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Shoenut

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The Mexicans have a real love of shoe shining. My friend Gilberto said I was the only American who gave a damn about shiny shoes, but if you're wearing dull shoes in Mexico, you'd be a laughing stock.
You would think with all the fine shoe making that goes on in León Mexico, that you would be able to get some great GYW shoes. Not at all. I sought out a couple of great factories to see if I could buy some. No way. They don’t even want to say who they are making shoes for. But I was told that every shoe is graded into best, sellable, and finally the ones that they just grind up and turn into heel blocks. They ship straight to warehouses worldwide or in some cases to the final customers. Point being that their best dress shoes are not sold in Mexico. AE is even more expensive here.
 

JFWR

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You would think with all the fine shoe making that goes on in León Mexico, that you would be able to get some great GYW shoes. Not at all. I sought out a couple of great factories to see if I could buy some. No way. They don’t even want to say who they are making shoes for. But I was told that every shoe is graded into best, sellable, and finally the ones that they just grind up and turn into heel blocks. They ship straight to warehouses worldwide or in some cases to the final customers. Point being that their best dress shoes are not sold in Mexico. AE is even more expensive here.

It's often the case that the areas where lots of production take place don't sell what they produce.

Case in point: Turkey.

I thought I'd surprise my smoking friends with mountains of fine tobacco. Nope. Just ****** American cigarettes. Not even any tobacco shops.

I've heard central and South America suffers terribly from a lack of good footwear.
 

BackInTheJox

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The below comments don't necessarily have anything to do with the recently discussed issues... But in the abstract, I think we all want to do business with companies that live by the "customer is always right" mantra. In my experience and from what I have seen from having participated in this thread for a long time is that AE is that type of company. Great!

But allow me to posit a different perspective. Just because a company operates with this perspective from the standpoint of CS doesn't actually mean that the customer IS actually always right. Sometimes the customer is wrong and sometimes the customer abuses the business relationship. Case in point: Costco for many, many years has/had a no questions asked unlimited return policy. Eventually, Costco added restrictions to their return policy (for electronics, for example) since there was a subset of customers that would purchase new tech, use it for a while, and return it for a full refund because they could.

Let's bring it back to shoes and AE. I happened to watch the youtube video last night of the interview with the owners of the Dabondo1 account on Ebay. As most of you know, they have had an exclusive account with AE to resell store returns for something like 20 years. The simple fact that AE even accepts these slightly (sometimes more heavily) used shoes as returns tells you all you need to know about the quality of AEs CS. I'm not aware of many shoe companies that accept returns of worn shoes except perhaps in the most extreme cases where the product has failed. But, of course, we know that is NOT the case with Dabondo1's inventory since, generally speaking, the shoes are fine.

One other thing that I found noteworthy about the Dabondo1 interview. I can't recall the specific question that was asked, I think something about their return policy, but the owners retold what they considered to be a remarkable story of a gentlemen that had bought and returned something like 30 pairs of shoes over a relatively short period of time something like 15 or 20 years ago. This was apparently the ONE time that the owners blocked an Ebay user from making purchases. They concluded that the customer probably "had a problem" and they were doing him a favor by cutting him off. I'm not sure that's the conclusion I would have drawn (!!) but they made a business decision that the customer was wrong and terminated the relationship. More likely than not they correctly deemed the person as a problematic customer that would be impossible to satisfy and that it was best to not sell shoes to him anymore. In my view, that was clearly the right decision.

tldr/ the customer isn't always right.

here is the interview, by the way, in case anyone is curious. it's not mine... it's too long but it makes for mildly interesting viewing. Nice people.


Somewhat similarly, as a physician, sometimes I have to fire patients. If they abuse or do not respect the patient physician relationship (and this can occur many different ways), then it is clearly no longer a productive relationship and those patients receive a letter in the mail stating that they may seek care elsewhere.
 

munchau

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HM for kicking around the yard.
3897F1B2-1603-4E52-B295-0E2F9F90C1C3.jpeg
 

smfdoc

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Happy Saturday forum pals. Natty shell.

IMG_0229.jpg
 

M2511

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View attachment 1594987

Brand new additions to the Strand museum, thanks to the Anniversary Sale.
Man... I need more shoes about as badly as you do at this point but the strand (or variation) always gets me. If there were seconds on sale NOT on dainite I’d probably buy the first 3 in the photo (left to right). I could get them as firsts with sole conversions but... some restraint is necessary. I only have 2 pairs of dainite anymore. Both from C&J and for whatever reason they are the only ones I can tolerate. Hate feeling the studs on the bottom of my foot. Nice addition man. What are we up to now? 60s?
 

AEfaninTampa

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What’s in the box? What’s in the box??

Surprised with a nice selection. Out of five 12900’s received, two will go back. One due to fit (1943 just doesn’t work for me), the other because of duplication. For what I received, the $25 x 2 = $50 return fee is worth it. Here is what was in the box: six pairs - one olive PA which was a specific order (not a DOT), and five 12900AM pairs.

