VakarLajos

Congrats on the shop, Rach! It's always amazing how some people don't realize how important it is to have your holder connected to your boot. Whoda thunk it, right?! lol Sadder when it's their kid. I've taken a hit to make sure a 10 yr old isn't rupturing a tendon because his parents were too cheap to spend $10 to re-rivet the skate. Sad.

Not sure I understand your logic. So, despite there being standards in the medical industry, there are still bad doctors. Would you call the doctor and ask office if he's a good doctor? Or ask a lawyer if he's any good? Unfortunately, very few people are going to answer that question honestly if they think they are a bad sharpener. The question is sometimes is only useful as a warning to the employee that "Hey, heads up, I might be a difficult customer". A lot of times, it's just curiosity, but sometimes it's more.

I remember once in NY when a guy kept coming in 5 minutes before closing and getting pissed because we wouldn't sharpen his skates. Each time we informed him we stopped sharpening 15 minutes before closing. "But this happens every week!"....Yes....so, come earlier? ponder - i have no problem with a guy coming in and browsing, even shooting the crap and asking a few questions. It's when people are intentionally deceptive in their motives that is a problem. If I've answered somebody's questions for 20 minutes when they say they are looking to buy and then they comeback and go, "Well, I found it online for $10 less", then I get annoyed. If somebody says, "Hey just wasting time, but I was wondering what the hell 'Dagger Taper' means" then, I'm fine with that.

When people get pissed off because we're closed for Inventory (a whole 2 days out of the year), it's stuff like this I point to. Sometimes, people check their stock with their POS system and it tells them they are in stock. In reality, they are sold out, but a tagging/receiving error screws up the count.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM1Ahn0Osjo

those look like nitinol to me.

From USA hockey

Rink is on the 8th floor on top of a parking garage. A guy asked, "But what if the place collapses, the ice would melt, everything would flood!" "If the garage collapsed, the least of our worries would be the ice melting."

You mean you pay for your product? Wow, Bauer is hosing you. We're 100% profit.

"I was coming in to check out some sticks. I was going to get something but your selection sucks" "Well, I we can always order something that you don't see on our shelves." "Yeah, but you're prices are so high" ......So you're annoyed that we don't have a stick that you had no intention of buying. Brilliant.

I feel bad for the guys who actually know how to flex a stick to check the accuracy of the rating. Unfortunately those guys are few and far between. The ones who usually think it's "rude" are the ones who believe you need to put the entirety of your weight into your lower hand. Then they get pissed off and buy from HockeyMonkey because somehow you can flex the stick you're looking at on your MacBook. My old shop has signs that say "Do Not Flex or Play With Sticks - Thank You".

$35 per item, labor included.

DS50 is right. Being able to use merchandise, see it, touch it, examine it, is a service in itself. Doing that when you have no intention of buying it in the store isn't the worst thing in the world IMO, but I'd rather pay the extra bit of money and have things done correctly than save and get something wrong.

We had a customer come in about a week ago who got really upset because we could not provide him with a Total One in an unopened box. "You should always have one of every skate that is unopened!" He then accused us of trying to sell him a used skate saying that the skates we showed him were already sharpened. Factory coating still on it. Sometimes you can't win.

Customer: Thank you for always helping with my son. I know he's a handful. They really should pay you more for that! I resisted the urge to point out that nobody is stopping her from tipping the employees.