My Hades will be a children’s shoe shop

 Life in General, Parenting  2 Responses »
Jun 142011
 

Children's ShoesOne of the very best things about being an adult male is the extent to which one can streamline the awful process of buying shoes. Same shop, same style, same size as before. A cursory check for fitment. In and out, less than five minutes, less than seventeen quid. Job done, and no repeats for a year.

But children have this annoying trait of making their feet bigger. And because their feet are growing, and they’re forming their gait, it’s important to make sure they get the right shoes. I understand this. I also understand the need for them to get new shoes quite often. But…

Why does the shoe shop have a ticketing system? Why are the staff just standing around? Why aren’t they serving people? Why aren’t these questions covering the worst part of it?

So, we’ve secured an assistant. It’s her job to get the right shoes onto my children, and we will pay her for this (and pay her handsomely at that). In order to help select the right shoes, she will use a measuring device on my child’s feet. This will return a hieroglyph along the lines of “11G” which represents – roughly – the length and width of the child’s foot. Now the trouble starts.

The boy has been pointed at the Sale rack, and been invited to select a preference. He’s chosen a shoe. Much sucking of teeth from ShoeLady.

“I’m not sure we’ve that shoe in his size”

“Well, he’s holding one, he’s got it from the right part of the rack, it’s an 11G, I can see from here”.

“Ah, but that’s a ShoeCompany shoe, and their sizes are a bit small. He’ll need a 13F”.

“???”. Presumably ShoeCompany had a say in the setting of the measurement standard, and even if not, why can they not follow it? Why do their shoes not conform to the sizing?

“Oh yes, ShoeCompany sizes are a bit small. We might have some MakerOfShoes in his size, but they’re not in the sale.”

Of course they’re not. Of course, the shoes that fit him will be at full price, and he won’t like them, meaning we have to fight with him every time he’s to put his shoes on for the next two months.

But I’m still reeling about the size thing. Can you imagine the same thing in other industries? “Yes, I know that the burger didn’t fill you up, but BurgerMan quarter-pounders are a little smaller than the measurement says”.  If I went to a petrol station and found that their particular idea of a litre was only really 900ml by the international measure, I’d be pretty hacked off. Especially when they said I couldn’t buy the standard petrol and had to take the more expensive brew.

So, twenty minutes in, he’s got some shoes on. We’ve convinced him to like them. They’re two sizes off what the measure said they should be. And they’re not in the sale. So, how much are they?

I’m sorry, I must have misheard. What did ShoeLady say? Fifty pounds? Is she taking the fucking piss?

Wife is less than fully impressed by this reaction. Apparently, a child’s shoe one third the size of my shoe, with a life span of one sixth the lifespan of my shoe, is going to cost three times what my shoes cost. And I think this is wrong because I’m embarrassing to be around at times like this.

Another alternative is offered, but these shoes “will last a couple of weeks”, and cost £35. That would be my annual shoe bill, per week. I think not.

So, he’s got some shoes on. We’ve convinced him to like them. They’re two sizes off what the measure said they should be. And they’re not in the sale, so they’re going to cost fifty pounds. We can go to the checkout now, and then we’re done, yes?

Some of the boy's shoes. Not the ones purchased in this trip - these ones are a mere thirty-five quid's worth. Photo ©giles-guthrie.com

No.

Um…

ShoeLady is not, apparently, sufficiently qualified to be able to fit a child’s shoe herself. She must now source a “supervisor” to “check the fitting.” The ShoeSupervisorLady comes over, having concluded her conversation with another equally idle-looking staff member. Now, this can go one of two ways. If we’re lucky, ShoeSupervisorLady will agree that ShoeLady has done a good job of fitting the shoes, and has successfully navigated the random shoe size lottery. ShoeSupervisorLady’s contribution to the process will thus be little more than a collosal waste of time, and we can go to the checkout, pay, and leave. If we’re unlucky, ShoeSupervisorLady will say that a different size is needed, and then we’re back to square one, because the new size isn’t in stock in that style.

Why doesn’t the shoe shop adequately train its staff? I can understand the need for a second opinion in medical treatment, but this is fitting shoes for christ’s sake! I can’t see how it adds value to the process for the consumer. The value is only for the shop, which can presumably employ a load of baseline-intelligence triage staff whose job is to upsell away from the sale range, then discharge its duty of care by rolling out the big (trained) gun on the floor in the form of ShoeSupervisorLady. And of course there’s only one ShoeSupervisorLady, so they keep the wage bill down.

Thing is, they’re still charging me fifty quid for the shoes. When I pay £16.50 for my shoes, I kind of understand the fact that the ShoeLady can barely be bothered to take her eyes off her SMS feed, but for fifty quid, can I not have a trained ShoeLady?

