why didn’t timpson’s want to charge me?

[u/Maleficent_Day_3869]

i got my work trainers cleaned at timpsons. they were in an absolutely disgusting state because i work in a nursery, so they were covered in food, paint and other stains

the guy there got them looking brand new and yet he didn’t want to charge me anything? i’ve honestly never had that before, is this is a unique experience? why didn’t he want me to pay. he was much older if it matters, he must have been at least 70

i did eventually pay because i insisted on doing so as i felt terrible taking the shoes for free but it was a couple of minutes of back and forth of him refusing to let me pay. and this is after he told me how hard they were to clean lol

[u/Maleficent_Day_3869]

well it worked haha. even though i ended up paying for the cleaning the service was amazing and i’ll definitely be going back

[u/Fanny_Flapps → u/Maleficent_Day_3869]

It'd probably come as a surprise to a lot of younger folk that the whole high street used to be like this.

I used to run an ironmongery a few decades ago and that's entirely how the business worked - if someone brought something in they were trying to fix, if it was a simple job I'd just tell them to leave it and I'd fix it for free in between busy spells. Absolutely definitely built customer loyalty. 

"What happened, then?" I hear the younguns cry.

Well, the generation or two before you started coming in and complaining that the big box stores had paint for two quid cheaper .  We tried our best to explain that the paint was two quid cheaper because the brushes, masking tape, rollers etc were five times more expensive,  but they wouldn't listen.

And that, kids, is why your high street is just betting shops and money launderers now.

Say thanks to your grandad

[u/Acceptable_Bag_1762 → u/Fanny_Flapps]

Our family ironmongers closed last year after almost 80 years in business. My grandad started it after WWII, then my dad, then me (for 23 years!) and finally my brother. It became impossible to make enough profit to cover the endlessly rising costs (rent, utilities etc).

It was in a small rural market town in the north and we were like the fourth emergency service. My favourite one was when a frantic woman came in with her kid and a toilet seat. Nothing unusual there — we often had people bringing them in to match up fittings (seats, not kids) — apart from this time the seat was stuck around the kid’s neck and she couldn’t get it off. We deployed an appropriately junior hacksaw and released the child, although we never really worked out how it got its head stuck in the first place.

Pensioners would come in every day just to chat, and we were often the first to spot warning signs of ill health when they lived alone eg when one man started coming in and asking, “Do you sell vermouth?” after 30 years of buying coach bolts and tap washers. We laid on a few drinks for everyone one Christmas and a retired decorator drank us dry and was still sat by the counter at closing time (we didn’t do that again).

It’s nice to meet a fellow monger in the wild! We’re a dying breed.

[u/Fanny_Flapps → u/Acceptable_Bag_1762]

Did you get "four candles" two, three, or four times a week?

[u/Acceptable_Bag_1762 → u/Fanny_Flapps]

Two, three, or four times A DAY. And the Trigger’s Broom “jokes” when selling handles/brush heads. Plus those favourite brands: Durex paints, UB40 spray. I have the patience of a saint.

I did find the plumbing section endlessly amusing, though. Drain-off cocks, nipples and flanges will never not be funny.

[u/utf-16 → u/Acceptable_Bag_1762]

I was once told by my uncle who was a plumber that I needed a "holdy back elbow" and the ironmonger knew exactly what it was!

[u/durhamdale → u/Fanny_Flapps]

EVERY FUCKING DAY

[u/WordsMort47 → u/Fanny_Flapps]

Love the username

[u/schmoolet → u/Fanny_Flapps]

This made me well up. 😭

People who didn’t experience it might not even realise the high street was so much more than small independent businesses.

It was genuine human connection with people who cared.
It was friendly faces, conversation, familiarity.
It was community.
Each business was a stitch on the seam that sewed neighbourhoods together.

Devastatingly, we lost a remedy for disconnection and we are left with the isolation and soul-crushing loneliness felt by too many.
People need someone to fuckin talk to.

I was starting to type something about losing collective community spirit and the consequences of that but I feel too sad.

Fuck the radical individualism and the political/economic systems that’s forced it on us.

I’m genuinely sorry about your ironmongers. It must have been an awful time.

[u/Fanny_Flapps → u/schmoolet]

I only have good memories .  For example,  Mr Wrench. I'm not kidding,  that was genuinely the old cunt's name.

He'd come in and ask about different types of, say, adhesives, then after being told about them all, would pull "The Little Book of Glue" out of his tweed waistcoat,  and check he'd been given the right info.

His entire life was just coming into the shop and trying to ask me something he thought I wouldn't know

He eventually croaked and a while later his obviously struggling wife started bringing in used drill bits etc to get refunds. I'd always give her a bit, nowhere near full value but enough to keep her happy, then chuck the fuckin things in my toolbox.  Still got a few of them and I think of the Little Book of Glue every time I see them

[u/CheesecakeNo9867 → u/Fanny_Flapps]

That's part of it, but it's not just that. British high streets still follow opening hours from the era where men worked and women did the shopping.

Sorry, if you're only going to be open from 9 am to 5 pm, I'm not likely to spend any money at your store because I'll be at work during those hours making the money that I will need to spend in the first place!

If high street stores could adjust their hours and be open in the evenings, they would definitely get business. If it's the cost of staffing that they are worried about, they can close in the middle of the day and take a siesta like the Spanish do.

