ro be PISSED OFF with this shoe shop behaviour

[PitysSake]

ok so shop hEAVING.
mum comes in with a huge rucksack and then gets out every shoe her two kids own. battered old trainers, school shoes, even brings sprots socks for kids to try
then get the kids to try on every shit pair of shoes to get the assistant to say if they need new ones

this is NOT degree level science lady, you feel the toes and work it out. These people are not higher beings they are shoes shop assistants.

Meanwheil the rest of us were waiting and wiating.

THEN some annoying muj let her 2 year old walk SLOWLY down the stairs holding up one mum who was calling for a kid she htought had done a runner and me and another guy who wanted to get downstairs AT SOME POINT

[Satsuma1]

YABU.

That lady has every right to get her children's shoes checked.

Go at a less busy time or get there earlier.

We go to an independent shop which allows you to book appointments for fittings. I've seen people bring in loads of shoes to be checked too and also to see if shoes belonging to an older child will fit their younger sibling.

[raffyandted]

Why would she need to take every pair of shoes in, anyway? I don't get it. If the kids have more than one pair each, then they either all fit or they all don't.

I think she was a bit potty.

[raffyandted]

every pair

[raffyandted]

Why can't i do italics all of a sudden...

[HerBeatitude]

My god talk about disempowered consumers.

I'm so glad I no longer feel the need to go to Clarks. I feel so liberated every time I go past at the end of the school holidays and catch glimpses of hunted-looking parents with snooty shop-girls looking down their noses at fractious kids who are fractious because they have been waiting to get their feet measured for 37 minutes. Oh the joy of not feeling that those bastards have me in their power...

[cocolepew]

every pair

[ShowOfHands]

Fimbo, I go to the same start rite factory shop as you I assume. I live a stone's throw from it. It's the strangest place I have ever been to in my life and yes yes yes to people all going at the same time and faffing about. Last visit, woman before me in queue had her number called, trotted over to the door with her toddler and screeched across the carpark and 5 more children came running. Each one wanted two pairs of shoes, each one needed to um and ah about colours and styles. Stealthy hogging of the system. I was spitting.

My shoe shopping for dd consists of 'she's a 7H, whatever you have is fine, stick it in a box and take my money'.

[simplesusan]

I have to laugh at the parents buying school shoes for their kids and who treat it as though they are buying the world's most expensive wedding dress for their beloved child.

When I go it is similar to showofhands, have feet measured, zoom over to appropriate size pick out 2 or 3 pairs of shoes. Get them tried on if they all fit ask dd which do you like best. Buy the shoes simples!

[raffyandted]

at cocolepew

[PitysSake]

Wilkos - a shoe shop in SOuthampton always measures feet - they change as oyu get older - so wise to measure

[PitysSake]

htis place - they would have qs out the doro atm - anyone on the south coast needs to go there}

its also VERY good for shoes for my parents

[PitysSake]

the door, not the doro, no qs there no siree

[raffyandted]

I used to adore my visits to the Clarks shop when I was a child.Probably only once or twice a year. It was always the same shop, the same ritual, and he whole thing was somehow sacred, 'We Are Going To The Clarks Shop For New Shoes'

It was a local shop like another poster mentioned, the shoe boxes piled up from floor to ceiling all round the room like and the bloke would climb up a ladder to reach the ones you wanted. The whole shop smelled of new leather, lovely!

Even now I adore getting my son New Shoes, takes me back

I think I had some sort of shoe fetish as a child though because I clearly remember being obsessed with owning a pair of 'black painting shoes' (I meant 'patent') at a very young age & my mum says that even as a child in a pushchair, I would scream if we walked past a shoe shop and didn't stop to look. She says she used to get my older sister to block my view from the pushchair as we went past.

I was weird

[vbusymum1]

And following on from the loud parenting yesterday, nothing worse than both combined - idiot shouty parent having to do a commentary for toddler who don't understand and couldn't care less anyway "ooh don't those shoes look lovely, what a big child you are, how clever of you to walk all that way to try them.
And idiot me for still shopping at Clarks

[PitysSake]

oh vbusy - very good venn diagrma moment

[Kbear]

ah, happy memories of our holiday in Cornwall at Easter - we happened upon a branch of Clarks in a Cornish town and I leapt at the chance of getting DD new shoes - the shop was empty, and DD had the pick of all the styles. Usually I have to take whatever they have in her size. I was overjoyed as only a mother-after-a-successful-quick-school-shoe-purchase can be!!