Everything about the process appears contrived specifically to get my goat. But I’ll never buy a pair of shoes for myself in this shop. And, hopefully, I was sufficiently “embarrassing” that next time, my wife will leave me at home. Had she done that last time, she’d have had a happy husband and a pile of ironed clothes…

 

F1 2011 + Bahrain = Bad

 Motorsport  No Responses »
Jun 052011
 

Image from Harold Laudeus's Flickr Photostream, used under Creative Commons

Last week, the FIA‘s World Motor Sport Council met, and – amongst other things – decided to reinstate the Bahrain Grand Prix for 2011. It will be run on October 30th, bumping the Indian Grand Prix to later in the year – perhaps as late as 11th December.

 

Were you booked to be in India on 30th October? That’s a shame for you, as the race will be 1,650 miles away. Hope you bought refundable tickets, or that your travel insurance includes cover for “capricious governing bodies”. By all accounts, the Indians are quite glad of the extra time to prepare, as it will help them avoid the situation that arose in South Korea, where while the track was complete, nothing much else was.

It’s difficult to know what to believe in this modern age, where media is controlled by corporate agenda and manipulated by global PR agencies. Twitter has muddied the waters further, with claim and counter claim coming from all sides. What is clear though is that there is deep resentment within Bahrain, where the ruling classes are unable to represent the interests of the majority of the population, as their respective beliefs are quite different. There was an uprising earlier in the year, and since there has not been a regime change (unlike in other Arab states), one has to presume that the uprising was put down with some measure of governmental violence.  It is therefore likely that significant quantities of the populace are going about their daily lives feeling some weight of oppression. While the government continues to control the military, and uses that military to restrict the freedoms of the population, violent flare-ups cannot be far away.

On 2nd June, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office updated its travel advice for Bahrain, reducing it from “only travel if absolutely necessary” to “no restrictions”. However, there is then extensive guidance on the (in)stability of the region, culminating in a general counselling to ensure one’s travel and medical insurance is comprehensive. Hmm, reassuring.

As the governing body of Formula 1, the FIA maintains considerable responsibility for the safety of participants, support crews and spectators. We see this in safety cells, crumple zones, marshall points, air ambulances, trackside fencing et al. But the location of the race has a great deal of influence on the safety of competitors, engineers and spectators. When Jenson Button’s car was attacked in the not-in-civil-war Brazilian city of Sao Paolo, people wondered about the safety of the F1 crowd, and whether it was wise to go to the country. Unable to control the population of a host nation, why would the FIA take this risk with F1 folks’ lives? What possible benefit is there? There are already 19 races in 2011, it’s not as if one more will make the championship more credible. There doesn’t seem to be any reasonable upside to going to Bahrain, but there is a very real threat of civil unrest spilling over into the three-day race event.

The FIA also seems to be quite insensitive to the public appearance of sending F1 to race in the Kingdom. Irrespective of which set of reports you believe, the general perception is that the ruling class is oppressive, and that there have been repeated incidents of government-sanctioned violence against the Kingdom’s people. It seems odd that the FIA would dispatch a high-profile glamour sport to such a nation. It sends a message that the FIA sides with the Kingdom’s rulers, not with its people. This is an affirmative message, but in cancelling the race, the FIA could have elected not to send a message at all. In going ahead with the race, the FIA is saying “We think it’s safe and that the reports of violence and terrorism are false. The government is clearly in control.”. Whereas in cancelling the race, the FIA could be construed to be erring on the side of safety, and allowing the Kingdom additional time to resolve its internal difficulties.

The FIA has now placed the decisions in the hands of the team bosses, of the global media controllers, and of the sponsors. By failing to act in the interests of the sport, and the people over which it has a duty of care, the FIA has now left it to each individual manager responsible for dispatching personnel to Bahrain. The team bosses must consider which is more important: the safety of individuals who dedicate their professsional lives to the furtherment of their team, or the shoring up of a regime viewed with contempt by much of the rest of the world.

Sponsors must consider whether they wish their logos to be shown on television reports of the race which may be affected by terrorism. Or which may be taking place while there is civil unrest elsewhere in the 290 square-mile  Kingdom.

If it were me, I wouldn’t go. I wouldn’t ask any employees to go on my behalf. And if I were pumping millions of dollars into the sport to have my name on the side of the car, I wouldn’t want my name to be sullied by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No innocent person is going to be harmed by F1 not going to Bahrain. The same cannot be said if F1 shows up with its glitz and its glamour and its kowtowing to the King and the Crown Prince.

Thanks to Harold Laudeus for the photo of the 2008 Bahrain Grand Prix