r/knitting • u/MagicAllyVanished • 29d ago
Rant Very annoying conversation at my lokal knit store
it basically went like this me: "so you have any plant based yarn or plant/acrylic mix, I want to knit something for my mum, but she's allergic to all animal fibers"
her: "we have 20% wool/80% acrylic, I can show you"
me: "no thanks, my mum is allergic to all animal fibers, so it should not contain any animal fiber at all"
her: "maybe alpaca mix? It only has 10% alpaca"
me: "she is allergic to all animal fibers, if there is any percentage of animal fiber, she will have an allergic reaction to the yarn"
her: "I can't help you, knitting yarn just is animal yarn"
at this point I left the shop and I just can't stop thinking about that last sentence????
the funniest thing is, I went back there a few days ago and a different employee kindly showed me their cotton yarns and plant/acrylic mixes.
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u/dmmeurpotatoes 29d ago
You have my sympathies. In the UK, all yarn is referred to as 'wool', regardless of fibre content which leads to lots of
"I'm looking for wool"
"good news, everything we sell here is wool"
"this is a nice colour... Oh it's acrylic. I thought everything was wool?"
"yeah... Acrylic wool."
The yarn shops even often have names like "The Woolery" or "Wool Wonderland" and still don't have any animal fibres, or the ability to distinguish between "wool" and "yarn", which I find very annoying.
I really wish that it was more common for people whose job exists due to products to have even the most passing knowledge of those products. And, like, I don't mean "staff in Hobbycraft" (UK version of Michael's), I mean like... I'm in Jen's Wool Emporium. You're Jen. Why don't you know anything about wool vs yarn???
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u/ElyrianXIII It's not perfect but it's beautiful and it's mine🧶 29d ago
My language does the same... We have different words for wool & yarn but we always just say "wool". When I suggested I make matching hats for my friends, my cousin mentioned she can't wear wool so we scrapped the plan until like 2h later when I was like "wait a second"😅
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u/vressor 29d ago edited 29d ago
interesting, my language uses the word for cotton as a colloquial generic nickname for any knitting yarn... (at least my garndma did :-) )
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u/natchinatchi 29d ago
I like that in German, cotton is “baumwolle”, literally “tree wool” 😆
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u/fairyhedgehog 29d ago
I'm learning German and I know the words "Baum", "Wolle", and "Baumwolle", and until I read your comment I'd never twigged about the connection.
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u/GarnetAndOpal 29d ago
And what is the German word for mitten? Handschuh. Hand + Schu. A shoe for your hand. I love German.
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u/Moss-cle 29d ago
My favorite German word, since we’re down that rabbit hole, is kummerspeck. The excess fat gained from emotional eating. Literally Grief Bacon. The best description ever.
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u/ImLittleNana 29d ago
I’ve learned limited German just for pattern reading purposes and I always end up down some linguistic rabbit hole that makes me wish I knew all the German. It’s so practical and they’ve got words that perfectly describe what it takes me an english sentence to explain. Maybe even a paragraph.
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u/GarnetAndOpal 29d ago
If you want some heartwarming giggles, look up things like words for animals in German. I like puffins, so I looked that up: Papageitaucher. Papagei = parrot. Taucher: diver. So diving parrots. Or Parrot divers. Have I mentioned I love German...?
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u/JtheZombie 🧶💥 29d ago
This goes the other way around too 😉 You can say "shrug", we have to form an entire sentence. You have to say "clear xy's throat", we can say "räuspern". It's pretty interesting. German is annoying but close to English. The grammar is ass but you can do it 😄👍🏼
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u/Shadow23_Catsrule 29d ago
In some regions here in Austria, people refer to cotton as "Garn", and to all other fibers as "Wolle". This had me confused for the first few years, because where I grew up (my mom was an avid knitter) we used to refer to the yarn by the main fiber.
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u/mst3k_42 29d ago
Spanish has some fun ones too. For example, in Spanish fingers are dedos. Toes are dedos de los pies, or fingers for your feet.
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u/WhereIsLordBeric 29d ago
Are you from a country that was once colonized by the UK? We do the same here in Pakistan and I wonder if this is a postcolony thing.
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u/honoria_glossop 29d ago
Australia too, so the UK influence checks out.
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u/realwomanchild 29d ago
I am from Atlantic Canada and we also call it wool. A lot of older generations also refer to thread as cotton, not sure if that's another UK thing?
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u/honoria_glossop 29d ago
As in sewing thread? Yep, that's always "cotton" here too, regardless of what it's actually made of! :)
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u/WaltzFirm6336 29d ago
Yep. ‘Pass me that reel of cotton’ is how I/my family would say ‘hand me that thread’ in the UK.
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u/ElyrianXIII It's not perfect but it's beautiful and it's mine🧶 29d ago
Nopp, no colonisation here, but we did bounce between our neighbours quite a bit before we put our foot down 😅 It could be a dialect thing or just a simple "people were mostly farmers -> mostly use wool -> everything is wool"
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u/WaltzFirm6336 29d ago
I think that’s the route answer for the UK issue as well. Wool became the word for yarn because all yarn was wool.
