over all this. In the future, I'm going to continue seeking the private fragrance shops, and if I need anything mainstream, I'm sticking with the shops with the better track records in my books.