Olive Park Aves (first quality)
55490901-6DC8-442F-83E0-99F3258D3D95.jpeg

Five 12900s (AKA DOT shoes):
7D49B16F-4B91-4484-8B40-249B18FA96E1.jpeg
1. Coffee Park Avenue on V-tread (scooooore!!)
B9293002-63B5-4BAA-919F-C47ACDF5BBBD.jpeg
2. Tan Nubuck Eastgate (Nordstrom model) on Dainite
2129F21E-A226-4637-ACB2-A95922EFA941.jpeg
3. Walnut Wingate longwing (also a Nordstrom model on 1943)
1F1BD6BA-7B9A-40AD-87AA-8006C5BD6D24.jpeg
4 and 5 - Brown suede McGraws
89978491-F8CF-421E-95EC-559DDB650394.jpeg
16254C9C-DC8E-47C2-AB46-1432C0859F20.jpeg
Overall, a nice selection. These were direct from the warehouse. Thanks to Team Charleston for placing the order! I also reached out to each individual outlet location to see what they had in my size, but nothing of interest. The ones at the warehouse, you have to buy and try your luck. Three pairs with return fees and tax for less than $300. Not a bad score.
 

BFT9000

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Man... I need more shoes about as badly as you do at this point but the strand (or variation) always gets me. If there were seconds on sale NOT on dainite I’d probably buy the first 3 in the photo (left to right). I could get them as firsts with sole conversions but... some restraint is necessary. I only have 2 pairs of dainite anymore. Both from C&J and for whatever reason they are the only ones I can tolerate. Hate feeling the studs on the bottom of my foot. Nice addition man. What are we up to now? 60s?

Almost 80... :oops:
 

bluejazzmonkey

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.
Somewhat similarly, as a physician, sometimes I have to fire patients. If they abuse or do not respect the patient physician relationship (and this can occur many different ways), then it is clearly no longer a productive relationship and those patients receive a letter in the mail stating that they may seek care elsewhere.

I have been a servant to people for over 36 years (1/2 serving customers and 1/2 serving patients).
I lead a small team to produce twenty million dollars in customer service (no parts). I have lead several private practice teams that grew from about $250,000.00 to $4 million. We did not dismiss patients (for all of the obvious reasons). Patients can be assholes, but they are NOT customers.
Taking care of good and the not-so-good customer is just part of doing business. Making things right is part of doing business.
 

BackInTheJox

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I have been a servant to people for over 36 years (1/2 serving customers and 1/2 serving patients).
I lead a small team to produce twenty million dollars in customer service (no parts). I have lead several private practice teams that grew from about $250,000.00 to $4 million. We did not dismiss patients (for all of the obvious reasons). Patients can be assholes, but they are NOT customers.
Taking care of good and the not-so-good customer is just part of doing business. Making things right is part of doing business.

I will respectfully disagree. Particularly since I work in a low acuity setting, sometimes it is part of the business. And much, much better for mental well-being on the part of me and my physician partners.

It is an amazing and wonderful realization that you don’t have to put up with being treated like crap. We teach others how we should be treated.

All that said, it is extremely rare for me to pull this card.
And yes, sadly, as physicians we are in the customer service industry, whether one wants to acknowledge it or not.
 
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Shoenut

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Sitting around Centro Guadalajara while my wife tries to recover from the food. I wonder at the now Churches that were part of a much larger complex with Mansion just a mere 300 or so years ago. Here is one picture of one of the original Convents.
83F2953A-007C-4B55-9AAE-ADDDAB46745D.jpeg

Much of the complex was sold off in 1934 and only two buildings are left.
AF062D68-63C4-45CD-B592-D6E6A7141CF2.jpeg

There are constant reminders of my good fortune and how I can trifle over a bad stitch or two on my shoes.
7ECB786A-D79D-4742-A067-0724D6F62D59.png

Even the poorest of the poor here seem to wear dressy shoes.
 

Shoenut

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I will respectfully disagree. Particularly since I work in a low acuity setting, sometimes it is part of the business. And much, much better for mental well-being on the part of me and my physician partners.

It is an amazing and wonderful realization that you don’t have to put up with being treated like crap. We teach others how we should be treated.

All that said, it is extremely rare for me to pull this card.
And yes, sadly, as physicians we are in the customer service industry, whether one wants to acknowledge it or not.
I am sure you don’t fire your patients very often and being in your field, you probably take a lot of crap. Probably a lot more than doctors with a more affluent clientele. It must be tough treating people with more problems than just their health. I am quite the jerk with some money, I can’t imagine what an asshole that I would be if I felt the entire world just took a crap on me.
 

stook1

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I am sure you don’t fire your patients very often and being in your field, you probably take a lot of crap. Probably a lot more than doctors with a more affluent clientele. It must be tough treating people with more problems than just their health. I am quite the jerk with some money, I can’t imagine what an asshole that I would be if I felt the entire world just took a crap on me.

I have no idea what sort of patient @BackInTheJox treats but would just suggest that there are difficult people of all different stripes that could be problematic irrespective of financial means. Different problems? maybe. I live in a pretty high income region and have to figure that there is a large contingent that are a huge pain ********** to deal with. I'm not a physician but observe these people in other contexts.
 
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