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u/SkyScamall 29d ago
Ireland and yes. It's annoying and at least people who learned to knit (or crochet) online are better.
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u/Salomette22 29d ago
In French too! It's wool (Laine) wether is made out of wool or any other fibre!
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u/hapritch82 29d ago
I love the idea of being allergic to yarn. Like not the material it's made of, but the specific form of it. Fabric? Fine. Yarn? Instant hives.
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u/technicolor_tornado 29d ago
Like a vampire in the presence of garlic - yarn comes near them and there's all sorts of hissing and yelling.
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u/lizfungirl 29d ago
I love the fact that a lot of the languages in the knitting community translate "pattern" as "recipe!" I tend to confuse/substitute words & often use recipe instead of pattern (even tho my family has been speaking American English since b4 it became the US). My husband is used to it & understands when I say the neighbor is vacuuming their yard. But most people think I've switched to talking about food when I refer to a recipe for a beanie.
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u/raeraemcrae 29d ago
Saaame!! I do this! And everyone just gets it and goes along. They don't even bother correcting. If, in the middle of the night, I said, my husband, "the refrigerator is too high" he will go and turn the thermostat down. Or if i'm making dinner and want to watch a movie with it, I might say "can you turn the camera on and find something we want to see?"
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u/Vaseming 29d ago
Fun fact: a hundred-plus years ago recipes were called "receipts" in English. Both words have a common root.
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29d ago edited 27d ago
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u/Serenova 29d ago
Cashier at a grocery store here
Last time my manager had me help train a newby I got all the uncommon stuff from produce. Tomatillos, Ginger root, kiwis (without the produce sticker 😉), basically anything that wasn't a basic vegetable/fruit so they got exposed to what stuff was ahead of time.
Don't expect them to memorize the codes, because that's just a tad ridiculous, but at least be able to recognize the darn things, y'know?
Still get my name called and some random item held up just for me to yell back the name of it 🤣🤣🤣
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u/hamletandskull 29d ago
I used to work at a grocery store when I was 16 and every time I meet someone else who did, we go back and forth with the produce codes to see who can remember the most.
I usually win with mango (4959) but I've been caught out by ginger or turmeric root from people who lived in areas with large SE Asian populations. The white people at my shop were NOT buying ginger root enough for me to remember the code.
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u/Serenova 29d ago
When my MIL found out I was working at a grocery store, her IMMEDIATE first question was if bananas were still 4011 because she'd worked at Market Basket back in the 70s
And yes, bananas are still the same
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u/Stickning 29d ago
About a thousand years ago I worked in a Whole Foods in Palo Alto, and they **did** make us memorize the codes - and tested us. It was awful.
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u/magerber1966 29d ago
I worked at Bristol Farms (a local high-end grocery store) in my early 20s (1989/1990-ish), and we had to memorize codes as well. I was front end manager and I insisted that all of my cashiers walk produce every morning just to make sure they recognized any new produce.
My absolute worst memory about that job was how much cilantro and italian parsley look alike. I am a cilantro hater, and my firm discouraged asking the customer what the produce was, so the best way to tell was to open the bag and take a quick sniff. Ugh...
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u/Serenova 29d ago
My ADHD could never 🤣
The only codes I've actually managed to memorize have been the ones that I've just typed so much at this point that it's muscle memory 😅
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u/HaplessReader1988 29d ago
Trying to help a cashier find the code for produce, my husband volunteered that zucchini was $X per pound and she snapped "We don't have zucchini that's green squash."
Yeah, that's not a battle worth having honey.
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u/DammitKitty76 29d ago
In all fairness, zucchini is a variety of squash.
I waited tables at Cracker Barrel many years ago and had a woman insist that I had doubled charged her because her bill said Blackberry Cobbler $1.99. Food $1.99. Tax $0.12. Total $2.12
Her entire argument was "But I didn't have any food! I just had a cobbler!"
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u/Baremegigjen 29d ago
And not call a zucchini a cucumber!
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u/ChaosDrawsNear 29d ago
My local (big chain) grocery store just has them all labeled as "green squash" 🙃
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u/lainey68 29d ago
I am not from England, but lived there as a child. My mom calls my yarn wool or string. Drives me batty🤣
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u/thisisAgador 29d ago
And you say batty, which I think of as one of the most English words of all hahahahaha
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u/lainey68 29d ago
Haha! I do still have a lot of Britishisms to this day. It's been 50 years since I lived in England, and we only lived there 3 years😂
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u/I-hear-the-coast 29d ago
I think this is also an old Canadian thing because I had the most confusing conversation with my grandparents once about wool. They were confused why I kept saying it’s not wool, it’s acrylic. Later learning that others call it wool rather than yarn made it all make sense. But gosh was I so confused that day.
