Special edition Matt post: Unsupervised shoe purchase

When is it time to buy new shoes? I have a very poor habit of waiting till my socks get wet from the rain under my shoes.  The follow up question is what shoes to buy?  Cheap or comfortable are usually the two points on each end of the spectrum.  I recently purchased some new dress shoes, without the supervision of my wife (usually a bad idea).  Here is how that gem of a decision went. 

 

I knew there are decently comfortable leather shoes available at a store in Portland which were reasonably priced, but I had an original thought.  “I bet I can find them cheaper and closer to home.”  The obvious response is, of course you can, for a cost. 

 

So there I was with a nice young lady who knew nothing about the shoes I was trying on, but made the classic mistake as a shoe department employee and  asked if I had any questions. She couldn’t tell me about the brand or materials used to make the shoe but offered her support by saying, “they look nice, how do they feel?”  Thank goodness she was there or I might have forgot to ask myself those two questions.  As I tried on the two options available, my heal was nearly cut by the razor sharp heal support, which didn’t flex. They were stiff as a board but not quite as comfortable as the traditional Holland clogs you see made of wood.

 

“So, how much are these?, I asked.”  To my surprise, these are on clearance!  Of course they are.  The fact that the store couldn’t sell them should have been my final indication that these shoes were not right for me.  Final analysis: They only look ok, won’t last long, and aren’t comfortable, I’ll take ‘em.  Now I know why they keep paying that sales rep.  Much like the “sensible choice” cake, or no sugar ice cream, I fell victim to “how can you beat that value?”  I clearly gave too much consideration for the price and not enough for the comfort.

 

As a side note:  I tried to justify my purchase with the fact that these shoes advertise “slip resistant,” and it does rain a lot here in Washington, so that is good.  However, while I felt great walking into work in the rain, now that I am inside where it is dry, I have slipped on everything but the water. I almost died the first time I went in the bathroom and there is not a lot to grab on to, to save yourself from falling when you ‘re standing next to the urinal.

 

As the DirectTV commercials would say, “don’t be the guy who falls into a urinal at work,” pay a little more for nice dress shoes.