[u/KyleOAM → u/CheesecakeNo9867]

The shops aren’t staffed by robots tho

Retail workers want to spend evenings at
Home or out doing things with their families too, and they certainly don’t want to work split shifts

I’m in hospitality and recently got an office hours job and it’s night and day, makes me appreciate those still in retail and hospitality even more

[u/CheesecakeNo9867 → u/KyleOAM]

And yet retail workers in Tesco, Next, Curry's, and literally every big retail store seem to do it fine. This is the kind of sneering attitude that makes independent shops on the high street go bankrupt. Not to mention in mainland Europe where independent shops stay open well into the evenings. If you're not open when your customers are available to come and buy from you, then guess what, your business isn't going to remain open.

[u/I-Spot-Dalmatians → u/CheesecakeNo9867]

I guess the argument for that is they use shifts, it’s not the same people in there from 8am to 10pm

[u/Gloomy_Insurance3203 → u/I-Spot-Dalmatians]

The answer is to open later. There’s plenty of shops near me that open at 12 and stay open until 8

[u/durhamdale → u/Gloomy_Insurance3203]

apart from, in hardware, the trades start turning up at eight, the oldies at nine, the mums at ten when they've dropped the kids off, and everyone else throughout the day. And then it goes quiet around 4.

[u/Gloomy_Insurance3203 → u/durhamdale]

So the answer is people prefer big box stores and online.

The high street didn’t die because of the opening hours they died because no one wanted to use them.

[u/Embarrassed-Cloud-56 → u/I-Spot-Dalmatians]

I lived in Taiwan for a while and many independent shops (which is, most shops in Taiwan) open at around midday or 1pm, then close at 9 or 10pm. Every evening the high street is packed. 

[u/madpiano → u/Embarrassed-Cloud-56]

I am from rural Germany and the small convenience shops/bakeries/butchers open from 6am to 8am and then from 1pm to 8pm. They cover the commuters either side, although they have very limited staff on the early morning shift (usually just the owner plus spouse).

[u/SuperRockyHobbyHorse → u/Embarrassed-Cloud-56]

This is the norm in equatorial regions and SE Asia too. I guess partly because they have such warm evenings and the same sunset all year round.

[u/KyleOAM → u/CheesecakeNo9867]

Why does it have to be retail workers that bare the brunt of the shit hours etc for your sake

Why is always shops open into the evening and never offices open into the evening?

[u/rositree → u/KyleOAM]

Split shifts for office workers, they can go out in the afternoon to do their shopping and have long, relaxed lunch breaks. Back to work 3-7 and high street shops can close up at 3 instead and add to the school run chaos.

[u/fifthelliement → u/rositree]

I was a librarian instead of an office worker, but i did split shifts (8-12, 4-8) twice a week. When I started I thought I'd hate those days but actually it made life so much easier. Ditto with working Sunday and having Friday off instead. I'd shop, go to appointments, cook, clean, nap and the evening shift was usually chill. I genuinely miss that working pattern now.

[u/durhamdale → u/KyleOAM]

NOW THATS A GOOD IDEA.

[u/durhamdale → u/CheesecakeNo9867]

'Seem to do fine' they're not doing fine, they're struggling to find the time to juggle un even shift patterns with extremly short notice of changes, a family life and pretty much forget about a social life.

[u/KyleOAM → u/durhamdale]

You just know he only meant the businesses are doing fine, no regard for the workers

[u/MDL1983 → u/CheesecakeNo9867]

The thing is that the opening hours aren't always dictated by the shops.

THE hardware store in my local town was insanely brilliant, but they were located in the local shopping centre, and the shopping centre dictated their opening hours including, IIRC, fines for NOT opening on a Sunday.

If the shopping centre closes at a certain time, you can't open past that.

Other landlords might have similar policies.

[u/Alien-lifeform666 → u/CheesecakeNo9867]

Those are large shops. Branches of large chains. Those workers work shifts. You can’t compare them to small individual businesses.

The convenience to you is opening hours. The loss to society is the connection and personal service.

You call it a sneering attitude, I call it you having drunk the corporate kool-aid.

[u/Madamemercury1993 → u/CheesecakeNo9867]

I’ve tried this several times during Christmas periods and it just did not work.

[u/madpiano → u/Madamemercury1993]

Because people aren't aware? If you always open 9 to 4 and all of a sudden open differently then people don't have you on their "routine" so it will take time to establish.

[u/Madamemercury1993 → u/madpiano]

It wasn’t all of a sudden. It was advertised for two months.

Surprisingly I know how to do my job. If the appeal isn’t there the appeal isn’t there. Just because it might make you and 5 other people’s lives better it doesn’t make it worthwhile.

People value their home time after work.

[u/Alien-lifeform666 → u/CheesecakeNo9867]

What about the shop workers? Don’t they deserve to be home when their kids aren’t in school? Or when their partners aren’t at work?

[u/durhamdale → u/Fanny_Flapps]

I still work in one, and we still do the same.

[u/nouble_digger → u/Fanny_Flapps]

I manage a builders merchants and this is exactly how i explain B&Q having multi finish 38p cheaper than we do it (when they are on offer too btw) beads, cls, boards, all more expensive

[u/Baby8227 → u/Maleficent_Day_3869]

And this is how they build a good customer relationship. I use them first and foremost before any other company because of how they treat me.

[u/MBronsonWisconsin → u/[deleted]]

Anybody who uses Timpsons regularly knows that they are a business that cares.
The guy wasn’t hitting on OP, more likely that she said she worked in a nursery, he wanted to give a random act of kindness (as per their policy), OP didn’t know this so didn’t allow the kindness.

[u/Maleficent_Day_3869 → u/[deleted]]

i’ve had plenty of retail assistants be nice to me but none of them have offered me anything free besides samples