Making people feel welcome by welcoming their belongings.

Service details that matter

This year has been one of health appointments for me, including many visits to different optometrists. I often travel to these appointments with a backpack, filled with a work laptop, reusable water bottle, headphones, a sweater or cardigan, makeup bag, etc. I’ve gotten pretty used to carrying my bag all over the place and I tend to keep it close so I always have an eye on it.

Optometrist clinics are an especially annoying place to carry things around because you’re often switching spots: one minute you’re an doing an eye pressure test over here, then getting checking your prescription checked with another machine over there and then going into the exam room. Through this I’m constantly picking up and putting down my bag.

Today was different. I went into a clinic and was asked if I wanted to put my backpack in a locker. I was honestly taken by surprise. Such a dead simple step made a huge difference for me. Being able to walk from room to room without dragging my bag around felt like both a physical and mental load off my shoulders.

Adorably, the keychain for the locker key was an old pair of eyeframes, so this clinic also gets bonus points for creative reuse.

Why is this so uncommon?

I find that, oddly, there isn’t a whole lot of consideration for people’s personal items in most establishments where you might be expected to stay an hour to a few hours - at least not here in Montreal. Purse hooks have been around for a good while, and yet so few restaurants or bars have them. Every time I find one, I get genuinely excited.

Winter coats are also a special annoyance for us. Come January, everyone is wrapped up in layers and big puffy jackets, and it is so inconvenient to try and store your outerwear when you come in from outside. You’ll sometimes find a single coat rack near the entrance of a restaurant, where your coat might get buried under layers of everyone else’s coats. Sometimes there isn’t even that, and your jacket has to live on the back of your chair, where the bottom drags onto the floor, gets stepped on, or comes to rest in a puddle from someone’s winter boots (maybe your own).

The result is that people sit in discomfort when they should be enjoying themselves or where they might have other things to worry about (like eye exams).

So it truly seems like a small kindness, when designing spaces, to give people a place to stash their belongings for a moment. Whether it’s a repurposed locker, a shelf or a hook.