I'm an oddball in a lot of ways. And I'm on my way tomorrow to rub elbows with a whole bunch of other personal finance oddballs at FinCon14 down in New Orleans.
I'm also an oddball because of my feet. I have a clubfoot. Thankfully I've been able to go for nearly 25 years without any operations, and in the grand scheme it's a very, very minor problem. I've known people with this problem that would never be able to walk.
The small price I pay for my odd feet
Around a year ago, I was tagged on Facebook to share seven things about myself. Since I'm a Level 47 troll aspiring to become Level 48, I answered, but only really ended up sharing one fact about myself: that I had two different-sized feet. The other facts were deducible from that one fact. Some cried foul, but I don't care (hehe).
The last of the seven, which I'm sharing here, gets to the small price I pay — and also to the motivation for this post:
Compared with most other people, I spend about twice as much on shoes. The store employees still feel the need to make it clear that I have to pay for both pair. Almost as if I would expect them to hold the non-fitting pair until a guy with the opposite problem — my “evil shoe twin,” if you will — happened into the store, happened to need shoes, and happened to like exactly the same style that I have. “Why, Mr. Laceheel, have I got a great pair for you!!!”
For a long time, I used to get a pretty good discount on the second pair: about a third off. Then the stores stopped discounting them at all for a while. So I stopped asking. And I ship the shoes I don't wear off to the National Odd Shoe Exchange, which has the acronym NOSE. No, really.
Then I got the statement again …
We were at the mall this weekend, and we went to Dick's Sporting Goods to get my New Balance 623's, which I've been wearing for years. I told the store employee the sizes (plural) I needed.
“You know I can't mix the sizes,” she said.
“You can sell me two pair though, right? I mean, I didn't expect you to keep the other pair for someone with the opposite problem I have!” And I laughed.
… but I found out why they say it
Of course she could sell me two pair. When she brought the shoes back, she explained why she had to make it clear that they wouldn't mix and match.
Another customer came in and had made a freakin' scene when the store didn't sell him one pair with two different sizes. Called over the store manager and everything. I imagine the guy left mad because they didn't do it for him.
That's just plain unreasonable. No, actually, it's tacky. The mismatched pair is of no value to the store. It's unreasonable to expect that they would sell the shoes, likely at a loss, to an occasional customer. (Now, if Dick's actually did this for me, I would be sure to give them a whole lot of business.)
When I heard this, I sympathized with her, and told her that it was unreasonable, and made it clear that I wasn't that kind of customer.
She came back with a $10 coupon. It pays to be reasonable.
This is a great message and you put it in a fantastic way. As customers, we expect businesses to serve us well and accommodate us, and while that’s completely reasonable, we must also understand that they are in business to make money. A successful business that gets repeat customers will find ways to balance this (as it sounds like Dick’s did), but we must also balance our expectations as customers. The best scenario is that customers feel accommodated and businesses are still able to, well, run their business.
Right. This sorts itself out one way or another. If customers get to be too much of a pain, then the store manager can refuse service to that customer.