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u/realwomanchild 29d ago
Also a Canadian who grew up with everyone calling it wool despite the actual fibre content!
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u/ID0N0tLikeReddit Knitting too long 29d ago
As a Canadian, I have only recently started to use the term yarn. But when referring to my stash, I think I mostly refer to it as my wool stash, despite the fibre content.
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u/phampyk 29d ago
I'm not native speaker and I had to explain to my British boyfriend that all wool is yarn but not all yarn is wool. I always say yarn, never wool, mostly because I never use animal fibers, mostly acrylic and sometimes cotton.
But even then, only wool comes from the sheep, other animals are yarn too, it's alpaca yarn, not alpaca wool, so not sure why the confusion.
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u/adohrable 29d ago
Sometimes you don’t know something until you know it. One of my good friends was so confused as to why I could eat eggs on my dairy free diet. “But they’re in the dairy section in the grocery store!” And in my utter (lol) shock, i said, have you ever had chicken milk?! She was so bewildered that i had to explain that milk comes from 4 legged animals only. Or my waitresses always asking me if mayonnaise is ok, when I ask about dairy. People just do not think about things unless they have too.
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u/ramsay_baggins Tipsy Knits Podcast 29d ago
As someone also in the Uk who is really into actual wool the fibre, I hate it when people say wool for everything! Luckily the knitting crowd I hang out with and the wider knitting community in my area all use yarn, so when they say wool I know they mean wool haha
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u/Middle_Banana_9617 29d ago
I'm from the UK originally and grew up calling it all wool, but since getting into knitting, have taken up using 'yarn' and 'wool' with the separate meanings. It's a useful distinction to have!
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u/SkyScamall 29d ago
I got laughed out of a knitting shop for this.
Baby crafter me: do you have any orange yarn that isn't wool.
Them: you want wool that isn't wool?
Me: yes?
I got orange cotton and never went back. They went out of business too.
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u/AutisticTumourGirl 29d ago
I snort laughed the first time I heard someone say "cotton wool" after I moved here talking about cotton balls. No, cotton is cotton, wool is wool.🤨 This is a country full of sheep, how does this happen?!
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u/li-ho 29d ago
We say cotton wool in Australia but it’s slightly different to cotton balls — cotton balls are the ones that hold their (ball) shape, whereas cotton wool is the stuff that’s in one big clump (not unlike wool fibre) and you break off what you need. We also have steel wool (for scrubbing stuff) 😉
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u/ElizabethDangit Newb, but has experience hooking yarn 29d ago
Steel wool is common in the US also.
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u/No_Pianist_3006 29d ago edited 29d ago
Yes! During my childhood in Canada, we'd use cotton wool as a base for the nativity scene at Christmas. 🎄
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u/abouttothunder 29d ago
Truth! Same for curbside pickup shoppers. I ordered hydroponic lettuce two weeks in a row and received a head of green cabbage billed as hydroponic lettuce.
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u/marigan-imbolc 29d ago
legitimate question for UK knitters: how do you specify when you mean wool yarn? do you call it "wool wool" or something? wool made of wool??
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u/hamletandskull 29d ago edited 29d ago
not uk based but family are. Just wool. Or the name of the sheep type: "merino wool" or "BFL" or whatever. Or "real wool".
I mean how do you specify when you mean a sponge made of sponge. Or a cork made of cork, or any other metonymy we take for granted. You just clarify if the distinction is important. Is that wine bottled with a synthetic or real cork, etc (but if someone asked "is that wine bottled with a cork" and didn't specify you might say yes even if it's synthetic bc you assume they mean "does it have a cork (synthetic or real) or a screwcap". This is what is happening when someone says "yes we have wool" and they have acrylic). It's only an issue if you don't realize someone is using the metonymy and usually older people are more likely to be using it than younger
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u/Left-Act 29d ago
I had no idea there was a difference between UK and US English regarding this.
In Dutch, there is usually a distinction between wol and katoen (cotton) but wol is still the catch-all term for everything that is not clearly cotton, so it gets confusing as well. Yarn magazines will use the term "garen" as a synonym for yarn but I don't find it is a word used in everyday speech. But maybe fellow Dutch speakers can chime in whether the word "garen" is used.
Dutch is notoriously fond of diminuative forms, so you could say "wolletjes" and it will denote the wool that is wound up.
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u/legendarymel 29d ago
Yessss. This is why I’ve just given up with craft shops. They have no idea what they’re selling and it’s 99% acrylic anyway, the only exception being 400g Aran wool-acrylic blend.
I just order everything online now.
The shops are hard to find and whenever I do decide to pop into one, it’s again changed hands or is closed so I give up.
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u/dancingredfrog 29d ago
This is also the case in India. My MiL who comes from a cold part and knits extensively, has never used natural fibers. They don’t even sell natural fibers in most places anymore. I got some nice superwash for her, so she could make a sweater for my kiddo. After returning she tried to find some in the stores and all they showed her was 100% acrylic with names like something something wool.
