There was not a plan to have a part 2, but Wednesday morning my sister and I had a really great conversation and I ended it going “I’m going to have a whole ‘nother blog post out of this.”
We mostly talked about money. Something I barely touched on in my first post, glancing over the mentions of it. Which started with the Vimes Boot Theory:
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
Pratchett, Terry (1993). Men at Arms p. 32
And in the course of the conversation with my sister we vented: because there are Vimes boots and there are NAMES. The example I used is this: I can buy a jacket from Land’s End or Eddie Bauer. They are the same color, shape, sizes, and material. They probably were made in the exact same factory. And the Eddie Bauer one will be 3-8x more expensive.
This is the other frustration I have with chairs. ESPECIALLY online shopping. I’m not saying I won’t spend $800 on a chair that will last me 8 years. I object to spending $800 on the chair that is the exact same quality as the $150 chair just because of a fucking name. Whether it’s the store’s name or some designer’s name or whatever.
ADD TO THAT (yes, that’s angry yelling text) the fact that I want to be a good, responsible citizen of the world. I don’t particularly like the idea of supporting companies which use slave labor to get resources or build their products. And it’s hard or impossible to know online whether I am supporting a good company or not.
The price between Land’s End and Patagonia might be different, because Patagonia is putting in the work to make sure their products are providing a living wage. I have no idea what Land’s End might or might not be doing to protect their workers (and yes, I include “factory we contract with to produce our products” as their workers).
I feel like shopping at eShakti is better than Macy’s because eShakti, for a similar price, they talk on their “About us” page about making sure their employees including those making my clothes are treated with respect and have a living wage. Hell, the “made to my size” is just fucking icing at that point. High quality clothing where I have a reasonable confidence I’m not supporting slavery? Win-win.
So in my chair search I definitely have this issue. There aren’t great in-person places (plenty of “Rooms to Go”) to try out chairs. Hell, even places like Staples don’t carry that many in person any more.
I know this is the ultimate #firstworldproblems, but you know what? It’s indicative of trying to be a good citizen as much as anything else.
Dream by Day 