WHAT IS QUALITY?

Before I get into my rant, I just want to say that technology is against me and if germs could eat me alive, they would. Being sick sucks. Well now all I have is nose blowing and sounding all stuffed up. Actually, I sound like one of my customers who talks through her nose because of the crack she has been taking. No, I am not kidding you and yes, I really do sound like her BUT minus the crack. She is nice though. Technology wise, I had to take back my G1 phone because T-Mobile decided that I needed a defective phone as opposed to a good NEW phone. The pictures that I had on there of the ghetto underwear are gone. Don't worry... he will be back though...

Today a lady walks in asking for some tailoring to be done to her pants. First I asked her if she had the items with her (believe it or not, people show up without the items that need to be tailored). She said yes. Then I asked her if she knew how short she needed her pants to be tailored (this way I free the fitting room) and she said she didn't. Next I tell her the price (its best to tell the customers the price beforehand... I'll get into that a little later) and that is when she said "it's too expensive." This is where my title of my blog comes into play. We charge twelve dollars to hem pants and jeans. It may seem a bit pricey but really the customer is paying for a good quality job. Many people say so. Here is a story from the past:

Two years ago a customer walked in and demanded that he needed his jeans to be hemmed. The tailor gave him the price and he said "oh no honey, that price is too much. Up the block they can cut it for me 6 dollars." The tailor told him "so go up the block." The next day he returns and in a panic he says "Oh my gosh, they ruined my pants. One side they cut too short and the other side is still too long. Please help me, I can pay whatever you want me to." The tailor told him "That's what you get for six dollars." He coughed up eighteen dollars so the tailor could repair the damages and cut the proper length. Not once did the customer complain about it being too much. Mind you, two years ago the hemming price was ten bucks. He could have easily paid the extra four dollars for the quality as opposed to paying more the second time. Now he praises our tailor and doesn't complain.

The lady comes in fully prepared to get her items hemmed until she sees the twelve dollar charge per pant. With a Spanish accent she says "oh my! You people charge a lot." and I replied "well, not to brag but the tailor does a good quality job. She will make sure you get what you want and she guarantees it. If not, she fixes the problem without a charge." She didn't seem convinced. She told me "well, other places are cheaper." to which I replied "other places won't guarantee you good quality." She was still looking at the prices. I got peeved and I stated to her "if you would like, you can go somewhere else where it is cheaper. We have no problem." She wasn't happy by my remark and she said "well, I have a lot of pants. I will!" I told her to have a nice day. She will probably be back. Eighty percent of the time they come back asking for their items to be fixed properly and out of the eighty percent, twenty percent cry. That twenty percent also say "my jean/pants cost me 300 dollars! Help me!"

So what is quality? I'm not asking for a definition but the answer is not much for majority of the people. It's kind of hypocritical actually because half of these people buy pants that cost over one hundred dollars due to the quality yet they don't take care of the garment the way they are supposed to. It is mind boggling. If it were me, I would be paranoid! Paranoid that the tailor wouldn't do a good job or the dry cleaners would fuck up my silk blouse. I'm lucky that I work in the Laundromat because I have these good quality services available to me; however, some of these people refuse to understand that a price being so "high” is high for a reason. Labor and hard work is put into doing a good job and a good job deserves good compensation. If you pay six bucks for a tailoring job to be done, expect one pant leg to be long or shorter than the other one.

It annoys me to the point where I want to kick these people in the head. Argh! Before I worked at the Laundromat, I would take my items to be dry cleaned at a store that charged me two bucks for dry cleaning my trousers. I got them back and they were shrunk. A couple of years later, I found out why... they washed and dried them when the instruction tag specifically said "dry clean only". See, we pay attention to that. We also pay attention to what material the garment is so we could avoid damage. We use this logic for tailoring and dry cleaning... yet people refuse to acknowledge this logic... they just want the cheap buy...