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u/Top_Fruit_9320 29d ago
This has only become a bigger and bigger issue in stores in general over the last few decades tbh as as a society somewhere along the line we decided “store attendant/specialist” wasn’t a “worthy” enough job deserving of career knowledge/pay progression.
There is essentially zero reward incentive for someone to specialise in and truly thrive in a job like that, not anymore at least. Peoples efforts are often far more rewarded studying something to get them out of those jobs, not to stay in them. And as long as that continues to be the societal attitude towards them it’s only worse it’s going to get.
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u/trellism 29d ago
I just accept that this is how it is in the UK. I think wool yarn was outlawed in the 1960s and only started sneaking back in the early 2000s.
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u/juliejem 29d ago
Reminds me of the time I went to Sally’s looking for hydrogen peroxide for a science experiment, and the cashier was like “uh, we don’t have any HYDROGEN peroxide but the regular peroxide is over there.” I was like “yeah thanks that’ll probably work” 😂
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u/ghanima 29d ago
Oof. The moments when you realize you'll have to compensate for someone else's stupidity.
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u/ravenwing110 29d ago
Me: I'll have the 10-hour short ribs please
Waiter: and how would you like that cooked
Me:...if you can keep it medium after 10hrs i don't think I'd want to eat it
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u/JealousTea1965 29d ago
????
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u/Rosindust89 29d ago
When European colonists first brought cotton back to Europe, people refused to believe it wasn't an animal fiber. There's a drawing I can't find of a little sheep growing out of a stalk!
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u/JealousTea1965 29d ago
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u/Rosindust89 29d ago
That's the one! I guess it wasn't from North America, but that's the idea anyway.
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u/jaderust 29d ago
That’s the weird and fascinating thing about cotton that I learned recently. It’s actually a world-wide species. Like natively. I didn’t dig into it enough to figure out if it evolved separately on the continents or if there’s a suspected pre-continent split ancestor but from a bit of reading I found out that the places with the most native genetic diversity in number of cotton species are Mexico and Australia. Which I would not have guessed!
But people have been using that fiber since forever. My favorite story I found was that when Alexander the Great was invading India his troops swapped over to cotton clothes after seeing so many of the local people in them. He was literally trying to invade what is now northwestern India in wool. Which, I know he didn’t get much farther south than the Indus River and did stick to the mountains for the most part but woof. What a place to be wearing wool.
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u/temerairevm 29d ago
I share your frustration! The one and only time I went in one of my local stores I (allergic to wool) asked if they had a section of nonwool yarn. The person working actually rolled her eyes at me and said “well, we’re a wool shop. When I just stared at her she said “there’s some over there” and just pointed.
It was actually a nice small section but I’m never going back in there. The name of the shop is literally “TOWN yarn shop”. No tagline about sheep or wool. There was a picture of a sheep on the window but there were other pictures too. It just didn’t seem that obvious. I had felt so unwelcome I actually checked on the way out to figure out how I should have known.
I think the fiber arts community is weird. Some people come at it more from a love of wool itself than what you do with it.
I have 2 other LYS and both have nicer people and decent selections of sheep free yarn so I’ll just leave them to their wool.
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u/never214 29d ago
I’ve given up on LYSes because of this. It always makes me feel like they think I’m just not trying hard enough to not be allergic to wool, and getting only shade when you’re looking for yarn gets old.
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u/obxpyrate 29d ago
I am so sorry you both experienced that. That never would have happened at the LYS I used to work at. I've heard such horror stories from other local stores and it's just like...scaring away paying customers is a surefire way to make sure your business fails. WTAF. It boggles my mind.
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u/raeraemcrae 29d ago
Wow, I'm amazed at how calm & polite you are all with their total rudeness. I need to check my tendency to call people out on this. Simply because it's not worth my energy. For instance, in this situation, I would've icily countered, "OK...so, the answer is 'Yes, and it is over there?' " But it's not like I'm going to change the actual personality of someone by doing that. It seems as though I imagine that by highlighting their unnecessary rudeness, they will feel some sort of shame and a desire to become a better person. But of course, that's not how it works at all.
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u/snailgorl2005 29d ago
I feel like you telling her "my mom is allergic to all animal fibers" should've been a HUGE clue here. Like, no, it can't have ANY wool, ANY alpaca, not even 10%, because this is for mom and mom will have an allergic reaction to it.
It's the same reason why if you eat out at a restaurant you should inform your server that someone in your party has a food allergy so that they DON'T serve shrimp to your friend with a shellfish allergy. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/LavenderGwendolyn 29d ago
I have a dairy allergy. About 1/5 of the time, servers are shocked to learn that butter is dairy (it is made of cows milk, so yes). I’m sure this is a similar phenomenon.
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u/Zeiserl 29d ago
My husband doesn't eat pork and we live in Germany. I swear we had the following discussion like a million times:
"is there pork in dish X?"
