We all have had one at one time or another for one thing of another. A friend mentions wanting something in casual conversation and you say “Oh, I know a guy that’s awesome for that!”
I find this is suddenly coming to an end. There used to be an awesome little watch store in the town over from me, the owner was awesome go in explain what you wanted, the look, style anything and a week later he’d have four samples and a list of other models you may like that he would order for you to get. I looked at my watch today, and it was dead. I tried to go back to the store with my grandiose vision for my new watch… and he is out of business. My watch guy is gone. So is my cologne guy. And my shoe guy. All the mom and pop shops that would work with me and help me find something to my taste are dead.
I’ve replaced many of these types of guys with internet forums, but still I just liked knowing the guy.
I don’t necessarily mean the businesses, but more literally “the guy” at said business. With out there store, I have no way of talking to him/them. Who am I supposed to ask about watches now? or anything I want someone with specialized knowledge of??
I think this kind of thing happens a lot. I remember when a friend wanted to buy a couple of cameras (one for quick snapshots and one with different lenses etc.), he went to a smal store, got some advise, and found out the best price they could over was about 30% more than the retail price at the huge best-buy-like store around the corner. He was willing to support the mom and pop shop, but forking over so much more for the same product was just not going to happen.
There seem to be plenty of those folks at crafts fairs or along the side of the road doing business out of the back of a pickup truck. But the rents malls get would keep anybody away with a limited audience. Wal-Mart is a big part of why. Kroger. Catalog sales. The Internet.
How often do you see a musician with a cup and an old guitar on the sidewalk? Busking, is it?
Around here, there’s still a lot “guys.” Most of them don’t have actual shops anywhere–they work at Walmart or Lowe’s or out of their houses. It takes a little digging to ferret them out sometimes, but in a small town like this, everyone has, knows, or is a guy for just about anything.
So he was willing to take advantage of all the specialized knowledge that results in higher overhead (because you have to actually hire the people who know what the fuck they’re talking about), but then he wouldn’t actually pay for what he used. Nice.
But there you have it. Without independent businesses, in-person expertise from someone who cares about what they do is usually unavailable.
You mean you find a guy at Lowe’s and then hire him to do something for you, individually, “on the side”? Or just that you get advice from the guy in the Lowe’s aisle? You’ve got to be careful with the latter–there’s no real accountability, or pride, as there is in an independent business. On at least two occasions I’ve heard Lowe’s employees giving factually incorrect advice to customers–in one case it was life-threatening. I had to intervene.
Some of both. Some of the people we get referred to when we need a guy work at places like Lowe’s or Walmart and just do a little bit of appliance repair or car detailing or yard work or whatever on the side. And sometimes the guy in the aisle at Lowe’s is the one telling you, “Honey, what you need to do is go here and ask for xyz–that’ll get you taken care of better and cheaper than anything we got here.” It’s reasonably easy to tell the nimrods who are full of shit from the ones who you can actually take seriously, at least around here. The former either won’t actually answer a question or they want to explain to the poor stupid little woman what a hammer is and what you use it for*, and the latter will actually ask relevant questions about what you want, what you plan to do with, and what kind of tools and materials you already have on hand.
*I actually find that our local mom-n-pop hardware store is really bad in this respect; there’s a substantial population of old farts who hang around all day swapping lies with the old coot who owns the place. The heating element went out in our dryer, and they asked me to take the old one in so they could be sure to get me the right kind. Five different men told me they really didn’t think that heating element was bad, because they couldn’t see a gap in the coil, and one after another they tested it with a voltmeter to show me (and the person who had just tested the damn thing) how it was perfectly fine and there was something else wrong with my dryer.
Nail on the head. In the end, the only thing that matters is price.
Also, many of the demands for certain skills are declining. I remember when it was customary to buy a pair of work boots, and resole them as needed. Now you can get a new pair of boots for around the cost of a resole. There goes your Shoe Guy. Electronics repair? You can’t find someone to repair your TV, Blue Ray, DVD, or CD player cheaper than you could replace it, there goes your TV Guy.
The one that hit me the most; the barbershop! They are slowly being replaced with Supercuts and the like. Long lines, crappy magazines, chemical smells… It’s distressing.