Hello Mr. Man....

What it boils down to is two things.

1. You need me.
You need me, you need the couple in the beach chairs next to me, you need the guy in the white striped polo shirt next to them, and everyone else that showed up today outside of the ten or fifteen potential customers that were in hearing distance and thought your conduct was just...lovely.
One of the first rules of customer service which is often repeated is that a satisfied customer will tell two people about a positive experience they had, but a disgruntled customer will tell ten. Needless to say, by writing this article, I'm reaching a whole hell of a lot more than ten people, and I'm just one of the people that was treated shabbily.
I think the effect of your little performance was best summed up by the guy that said, "Ya know, I just bought the Alanis CD from the Barnes & Noble yesterday. If you'll excuse me, I have to go return it now and buy a copy for two dollars less at Amoeba Records."

2. You have no idea who we are. I realize that a horde of twentysomethings at a free concert probably don't seem like your demographic of rich, overly pampered families. You know, the ones that regularly come to your mall and shop to the point that the mall provides a bellhop service so that the customer doesn't have to actually carry all of their bags. We are indeed, hanging out for a free concert at 10 am on a Saturday, and dressed in slightly worn weekend clothing. And you, like many in corporate America nowadays, have made the assumption that we are freeloading youngling freaks of no value to your profit margin, and therefore you treated us as though we were inconsequential chattel.

However, as DarkLady said when I described the scene to her, "Wow. Either that woman hasn't been in LA very long, or she's just really dumb." So let's take a look at some of the beautiful tattooed freaks that came to your boss' property on that Memorial Day weekend.

Nesh? Over there in the polo shirt? He works for NBC.

James in the folding chair? He works at the foreign students' office at UCLA, and helps send 200-400 exchange students a week on bus trips down to the Grove so that they can shop here. By the way, he says that while he used to like the Grove, he's beginning to think that 3rd Street Promenade might be a better destination for those trips.

Me? The girl in jeans & a red tank top? I'm a 24 year old designer that's presently re-launching not one, but two companies simultaneously. Not only do I understand advertising, I worked in your mall for two years and I know every damn inch of it like the back of my hand, so I'm well aware of the standard that your employers are advertising. I was here when you had Yo-Yo Ma and I got shoved out of the way by security, I spent a lot of time walking down Grove Drive because you don't allow me to park in the structure, and I survived two Christmas seasons in a store that has been known to pull in $120k net in one day. As a bonus for you, Ms. Press Relations, in my spare time I run an independent web magazine whose update distribution stretches from Los Angeles to the UK. (By the way - that's just the readers that I know of.)

Now, what I mentioned above are just three of the people that were standing there when you made your little pronouncement. As soon as you walked away, we not only had your name, but we took your picture. Several times! With three different cameras! See? You look so happy!

She was probably wondering why a group of people suddenly called her name and started waving to her...

James took this picture during the concert. Now if that's not a shiny happy face, I don't know what is!

The truth of the matter is, for every one customer that comes in and drops $500 at the Gap (which gets them free parking for the day since they've spent over $150), there are twenty people like me -the person who bought not one, but two copies of Alanis' new CD at the Barnes & Noble in your mall. Our money's green, and we're smart enough to choose where we will and won't be willing to spend it. As one girl commented, "The concert might be free, but I got here at 9 to get a decent spot, and do you know how much it's going to cost me to park if I can't get validated?"

As I was leaving after the concert, I heard the owner of one of the kiosk carts remark to his employee, "No, it's over now. They don't actually buy, they just come for the free crap and leave." In this case, he was right, because as a concert-goer named Lisa so succinctly summed it up, "Well I was going to shop after, but now - fuck that."

You didn't think I'd come back...you didn't think I'd show up with my army and this ammunition on my back...