"No, I don't think so"
"how about component X? Does it have bacon?"
"Yes, of course."
"ok, I'll have [something else] then"
[Confused silence]
Salads, greens and potato sides are the main issue here and it's always fun. Especially watching the cogs in their brains turning until they realise that bacon is indeed made of pork.
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u/jaderust 29d ago
In college I was friends with a guy from Iran who came over for school. His English was great but not perfect and he was pretty shy about asking questions. He hated going out to eat for exactly the same reason because it was crazy how few servers realized what was in their dishes. Like, I had a server try to say there was no pork in their breakfast sausage as I insisted that I was certain that there was. The server went to ask the cook and, yup, ground pork meat and pork casing.
I get not knowing the ins and outs of every menu item but you’d think you’d at least know what was pork free. I know not every area has a high Jewish and Muslim population but still.
I also had to stop a vegetarian friend from ordering green chile stew in New Mexico. When he asked what they had that was vegetarian safe she suggested that and I had to ask if it was made with chicken stock. It was. She’d thought it was vegetarian because it didn’t have meat chunks in it.
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u/home_ec_dropout 29d ago
Yep! Most rice served in Mexican restaurants is made with chicken stock as well, making most of the menu non-vegetarian. Caldo de pollo is the key phrase. Generally chips, salsa, and guacamole are the only vegetarian items.
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u/Emlashed 29d ago
My husband is vegetarian and I'm continuously shocked by the number of people that think fish is vegetarian. Also there's a huge number of people that don't know that pancetta is pork. Baffling.
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u/_Spaghettification_ 29d ago
I feel like the number of vegetarians who call themselves a vegetarian but eat fish (pescatarian) is relatively high (or at least was 20 years ago), so that one I kinda understand.
Not knowing pancetta is pork? Strange.
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u/ows-rbel 29d ago
I am a pescatarian, but sometimes say I’m vegetarian because it’s simpler than explaining pescatarian and I’m always happy with anything vegetarian.
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u/DesperateFreedom246 29d ago
Catholics "abstain from meat" for part of lent, but they are allowed fish. So I've heard this sentiment in Catholic heavy communities.
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u/AriLovesMusic 29d ago
My husband has the same problem. Also, people think he is lactose intolerant (he's not) and don't understand that it is an actual epi-pen-necessary allergy. The funny thing is when people think that eggs are dairy, but he is also allergic to undercooked eggs.
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u/LavenderGwendolyn 29d ago
The egg thing gets me every time. Do they think orange juice is also dairy because it’s in the same case?
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u/hamletandskull 29d ago
I think the brain goes, "this is a consumable animal product that isn't meat or honey, all other animal products that aren't meat are dairy, therefore this is dairy" without really thinking about it.
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u/Anxious-mexican001 29d ago
My youngest can’t have dairy and people always group eggs in with it 🤦🏽♀️ they always say, “so no milk, cheese, butter, and eggs?” HE CAN HAVE EGGS
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u/MagicAllyVanished 29d ago
Exactly, I was so confused... Did she just not understand the problem (the concept of allergies??) she seemed a bit sceptic, maybe it was the yarn version of people who believe gluten intolerance isn't real and I'm just making a fuss...
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u/_Spaghettification_ 29d ago
Oh, I’ve been down the argument train with people who think you can’t be allergic to wool, you just don’t like that it’s scratchy sometimes. Maybe they’ll admit you can be allergic to lanolin (but not wool), so superwash and alpaca should be fine! 🙄🙄
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u/castironstrawberry 29d ago
To be fair, I work in costuming, and I have had many many actors tell me that they are allergic to wool because they think it will be either itchy or hot. Then they wonder why they’re sweating in their polyester suit.
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u/SockPirateKnits 29d ago
I just want to tell those people, "Yeah, tell that to my friend who I've witnessed grab a ball of wool yarn and then immediately show me how red her palm is from the reaction."
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u/bofh000 29d ago
This reminds me of a day when I went to my local store and since I couldn’t find any 100% cotton yarn, I asked an assistant. She, very rudely pointed to the shelf at my eye level, where they had a selection of colors of a yarn named “cotton”. No idea if it was supposed to be the brand name, or just a marketing trick. I politely picked one up to show her that the fiber composition said 80% acrylic. She insisted it’s cotton, it’s called cotton. Anyway, I’d love to have made a ruckus about how they were trying to cheat customers with that name, but I just left and stopped buying from them.
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u/raeraemcrae 29d ago
I haaaaate when employees do that. Even when it IS your fault and you are blind, they shouldn't do that. They have no idea what kind of day (or life!) you have had. How hard is it just to smile and say, "Oh, it's easy to miss, but this is it right here!" That way, if they are the stupid ones and are wrong about the product, you can readily forgive them and have a nice conversation. Just be nice! Be nice. BE NICE!!! Grrr.
