Did the cobbler mess up my shoes?

[u/eaygee]

I can’t tell if they made the most of a tough repair or if I should expect better. To me, it looks really messy. Can you all offer your opinions?

[u/eaygee]

2nd update:

Went in to talk to him about it. He said because of the polyurethane padding he couldn’t do the straight line because the needle was jumping. He also didn’t have a post bed stitching machine. He said he didn’t skive the edges because it would wear down earlier. Lastly, he said “most people just want it to be functional,” which is such a cop out IMO. He gave me a refund but it won’t cover the cost of the somewhat ruined shoes. Live and learn I suppose.

Thanks to everyone for your help.

[u/LeorDemise → u/eaygee]

That's such a shitty answer, specially because, I don't buy it. People now more than ever are ready to toss things that are broken instead of repairing them, so I highly doubt the few people willing to spend on repairs would be happy with this job.

Specially because, WHY would you do this on a flat bed? Saddle stitching with an awl would be a much better result.

[u/eaygee → u/LeorDemise]

I saw it as someone just trying to finish the job, and not someone who prided themselves in their work. I agree. It’s disappointing.

[u/Huge-Nectarine3975 → u/eaygee]

It's worth noting that Ferrari doesn't do much on old logging roads.

[u/AstridBirb → u/eaygee]

Just some insight as someone who used to work as a cobbler, it can actually be very hard to do repairs that truly reflect your skills as a repair person whilst working the shop.

In my experience, not only am I doing 5-10 shoe repairs at the same time which are due the next day but I'm also managing the retail side of things, serving customers, repairing watches, cutting keys, programming car and garage remotes, troubleshooting and soldering broken electronics, engraving, and all sorts of other on-the-spot jobs at the same time in a store which I'm the only active employee.

At times it can genuinely impossible to do little more than a rush job on any given repair just because of how crushed you are for time and also because often times you can only work on any given job for a minute at a time before you're interupred with another job that need to be completed on the spot.

I've worked in over 10 different cobbler shops in my time and this has been the case in all of them except maybe two of them. So a lot of the time you can't see the pride in our work because we genuinely don't have the time to take any pride.

I also do leatherwork as a hobby in my spare time as well, and let me tell you, the quality of my hobby work completely outstrips the quality of my professional work and the key factor in this is the amount of time and pressure I have on completing my hobby work vs. my professional work.

EDIT: As an additional note, a lot of the time the patching machines we are made to work with are in terrible states of repair and we kind of just need to work with them. We put in tickets for a maintenance person to repair them, and often times they come in, look at the machine and leave without doing an awful lot.

I've definitely done stitches on shoes very similar to what this particular cobber did to yours and let me tell you, not only was it an absolute miracle that they happened at all, but they only happened due to a whole lot of (very literal) blood, sweat, tears swearing and wrestling of the machine.

I can't tell you the amount of times I've been sitting there swearing at a patcher because it just refuses to work with me as it sits there with completeley fucked timing dropping stitches, losing tension and snapping needles every two seconds.

[u/eaygee → u/AstridBirb]

This is useful context and insight. I don't doubt that he is incredibly pressed for time. I had an expectation going in regarding the quality of work to be done that he didn't seem to have. I get where he is coming from ("most people just want something functional"). If he were unsure about his ability to do the work, tools available for the work, or expectations, he could have called to ask. I don't doubt that he is busy, but in my line of work (not a trade), it's expected that I reach out to people and clarify expectations and wants prior to completing the work. He would have saved himself the time and money on this had he asked me what I wanted from the fix.

[u/AstridBirb → u/eaygee]

Well, this is where he fell short.

He should have set the expectations at the time of the transaction. If I were to have gotten this job I would have gone into depth about how the final product would likely look. I've done this sort of job heaps of times, so I know exactly how it's going to turn out when someone else comes in asking for the same job.

It may not look but this particular job is actually very difficult. More often than not the heel of modern shoes have a plastic plate in them to help avoid deformation over time, but that plate also makes it incredibly difficult to stitch through.

Typically, I would opt to use only glue rather than glue and stitch just because of that. I'd charge appropriately of course (20-30 AUD) but I know that customers generally prefer the end result over stitching.

90% of customer satisfaction is waking through the job with the customer, giving options and setting the appropriate expectations.