Working at
Rockport for the past five months have taught me a lot of things about footwear and feet. For example, many people normally have one foot bigger than the other. I've heard this before so it didn't come across as a huge surprise but it is fun to see people some of my customers putting on new pair of shoes and saying that one side of their shoe is tighter or looser than the other. Whenever that happens, i would normally reply with the standard quote
"Oh well, everyone gets that one foot bigger than the other syndrome" and smile away. The only time that comment messed me up was when one of my customer puts on a totally different size shoe and saying that one side felt extremely tight that the other. Without checking, i just used my default quote hoping to put the matter to rest. Few minutes later, we both realized he's got a size 10 on one side and a size 8 on the other which made me felt really stupid.
Another thing i've learnt from working is when a customer tries a pair of shoes, we should advise them to go with a size that has
at least half thumb's length from their toe to the end of their shoe. Anything with the length longer than that would be the wrong size unless they themselves feel comfortable with it. Now, before working in a footwear store, i'm one of those who can hardly remember the size of my shoes as i don't normally fancy footwear. I'm the type of guy who puts on anything that's comfortable on my feet and wear them for very long period of time until someone
(normally my mom) complains about them. My mom once said she won't be surprise if i ended up slipping and breaking a bone or even die wearing my overused Crocs that no longer has any grip on its sole. She even begged me
(sarcastically) to buy a new pair of slippers whenever i slipped wearing them.
I dread getting a new pair of footwear because i know i have to go through the miserable process of allowing my feet to get use to it. Once i even believed the whole myth of biting your shoes first whenever you get a new pair of footwear otherwise it might
'bite' your feet back. By having your shoes
'bite' you back, that normally means your feet getting blisters, sprained ankle, etc after wearing them for the first time. And yes, i did bite my shoes a few times and it tasted...gross.
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| My footwear! Four pair of them were from 2008. Can you guess which? |
As i mentioned earlier, i'm the type of guy who cannot remember my shoe size. And the weird part about that is not realizing it until a week ago when my flatmate looked at my running shoes and say,
"Man, you sure got huge feet!". I don't actually recall anyone saying i've got huge feet before because as far as i know, the only person in my family that has humongous feet is my
brother. He's always the person who walks out of a footwear store disappointed because they never have his size in stock so to hear a comment that i've got huge feet from my flatmate was really surprising. I told him i think i'm a size 9 or somewhere along that number when he pointed out that the Nike shoes i just used for running was a size 11.
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| My size 11 Nike running shoes that i bought from Michigan last year. |
Then i remembered, my latest pair of Rockport shoes that i bought for work was not even close to a size 11. In the end, i went through all of my shoes only to find out that i have different pair of shoes ranging from size 9 all the way to a size 11. How is that even possible, i have
NO IDEA!
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| Footwear fail. |
So here i am, thinking to myself how ironic it is that at work, i recommend my customers to go with a pair of shoes that has at least half a thumb's length space from the tip of their toe to the end of their shoes while my own shoes at home are probably a whole fist bigger. Last Sunday, i managed to find out the
actual size of my feet at work using a foot measuring instrument also known as the
"Brannock device".
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| I'm a size 8 1/2. |
No wonder my mom always say i have shoes the size of Titanic. She even named my red Crocs slippers at home 'The Titanic Slippers'. Haha! But i gotta admit that all my footwear are comfortable on my feet although not recommended especially if you use them for sports activities. I should be getting a proper sized running shoes soon.
How about you guys? Do you know the correct size of your feet?
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