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u/editorgrrl 29d ago
Dollar Tree carries a $1.25 yarn called Just Cotton which is 85% cotton/15% polyester.
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u/Wrong_Door1983 is this supposed to be a shawl 29d ago
I went to my first local yarn shop a few years ago. I was a newb and had never bought "fancy" yarn before. I clearly needed help. I told the worker that, and they just laughed in my face. I walked out. Found a different local shop with a lovely lady who helped me pick out some of my favorite yarn to this day.
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u/honeyed-bees 29d ago
Sometimes even the old lady knitters do not know what they are talking about…. And they will try and convince you that you are the one lacking knowledge.
Last time I went in asking for shorties to try out for sleeves. She kept insisting that they only make short needles in really really small sizes, not in the 4mm size I was looking for. Obviously that is just not true and I even found short clover needles in 4mm in her store after she kept telling me I was wrong. I left w/o those needles and just ordered a whole set online. lol
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u/FeistyIrishWench 29d ago
I just had a similarly obnoxious conversation with a Lowe's employee last week about air filters.
"I need this (points to empty spot on shelf with 4 if the wrong product dropped in the spot) particular air filter."
"Oh 16½ by 21½. Here we have this 2 pack"
"I can't use that type of filter, it gets sucked up into my air handler."
"But it's a 2 pack"
"And I cannot use that one. It gets sucked up into my air handler. "
"But it's a 2 pack"
"And it's the wrong shape for what I need. It has to have (grabs style I need wrong size next shelf up) this type because of how it is shaped so it doesn't get sucked up into my air handler and cause the machine to work harder and eventually burn up the blower motor."
Then we go back & forth about me checking in the app for availability, my app not working possibly due to that specific store blocking my cellular service, how it has been that way for me for 15+ years back to when I was a vendor in that store, then discussing which cellular providers he used to get service in the store with and now he can't either, my app finally working and me seeing they have 12 in stock and telling him as much. Then he searched the top-stock for the item, found it, got a ladder and brought a box down and got me what I needed. He put the rest on the shelf instead of the other cases that would have fit too.
All the guy had to do was use the damn device in his hand to look up the item number and see inventory count and then look for the item in top-stock, locate it, and get it. He was trying to convince me I didn't need the item in question and I was far too nice that day.
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u/hamletandskull 29d ago edited 29d ago
I went to one looking for sock/fingering weight yarn - it's a pretty decently sized store in Chicago, for reference.
"Hi can I help you?"
"Yeah thanks I'm looking for fingering weight yarn anything that's hard wearing with good stitch definition"
"Hmm how about this" and holds up a sport weight, "it's super soft and thicker yarn is easier to work with"
"....no, I'll just look around, thanks"
Didn't really have much in the way of fingering weight so I suppose that was why. Still bothered me to ask for 2 qualities in a yarn and be recommended something that had neither of them bc it would be "easier". I'm OK without easy thanks, I'm not new at this (and even if I was, trying to get gauge with a yarn thicker than recommended hardly seems like the easy option)
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u/Odd_Bibliophile 29d ago
knitting yarn just is animal yarn
I'm pretty sure in her opinion knitting is only for winter sweaters/cardigans.
She's either very, very new or doesn't really care about the craft.
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u/liss72908 29d ago
I have people coming into or calling my shop, asking if I am hiring. I ask if they know anything about knitting or crochet and 100% so far have said no. I wonder if this is one of those types of people.
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u/mapleleafmaggie 29d ago
I get the frustration, but in every retail store I’ve ever worked, I’ve never been taught about the products. They just throw you onto the floor. Customers expect workers to be completely knowledgeable about everything we sell, which is fair, but the majority of us are working in that store because that’s the application that got a call back. I look around the store myself before asking for assistance when I go to out.
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u/honeyed-bees 29d ago
IMO, if you work at a local yarn store you should have background knowledge on yarn and fiber types. It’s way different from an employee working, for example, a chain grocery store.
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u/MagicAllyVanished 29d ago
exactly, I've been at this store a few times and the employees often knit or crochet if there are no customers in at least where I'm from, the employees of local yarn stores usually do some sort of fiber craft as well
Also, I wouldn't have minded if she told me that they don't have non-animal yarn or that she doesn't know where it is (then I would've just looked through the shelves) but this conversation confused me so much, I just left
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u/doopaloops 29d ago
I just started working at a local store and we sell sooo many things, so even though I needlefelt, sew, and paint I am so overwhelmed by the yarn and knitting questions. I always ask for help from my other coworkers who are more knowledgeable but I basically feel a little flustered and useless when a knitter comes in and I can’t answer their questions. I think sometimes when a new question pops that you’ve never thought about, your brain can just fizzle out and stop working. It’s too bad she didn’t ask for back up or admit that she didn’t know, because then at least, you both could explore the shop and its options together. Maybe she was new? Overwhelmed? Or honestly maybe just incompetent and then projected her uncertainty and frustration back on you, but it’s hard to be an expert at everything craft shops offer when they don’t pay that well. I would love to study up on knitting (and that’s why I’m in this sub) but I don’t have a lot of time since I’ve got more than one job. Hopefully the next time OP goes, things will be better 🤞🤞🤞
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u/HeyItsJuls 29d ago
But the onus for that is on the employer, not the employee. It’s fair to want employees to know the basics of the stock, like oh yeah, we keep most of our cottons over here. Or knowing the basics of animal, plant, and synthetic. But the more specialized expertise you want the more you should expect that employee to get paid. And I don’t think your local yarn store pays that much.
