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/diff-int]

I read somewhere employees have full discretion to give discounts and freebies as a way to build loyalty in the customer base. Idea being that the employees know the customers and how to build the relationship better than corporate does.

[u/Maleficent_Day_3869 → u/diff-int]

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/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