I Found a Real Tailor!!!
There's a hilarious episode of Friends in which Chandler needs a tailor. Joey suggests one he knows and goes to all the time. Chandler goes and, to his horror, the tailor fondles his man jewels. Joey, apparently, never realizes this is wrong until Ross says its wrong too. It just serves to illustrate the difficulty in finding a good tailor.
Trust me, the following has relation to what I'm going to talk about. Capitalism is good in some respects. The higher standard of living, the rapid development of new technology, and the reliability of product regardless of geography are some of the positives. Karl Marx couldn't argue with that could he?
The staggaring amount of negatives, however, makes me almost want to be socialist (and this is coming from a person who's father fought against communist and who's wife's family fled communism in a boat). But as I'll show in a few paragraphs, the negatives can be abated by wise decisions on the part of the consumer.
The biggest negative of capitalism is the loss of the mom and pop shop. In place of a neighborhood coffee house, you have Starbucks. In place of a neighborhood bookstore, you have Barnes and Noble. Economies of scale has made it such that individual service becomes an item on the employee training manual, rather than an actual trait.
I frequent Borders quite a bit. Mainly because it has good coffee and I can read the magazines. But despite the fact that I've been there nearly everyday the last month, the guys behind the counter has yet to learn my name nor ask me a question. Why? I'm not sure - probably they see too many customers in a day. But its not that hard to do, and until they start talking, I'm withholding their tip. Take that.
Finding a mom and pop coffee house with a great magazine collection, though, is hard to find. So that's why I'm at the huge, made to not feel like a chain but still is a chian Borders. Some things, I've realized, should never be made like a chain.
Today, I needed to alter some pants of mine. Until I figure out how to make myself a few inches taller, I still need someone to cut my pants down to my short stubby size. I had no clue, and nobody in this neighborhood talks to each other, so I couldn't get a good referral. I looked on the internet and found a few places. One, called "The Tailor Maid," was located in the mall, so I figured it would be easy to stop by and get alterations done. Plus, it had other locations in the bay as well.
When I approached the pink shop, I noticed a small line forming with all sorts of women hanging out. To my surprise, the place was busy and there was no man in sight. There was some sort of assembly line thing going on I couldn't figure out. Either way, I was turned off immediately. After ten minutes, the clerk/assistant/someone who doesn't care asked me what I wanted, in a sorta annoyed that she had to work way. I said nothing and left.
I then drove around my neighborhood to another place I saw on the internet. It was hard to find and it looked a little run down. It was empty. There appeared to be only one changing booth with a small semi-sheer curtain meant to shield the curious (or the horrified) from me changing clothes. I walked in anyway, on instinct thinking it might be right.
Immediately, an older italian fellow greeted me and asked me my name and shook my hand. Whoa! This is not supposed to happen. I'm supposed to stand in line and never touch anybody's hand no? I said I needed some pants hemmed and his opinion on if my jacket needed any tailoring. He said, "OF COURSE!!!! That's what I'm here for!"
While marking out my first pair of pants, he continued on, asking me about life, what I do, if I had kids, why I'm here, what type of surgery I'll be doing, etc. I asked him how long he'd been here if he has kids, etc. But best of all, he knew what he was doing. No questions asked, he knew exactly if I liked a little break or not. He even suggested me trying other suit sizes to see if they fit better.
The kicker though, was when he said, "Doctor, you need to work out more to fit the slimmer suits. Then you'd make us Italians proud!" He was great. And he knew what he was doing.
Which brings me back to capitalism. The reason why this guy has such a rundown shop despite the expertise and wonderful personalization is because he can't afford to upkeep the shop like he would. He just doesn't get enough customers. He's being pushed out by the Nordstrom's, the Tailor Maid's, even Banana Republic because customers don't care about getting to know the tailor - they just know that at those places it may be free.
But that's the point. The consumer has a choice. For some reason, we've decided that spending money should not factor in community. The mom's and pop's stores are our community and we need to support them by spending money in their shops, etc. Yes, I still need to go to Border's, as its the only place that I know that has that magazine selection and coffee in one spot.
But from here on out, I know who's going to be altering all of my clothes - semi-sheer curtain or not.
