Once Upon A Time In The Land Called Shoes

Back in the day, I remember going shopping for new shoes. I would go into my favorite shoe store, find one or two pair that I liked, then go sit down and wait for a clerk to come and assist me.  My wait was most of the time only a few minutes.  The shoes clerk would greet me with a friendly greeting and asked me if they could help me.  I would smile and say I would like to try this shoe on in a 7 1/2.  They would smile and say, of course and quickly go to retrieve that size.  They would bring back the sized I needed, sit in front of me on a stool, remove my shoe and skillfully put the new shoe on my foot.  I would stand up, walk around a bit to get the feel then go over to the special mirror sitting on the floor to get a good view of what the shoe looked like on my foot.  This process might take place several times until I found the shoe that was right for me.  The wonderful thing was that the sales clerk, took the time, with me, to insure that I had what I wanted and was completely satisfied when I left their store.

Now, how many shoe stores, or shoe departments offers the same?  You are usually left to serve yourself, with the exceptions of the more high-end stores that do have a sales clerk who must go and get the size of shoe you want.  But basically, shoe sales is a do-it-yourself, serve-yourself business now.  Impersonal service, not customer service is the attitude that prevails.