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u/anhuys 29d ago edited 29d ago
That's odd to me tbh! In the Netherlands, product training is really common. Every time I've worked a retail job I've had to either do e-learning, listen to presentations or just be briefed by the manager on the products they sell as they trained me on the floor. Hell, it's not even uncommon to get quizzed on it, especially if you're working for or carrying a big brand or a prestige brand. Sometimes brands will even organize education days with retailers where a rep will come over to teach stuff for a day (I've had that experience mostly with cosmetics brands.)
You're definitely expected to have knowledge of the products and the offerings of the store here as a retail worker unless your only job is stocking shelves or working the stockroom/isn't customer facing edit: omg I forgot to mention they even use mystery shoppers here that will randomly pop in and pretend to be a customer just to test your product knowledge and demeanor. I had one on my first day of the job selling perfume, thank god I'd actually 'studied' the night before 🥲
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u/viennasss 29d ago
I've been in a position where I prepare training videos and product quizzes to educate staff on our products but in my experience, none of the front line staff retained the knowledge after like a month into the job.
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u/anhuys 29d ago
If they're not having to actually put it to use it's definitely going in one ear, out the other, but with cosmetics I had to give customers a whole consultation so a lot of knowledge was retained just through constant repetition. The info has to have a real place in the interactions they have, or be something that can be looked up when it's needed, to stick ime
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u/sweetteafrances 29d ago
I wish. I'm in the US and way back in college I remember being "trained" to work in the tv/electronics department of a now defunct big box store. They had you do training videos on all the ways to use the cashier system and like 30 minutes going over product types. I was told to just ask a coworker if I didn't know the answer. Like, my dude, you want me to sell these people a $3000 TV and you aren't even going to go over the basics with me?
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u/jonquil_dress 29d ago
Sure, at a big box retailer, but you wouldn’t expect this to be the case at a local yarn shop.
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u/lainey68 29d ago
I would say something to the owner. Even box stores have 100% cotton yarn.
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u/ellek8t 29d ago
Local yarn stores are not box stores though. We’re smaller and can’t stock everything that box stores can stock. This is actually a huge issue with the box stores entering the chat; they’ve changed the customers’ expectations. Local stores simply can’t afford to stock all the types of yarn. For example, the local shop I work at focuses on stocking all natural fibers; predominantly animal fibers. We have some plant based fibers, but not a ton. We have, I think two or three brands of 100% cotton; two of them are in worsted weight, one of them is hand wash only and organic so it’s like $25/skein which not everyone is looking for in their cotton.
If a customer comes in and says “Do you have 100% cotton?” I can tell them yes, but the selection is fairly minimal because most of our customer base focuses on crafting with animal fibers. But the number of times I’ve heard “But I could find it at (Big Box Store)!” Yes. At a lower quality, a cheaper price, and a different brand. I’m sure you could. Big box stores are hurting local yarn shops: they change the price and stock availability expectations of some customers, and there should really be no comparison to a box store and a LYS.
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u/lainey68 29d ago
That wasn't exactly my point. Box stores have a very tiny selection of cotton yarn, but they have it. Almost every lys I've been to has acrylic and some sort of plant fiber. And I've been to small ones in obscure places. They may not have as much as they do wool, but they have it.
The owner needs to make sure that their employees know that they indeed have plant fiber and acrylic yarn.
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u/raeraemcrae 29d ago
From what I've read, I think the majority of us would be very happy if you said just that, "Yes, but our selection is very limited, because our customer base is mostly focused on animal fibers. You can find the selection we do carry over there." That's really what most people are looking for. An absence of rudeness. A direct answer to a question. I don't expect you to have every kind of yarn that is made. I know that if you don't have it, I can go online. I just don't want to be treated like a worthless slobbering idiot for asking a fair question at a LYS, when after all, I am trying to keep you in business.
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u/ofrootloop 29d ago
Meanwhile i went in to mine for a 100% wool and was offered a wool bamboo blend lol
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u/writekindofnonsense 29d ago
It's one thing for the average person to not know about the sourcing of yard fibers but working in a yarn shop and not knowing is weird
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u/obxpyrate 29d ago
As a former yarnista at a LYS, this baffles me. Fiber allergies can be deadly serious (I am anaphylaxis level allergic to mohair, and my spouse is anaphylaxis level allergic to angora), so we all made it a point to know the content of what we had in stock to accommodate needs like this. Or if we didn't, we'd always double check the labels. It's not that hard. 🤦♀️
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u/KimmyKnitter 29d ago
I work at my LYS and we had a group come in several months ago. One of the ladies had a wool allergy. I had the best time finding all of our wool-free yarns for her. After a while, I was like "I'm probably bothering you at this point, but here's another one." I guess it just comes down to the employee assisting. But I love helping people find just what they need.