Footnote (LOL): Brucey bonus, they STILL FIT and I don't have to buy new ones yet. Woop Woop of joy!

DS's feet don't fit Clarks shoes and I get his in Next usually, or M&S.

[Podrick]

Shoe shopping is second only to potty training in my list of worst experiences as a parent (will being the parent of a teenager blow these out of the water...I wait to see)

I think you should be more outspoken in your views - tell it to the shoe insecuros live and direct next time - don't bottle it all up.

[cece]

I took our old shoes to get the fitting checked today! I don't trust my dc to tell me whether they are tight as they like new shoes too much.

In my defence I only took one pair each. DS's pair fit him still but it was a bit embarassing when half of the school's sandpit sand fell out of them onto their lovely carpet

Things got so bad in there that I agreed to DD having a patent pair with a toy in the heel. Walks away muttering to myself. Never in a million years did I think I would buy some like that!

[ElieRM]

Last year, I was supervisor of Clark's kids department, and believe me, OP is NOTHING.

1. 2 year old boy trying on shoes. Couldn't have cared less what he had on his feet, and the only colour he could say was 'red.' Waited for half an hour because his mother was adament she wouldn't buy any shoes until he expressed a preference for a pair. The first pair was green, the second blue. I was nearly in tears at the end. She didn't buy either because 'se wasn't sure he liked them.'
   
2. Mum and (understandably) mortified and outraged 15 year old girl. Insisted she had lace-ups because 'her feet were still gorwing,and she could choose her own when she started sixth form!'
   
3. Mum with five kids coming in a 5.25 despite knowing we shut at half past, insisted on all kids trying on three pairs each and bought nothing.
   4)Mum coming in with 2 kids at end of August in the middle of the day, storming up whilst I was midway through serving someone and demanding she be served next because she 'didn't have time to wait.'
   
4. Mum coming in at peak time with toddler during back to school, trying on three pairs which all fitted, and then tried on two of those pairs again in a different colours to see how they looked. Thne insisted the shoes fitted differently, despite being exactly the same but in different colours.
   Incidentally, all these people were oblivious to the fifty people with kids sat waiting. Because their time was more important than anyone else's.
   Do think properly fitted shoes are important though.

[ElieRM]

Toy in shoes are also the work of the antichrist.

[curiositykilled]

I think YAB a bit U, she could clearly have done it herself but what's the point in getting angry about it? Shoe shops are always hell unless you are able to go when they are quiet. There's no point allowing yourself to get so het up. This kind of fitting is clearly a service that that shop provides otherwise the assistant would've told the woman she wasn't prepared to check the shoes.

And getting angry at a 2 year old walking slowly down the stairs?! That's very unreasonable I'm afraid!

[bamboostalks]

I had my purse nicked whilst in Clarks last week, totally demented and distracted. So got the fing shes fitted and picked etc and then had no money to pay. Kept them behind the counter, came back next day and they had sold them. Aaargh! the anger!!! last ones in the correct size. Apparently, they are a hot spot for thieves.

[wotzy]

Smug, as I did the shoe thing last week, just as the new arrival styles were in. All done.

I hate getting children school shoes. I pity the poor shop assistants and I'm always overly nice to them at this time of year.

[pootle09]

Can someone explain why it's so important that new shoes are bought just before the autumn school term, leading to shoe-rage in Clarks in august every year? Wouldn't any other time of year suffice? I don't have children at school yet so not sure if there's some Very Very Important Reason for it.

[laloue]

LOL at ElieRM, I work in a shoe shop with children's dept too...this week's winner so far is:
Prada clad woman with FIVE year old: "so you don't have anything with a NAME on it?"
me: "?",
Pradafan:" you know, Lacoste or Timberland?".
Me: "erm, no , not really, just Start-Rite or similar "
PF :"Well he won't wear anything that isn't designer."

WTF???

And can someone tell men that the reason all those people are sitting there losing the will to live is because they're in a queue, which, they too, will have to join like the rest of the mere mortals?
2 more weeks, head down...