Some of you may remember Bass’
iconic “Weejuns.” AKA the world’s greatest casual shoes. I had worn them for
years, but then sadly my last pair – re-soled and re-heeled one time too many –
had to be retired..
I was pleasantly surprised, however,
to find that Bass still makes Weejuns. They call them something else, but they
are the same, and the box they come in proudly displays the semiotic brand
“Weejuns.” I was delighted … and even more so when I found out my favorite retail
store was advertising them at a nice discount online.
Ca-ching. A deal was done. And they
emailed me within minutes to say that I could pick up my new Weejuns the next
day at their Short Pump Town Center store.
I did. But I did not try them on
until later that night at home. I put the right one on. Perfect fit. I would
not have expected anything less. Just like the old days.
But then … what was this? I have
been buying and wearing shoes for more years than I’d care to think about. But this
had never happened.
The left shoe would not fit. Not
because it was a size smaller, but because it was simply another right-footed shoe.
I had been delivered a box of perfectly packaged shoes but perfectly fitted for
right feet only.
“Well, never in my born days,” as
my Georgia-bred grandmother used to say …
The good news is that I took the
box back to the store the next day, and the manager who helped me and I both
got a big laugh out of my question: “I wonder what the dude who got the other
box thinks about having two left-footed Weejuns?”
You know the rest. I was made
whole. And cheerfully so…even with an additional 15 percent discount for my
“trouble,” as the manager put it, of having to come back to the store.
No trouble at all, I replied. They
just solidified an already good customer’s loyalty.
*
But about three hours later, this
happened at the grocery store I usually go to. I go there because they were the
unlikely heir to one to the best grocery chains I’ve even known.
I’d been seeing the signs for a
while. First a well-respected manager left, his replacement virtually invisible
even three years later.
But that management absence – or
dereliction of duty – showed its true stripes tonight.
I was walking though the bakery area
when I saw a woman slip on a wet floor and fall almost flat. And she did not
fall lightly either, it could have been serious. I helped her to her feet and
stayed with her to make sure she was going to be OK. She said she was. It had
just been so unexpected, she said.
Indeed. There was a single flimsy yellow
sign warning of a damp floor…but it was about four feet away from where she had
slipped and fallen. Water – or something clear and wet –covered about 10 square
feet of busy aisle space, the misplaced excuse-for-a-warning sign about as
effective as Chicken Little announcing a tsunami.
Once all was OK with the lady who
had fallen, I was incensed. No one from store management showed up. So I went
to them. At their mis-named “service desk,” I told the four employees gathered there
helping a single customer what had happened.
They were taken out of their game,
one showing a bit of an attitude. She said, “but there was a warning sign
there.”
My response was rather direct and
forceful. I did not cuss .. but I sure as hell did think it.
I told the four of them to please
get somebody over there to mop up the water in the aisle where customers were
walking and quit standing around arguing with me.
I’ve seen this kind of attitude
there before, but not to the point of ignoring the fact that a woman had fallen
on their pristine floor.
FuelPerks be damned. They just lost
a good customer.
And
they want $15 an hour?