Trust me, the following has relation to what I'm going to talk about. Capitalism is good in some respects. The higher standard of living, the rapid development of new technology, and the reliability of product regardless of geography are some of the positives. Karl Marx couldn't argue with that could he?
The staggaring amount of negatives, however, makes me almost want to be socialist (and this is coming from a person who's father fought against communist and who's wife's family fled communism in a boat). But as I'll show in a few paragraphs, the negatives can be abated by wise decisions on the part of the consumer.
The biggest negative of capitalism is the loss of the mom and pop shop. In place of a neighborhood coffee house, you have Starbucks. In place of a neighborhood bookstore, you have Barnes and Noble. Economies of scale has made it such that individual service becomes an item on the employee training manual, rather than an actual trait.
I frequent Borders quite a bit. Mainly because it has good coffee and I can read the magazines. But despite the fact that I've been there nearly everyday the last month, the guys behind the counter has yet to learn my name nor ask me a question. Why? I'm not sure - probably they see too many customers in a day. But its not that hard to do, and until they start talking, I'm withholding their tip. Take that.
Finding a mom and pop coffee house with a great magazine collection, though, is hard to find. So that's why I'm at the huge, made to not feel like a chain but still is a chian Borders. Some things, I've realized, should never be made like a chain.
Today, I needed to alter some pants of mine. Until I figure out how to make myself a few inches taller, I still need someone to cut my pants down to my short stubby size. I had no clue, and nobody in this neighborhood talks to each other, so I couldn't get a good referral. I looked on the internet and found a few places. One, called "The Tailor Maid," was located in the mall, so I figured it would be easy to stop by and get alterations done. Plus, it had other locations in the bay as well.
When I approached the pink shop, I noticed a small line forming with all sorts of women hanging out. To my surprise, the place was busy and there was no man in sight. There was some sort of assembly line thing going on I couldn't figure out. Either way, I was turned off immediately. After ten minutes, the clerk/assistant/someone who doesn't care asked me what I wanted, in a sorta annoyed that she had to work way. I said nothing and left.
I then drove around my neighborhood to another place I saw on the internet. It was hard to find and it looked a little run down. It was empty. There appeared to be only one changing booth with a small semi-sheer curtain meant to shield the curious (or the horrified) from me changing clothes. I walked in anyway, on instinct thinking it might be right.
Immediately, an older italian fellow greeted me and asked me my name and shook my hand. Whoa! This is not supposed to happen. I'm supposed to stand in line and never touch anybody's hand no? I said I needed some pants hemmed and his opinion on if my jacket needed any tailoring. He said, "OF COURSE!!!! That's what I'm here for!"
While marking out my first pair of pants, he continued on, asking me about life, what I do, if I had kids, why I'm here, what type of surgery I'll be doing, etc. I asked him how long he'd been here if he has kids, etc. But best of all, he knew what he was doing. No questions asked, he knew exactly if I liked a little break or not. He even suggested me trying other suit sizes to see if they fit better.
The kicker though, was when he said, "Doctor, you need to work out more to fit the slimmer suits. Then you'd make us Italians proud!" He was great. And he knew what he was doing.
Which brings me back to capitalism. The reason why this guy has such a rundown shop despite the expertise and wonderful personalization is because he can't afford to upkeep the shop like he would. He just doesn't get enough customers. He's being pushed out by the Nordstrom's, the Tailor Maid's, even Banana Republic because customers don't care about getting to know the tailor - they just know that at those places it may be free.
But that's the point. The consumer has a choice. For some reason, we've decided that spending money should not factor in community. The mom's and pop's stores are our community and we need to support them by spending money in their shops, etc. Yes, I still need to go to Border's, as its the only place that I know that has that magazine selection and coffee in one spot.
But from here on out, I know who's going to be altering all of my clothes - semi-sheer curtain or not.
posted by Richard at 11:05 AM
2 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
That is a great story. My grandmother used to be a great Tailor as well, whenever we needed something hemmed or sewed we would send them over to Nanna's. She was great and would have them back to us the next day. I think there need to have more old fashioned barber shops (where they use straight edge razors and hot shaving cream) and next door should be some old Tailor and next to that a bakery selling square pizza.
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