Hmm. No "add to cart" button...
Aug. 21st, 2002 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tugrikAs much as I love the modern world of all-night shopping on the Internet, 24hr grocery stores and the never-ending parade of toys found at most consumer electronics shops... I still find much more satisfaction in an older system of transactions. Sure, the modern way is convenient, but it's terribly impersonal. A transaction with between you and a megacorp done with numbers on a web site or a swipe of the card at register #44 of 50 (I'm not kidding you -- Fry's, for instance, has this many) is just so detached and mechanical.
This is why I like crafts fairs, Ren Faires, and dealer rooms -- where it's just you and the person who makes or directly represents an item, doing business. It feels kind of old-fashioned satisfying, in the same way that buying a real vanilla coke from a soda jerk at the local 50's diner is more enjoyable than pushing a vending machine button. Yes, I'm one of those saps that goes out of their way to stop at the neighborkid's roadside lemonade stand. It's fun being a good neighbor, and also doing business person-to-person, even with a kid.
Even in a boring suburb like San Jose, dealing with a craftsman on a one-to-one basis happens now and then. It made my day to find "Artistic Welding, Inc.", here by my office. For the last few months I had been looking for new light brackets for my PIAA rally lights, as the current ones aren't quite right. They leave the lights at a tilt due to the engine guard-bars being at an angle. This not only looks silly, it functions a but unsafely as well; the light beam pattern needs to be level. All my websearchings have come up with nothing, as the GS-ADV is too new a model for the aftermarket to really get on the ball with these kinds of parts.
I had passed by Artistic Welding on the way to lunch last week. The appeared to be a general small-parts metal fab shop that would do anything from balcony rails to custom automobile work. Monday I rolled in there in hopes they'd be able to solve my bracket problem. Their shop garage doors were wide open with the workers inside fussing away at what looked like an ornate ironwork ladder. They pointed me to a little door down the row, and I gave it a knock. A friendly fellow answered, and nodded as I described my problem. He came over to take a look at the bike, and we chatted about it for a while. At one point in my explanation I stumbled upon the magic word. "I saw your company name and it gave me hopes that you'd be the guys to find an elegant solution to the problem."
He smiled proudly at the word. "Elegant. Yes, that's us... and I'm glad you noticed. I think we can make this work, and make it a lot nicer looking too."
He trailed off into various ideas about brushed steel and other looks that would match the engine bars better. Before I could even ask prices, he offered up a guestimate of $75... which is incredibly good for a completely custom piece. If they work and look good, I know about 10 other GS-ADV riders on the net who'd want the exact same parts, so I told him I'd be glad to throw the business his way if he wanted it. We talked on for a little while longer, about his friend who used to work on old Triumph and BSA motorcycles and my solar-tree stand welding project from a few years ago. He said he'd need the bike for a few hours to take measurements and try some things out, so after next payday I'll pick a lunch-hour to leave it with him. It's about 3/4 of a mile from my office, so I'll probably be good and just walk it back. There's worse ways to spend a lunch hour.
It may be a simple thing, but it made my day to talk with a craftsman about his trade and schedule work. $75 spent at Artistic Welding will be much more satisfying than waiting a few months for the aftermarket bike parts guys. If I wait, all I'll get is some mass-made part that I can buy for $50 with a button-click on a web page... and where's the fun in that?
This is why I like crafts fairs, Ren Faires, and dealer rooms -- where it's just you and the person who makes or directly represents an item, doing business. It feels kind of old-fashioned satisfying, in the same way that buying a real vanilla coke from a soda jerk at the local 50's diner is more enjoyable than pushing a vending machine button. Yes, I'm one of those saps that goes out of their way to stop at the neighborkid's roadside lemonade stand. It's fun being a good neighbor, and also doing business person-to-person, even with a kid.
Even in a boring suburb like San Jose, dealing with a craftsman on a one-to-one basis happens now and then. It made my day to find "Artistic Welding, Inc.", here by my office. For the last few months I had been looking for new light brackets for my PIAA rally lights, as the current ones aren't quite right. They leave the lights at a tilt due to the engine guard-bars being at an angle. This not only looks silly, it functions a but unsafely as well; the light beam pattern needs to be level. All my websearchings have come up with nothing, as the GS-ADV is too new a model for the aftermarket to really get on the ball with these kinds of parts.
I had passed by Artistic Welding on the way to lunch last week. The appeared to be a general small-parts metal fab shop that would do anything from balcony rails to custom automobile work. Monday I rolled in there in hopes they'd be able to solve my bracket problem. Their shop garage doors were wide open with the workers inside fussing away at what looked like an ornate ironwork ladder. They pointed me to a little door down the row, and I gave it a knock. A friendly fellow answered, and nodded as I described my problem. He came over to take a look at the bike, and we chatted about it for a while. At one point in my explanation I stumbled upon the magic word. "I saw your company name and it gave me hopes that you'd be the guys to find an elegant solution to the problem."
He smiled proudly at the word. "Elegant. Yes, that's us... and I'm glad you noticed. I think we can make this work, and make it a lot nicer looking too."
He trailed off into various ideas about brushed steel and other looks that would match the engine bars better. Before I could even ask prices, he offered up a guestimate of $75... which is incredibly good for a completely custom piece. If they work and look good, I know about 10 other GS-ADV riders on the net who'd want the exact same parts, so I told him I'd be glad to throw the business his way if he wanted it. We talked on for a little while longer, about his friend who used to work on old Triumph and BSA motorcycles and my solar-tree stand welding project from a few years ago. He said he'd need the bike for a few hours to take measurements and try some things out, so after next payday I'll pick a lunch-hour to leave it with him. It's about 3/4 of a mile from my office, so I'll probably be good and just walk it back. There's worse ways to spend a lunch hour.
It may be a simple thing, but it made my day to talk with a craftsman about his trade and schedule work. $75 spent at Artistic Welding will be much more satisfying than waiting a few months for the aftermarket bike parts guys. If I wait, all I'll get is some mass-made part that I can buy for $50 with a button-click on a web page... and where's the fun in that?
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no subject
Date: 2002-08-21 01:48 pm (UTC)One Fulsome street faire there was a vendor who sold little stuffed hobby horses, the kind with a stick you would ride? Sold isn't the proper verb. She was much more interested in you as a person, and how you reacted emotionally to her wares and story telling and enjoying herself. Sometimes too interested in all of that to care or bother to take someone's money. It was fun to watch people break socially and become completely bewildered when they couldn't treat her cart like a kistch vending machine and had to really talk with her before they were allowed to take one of her fanciful trinkets to a good home. Some people were incapable. I think you would have liked her.
Oh! and elegant is lovely word.
no subject
Date: 2002-08-23 10:46 am (UTC)It comes back. For years we went to the same Blockbuster on Winchester, and always chatted with the counterclerk for a good 10 minutes or so during transactions.
Two years after we'd moved, we ran into a problem with a different Blockbuster, that they claimed we'd never returned a video, and we had. I pointed out that we always returned our tapes the day after we rented them, and that in the case of games, we'd come in and re-rent them rather than incur a late fee.
They called the manager.
It turned out to be the same guy. He lit up, said, "Hiii! Fancy meeting you here! I'm so glad to see you again, and I wondered what had happened to you. I'm the district manager now, and I happened to only be based out of this outlet for this week, but no problem, I can clear up this thing, because I know you guys and you always return your stuff on time."
Goodwill pays for itself. And costs nearly nothing except time.
-Traveller.