I decided to give it a full 90 days of observation before I spoke of this mad adventure of selling running shoes. My initial summation is this. "Wow". I am all over the place with what to make of it. The diversion of people--their needs, sometimes at odds with their requests, the stereotypes broken once you engage in conversation, the funny, the sad, the hopeful, the inspirational...they all walk through the door...
In spite of the chaos of working week-ends while still trying to train for marathons and have a life, I LOVE THIS JOB. I especially love this job because of the customers. It may be a customer with a complicated need to work through. My favorite customer in this category so far is the somewhat overweight customer starting the "Couch to 5K" program that hated any shoe with an arch...She ended up with a pair of New Balance Minimus shoes, which I often refer to as ballet slippers. It's one of the few shoes in the store that indeed, has no arch. Once I put those shoes on her feet she hit the treadmill and said, "Bingo, this is it". I also love the customer that shatters a stereotypical thought, like the thin, small framed guy who just took up running. As I had him remove this socks and shoes to walk barefoot I thought to myself that I was wasting his time with the gait analysis, as I was sure he was a neutral runner...well he ended up pronating so badly he left the store with not just a stability shoe for pronation, but a full blown motion control shoe. I have to admit I love the customer who thinks he knows what he wants and I can convince him to get what he needs and still walk away happy, like the guy who wanted Newtons because all his triathlete friends wore them...So I put him in Newtons, but I made him run on the treadmill. He couldn't get those shoes off his feet fast enough. (Trust me, he didn't need to be wearing Newtons)...But my favorite customer of all is the one who has the inspirational story, like the guy who lost over 100 pounds and is on a tear to get out there and jog his first 5K. They all have that light in their eyes, quoting that same message, "You just have to get out there and do it". So simple, yet so profound.
Of course, some customers are not as pleasant or fun to work with, but nonetheless just as important. A man brought in his wife with advanced Alzheimer's to be fitted for running shoes. The only rationale I could think of was maybe she used to be a regular customer as a walker or runner and still insisted on coming to Luke's Locker, I don't know, but it was very sad. We have a few customers that are just plain mean and ugly, but luckily they are rare, as rare as they are in the running community itself, which makes sense I guess. Then there's the customer that is injured and wants you to fix them. They want you to put them in a shoe that will make them all better. I do the best I can, but usually it's not the shoe, which is a tough pill for some to swallow, especially if a race is looming. The ones I have the most trouble with though, are the children who have the overbearing parent, like the 8 year old boy whose dad was barking that now his son can go "run some PR's"...In my brief moment with him I told him to have fun running, because that is all that matters, and just hope that the thought stuck in his brain somewhere...
So in just one day here is sample:
1. A lady who just qualified for Boston at her first marathon (Chicago), and was able to register in time for Boston 2013.
2. A lady who actually referred to herself as "not a real runner" because she only ran a few miles a few times a week. (I set her straight).
3. A guy that currently wore a size 3XLshirt , but is well on his way to a 2XL...He had suffered blood clots from a surgery and was finally back to walking 4 miles a day, every day.
4. An older man that was putting off ankle surgery, but his ankle was so swollen I really had to work hard to find a shoe with a large enough "throat" for it.
5. A preschooler that wanted a shoe with shoe strings instead of velcro.
6. A woman that wanted only the pink Nike Free 3.0's and nothing else.
7. A real looker of a woman who needed black shoes because she was a waitress at a gentlemen's club, and her feet were killing her. FYI, Nike's Pegasus Shield is black and water resistant. I really felt sorry for my male co-workers for not getting to work with her, ha ha.
8. An older woman who is running her first marathon in over 10 years because her sister wanted to run a marathon, so they are running the Marine Corps marathon together in matching outfits.
Obviously, with 90 days into it I have a lot more to learn...mostly about shoe technology...I'll save that one for the next blog. So far I am trying to keep an open mind, but there are shoes that I only bring out by request and when I do I exercise considerable restraint. To be continued...
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