A Macy's Misadventure

I've always been partial to Macy's for no good reason.  It's kind of like JC Penny's or the softer side of Sears, but with different spellings.  My recent purchase of a few shirts introduced me to some poor customer service that prompted me to write Mr. Macy an email, though I haven't heard a response.  I don't really expect a response.

I had a handful of 4 shirts and met my wife in the shoe department who decided against a shoe purchase.  I opted to pay for my shirts in the shoe department which seemed innocent enough at the time and waited for a few minutes as shoe fetchers buzzed past me.  The Mrs. Macy's grudgingly agreed to help me and we had the following exchange:

Me: "Would you like me to go somewhere else?" (jokingly)

Mrs. Macy's: "Yes, we're quite busy here"

Me: "Are you serious?"

Awkward pauses, she continues slowly folding and pricing my purchase

Mrs: "We're just really busy here.  I don't know why no one else was helping you"

Me: smile awkwardly

Mrs: "This tag doesn't match the shirt, do you want to get another from upstairs?"

Me: "I'll just take it all upstairs"

Mrs: "That's probably best"

I brought the shirt upstairs and the lady suggests that I always bring the clothes to the register where I found them.  She proposed that the first lady wasn't familiar with the shirt section and was just being careful.

The above situation doesn't seem too dire, I know, but it's a classic example of failure to take ownership of a customer.  Regardless of how busy an associate is, their job is to take care of each customer in the queue.  Most customers understand that these associates are busy, but expect to be taken care of completely before the associate moves on.