Curbside Appeal

I'm always looking for shirts which fit me. Make that cheap shirts which fit me. I know where the expensive ones are, but I'm not ready to pay $70+ for a long-sleeve dress shirt. I think I once paid $40 for a shirt, that may have been the time store security had to come and help me pry my debit card out of my wallet. Hyperventilating may also have been involved, the whole incident is a blur and it's hard to remember specific details...

I used to be able to find 36/37" sleeves in the sale bin at Moore's, then they caught on to my scheme and started stocking the 34/35" sleeves. That doesn't help much. "We have bigger ones over here..." they would say, pointing to the expensive section. Are you really getting the "big spender" vibe off the guy digging through the $20 bargain bin??

Then for about eight months, Sears had my size and I discovered how nice a 37/38" sleeve really is. So, I'd stop in every time I was at the office and pick up a shirt. And then they decided to cater to the "business OompaLoompa" market. In what crazed and deranged world is a 32/33" sleeve considered to be Large??

I don't know why I keep going back to Sears to check for my size. Maybe it's optimism, maybe a hope they really do carry my size but other tall people get there before I do. Let me go on record right now to say I have officially made my last visit to the Marlborough Mall Sears in Calgary. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, let me give you a short essay...

People in business, especially retail, know about the importance of curbside appeal. I'm a fan of Dennis Snow, a great speaker and author about customer service topics. One of his points is "Everything Speaks". Everything in your organization speaks something to the customer. This is why grocery stores spend so much time making sure all the product is brought forward to the front of the shelves, so it's easy for customer to reach and appears well-stocked.

You could expect a display like this in the toy section after parents let little Chucky run amuck while they're off looking at sporting goods etc. But what is the impression you get when this happens in men's wear? It's not like there was a huge sale either. I noticed three staff walk past this carnage as they went to other departments. I started to wonder how long it had been since any of the staff had been in the department to check on it. The shirt section was about 30 minutes away from graffiti and gang tagging. Fortunately, I made it out before things really got bad...