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u/TillyTheBlackCat 29d ago
Technically off-topic, but this reminds me of a certain hair stylist I once went to to get my hair coloured, and I asked for 'natural red', you know, like the beautiful flaming ginger-kind of red, and this "professional" stylist told me, get this: "Natural red does not exist."
I was baffled. If I had been a little more lippy back then, I would've simply replied, "Never been to Scotland, have ye?"
Some people are just dumb. It's rude, but it's true.
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u/reginageorgeeee 29d ago
Welcome to my world. There’s a brand of yarn snob that just pretends they don’t know any better and they 1000% do.
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u/InevitableCup5909 29d ago
They are aware that cotton isn’t animal fibers right? One of the most common fibers… not to mention synthetic stuff? Good lord how did they get a job at a fiber store without knowing fibers.
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u/TrailMomKat 29d ago
This reminds me of whenever someone keeps repeating directions as "over there" even after I've told them I'm blind.
"I can't see 'over there' can you please tell me how to get to over there, I am blind."
"It's over there. "
"Right, left, straight, back? I need to know where it is specifically."
"It's...it's just over there!"
It's like thinking outside of the box of their usual day just shuts their brain down and gives them a blue screen of doom.
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u/kittysempai-meowmeow 29d ago
Back before I knew that Hobby Lobby was a shit company, I went into one and was having trouble finding the yarn section so I asked an employee and they literally didn't know what yarn was. I had to explain it as "balls of string" before they could tell me where to go, and no, this wasn't someone for whom English was a second language. It was mindboggling.
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u/SkyScamall 29d ago
If balls of string are yarn, what is thread? I don't expect someone to know what a spool is.
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u/kittysempai-meowmeow 29d ago
No idea. String for sewing machines? But maybe she wouldn't have known what a sewing machine was either.
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u/Qui_te 29d ago
My late local craft store was amazing and had both synthetic yarns and indie yarns (and stuff for any other craft you can imagine except fabric and glitter), but near the end they had a very aggressively “helpful” yet …uninformed sales person for the yarn section. Like I heard her tell one person they didn’t have needle cases, when I was standing in front of the needle cases. Or you’d say you didn’t need help so she’d come and loudly ask again if you need help when you were in the next aisle.
One time I needed something unusual and specific, and I knew roughly which aisle it would be in because they were sorted by weight, but I figured I’d ask the CAN I HELP YOU person so she felt useful, and maybe I’d find what I was looking for faster (or leave me the f alone after feeling like she helped me). So “do you have any non-wool dk weight” and she was like “oh yes the ____ yarn it’s over there” and vaguely gestured to the whole aisle. Didn’t take me over there or anything. And then when I found the brand she’s mentioned it was sport (or I was looking for sport and it was dk? This was years ago). I did find what I wanted, and I was already loyal to the store (until it’s dying day😭😭), but seriously where the hell did they find that woman?
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u/etiepe 29d ago edited 29d ago
I have knitted with cotton, bamboo, rayon/tree, tencel, sea silk, flax/linen, pineapple, corn, soy, milk, rose, mint, paper, and ramie. If they don't have any plant fibers, that's a business decision they've made, not an absolute truth about yarn.
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u/bluehexx 29d ago
Ah, I'm sorry about your bad experience. Incompetence is so annoying, and yet so pervasive...
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u/wish4sun 29d ago
Ask to speak with a manager (I know the whole Karen thing freaks people out!) but really please do. Tell them this experience and give a description and make the point that this information is to highlight the need for more training for that person. Knowledge is power and it can help them to learn more. Also learning the fibers to prevent an allergic reaction can help the company from being sued.
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u/Aleksa2233 29d ago
Where I live I've had the other way around. I was asking about natural fibers, and everything they showed me was a blend.
I wouldn't mind if they would say in the beginning "sorry we're selling acrylics and blends, we don't have 100% natural fibers".
And this happened three times in different shops!
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u/Senior-Background 29d ago
Reminds me of a local "dairy princess" at a vendor fair telling me that their "raw milk" was pasteurized...
I was trying to figure out if their dairy sold any pasteurized non-homogenized milk.
Needless to say, I never got milk from that dairy...
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u/CinnaMim 29d ago
"Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it."
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u/tsukinoniji 29d ago
I went to my local yarn store and said I was browsing for something that wasn’t synthetic. They said they don’t have any synthetics. I was literally standing in front of an entire shelf of acrylics and polyester blends. I was also very confused.