Satisficing Decision

Ah, the busy time at the end of the semester when all the projects come due, presentations are given and final exams are just around the corner. It was amid the kind of craziness this point in the semester brings about last night that I realized I once again had a need. A group I was in was giving a presentation this morning and I realized that although I had both a suit and tux in my closet, my one pair of dress shoes were at home. At this point I had a decision to make: either drive home and get them or go buy another pair. Since I had plenty of things to do last night and I did not feel like driving to Noblesville and back I decided to just go buy another pair. My pair at home is kind of old and scuffed up anyway. Let me start by saying that I am not a big fan of shoes. Sure, they are necessary sometimes but I would much rather just go barefoot whenever possible. Since that was obviously not an option, my ideal pair of dress shoes would have a thin sole and be as close to going barefoot as possible. It turns out these don’t really exist, at least in the shelves of local stores so a satisficing decision was made. I decided to go for a pair that was good enough which translated to a pair of shoes that were cheap and fit fairly well. This is one time when I deviated from my usual philosophy of buying things that are made very well and last a very long time. However, I figured since I had a pair already, two pairs would last me quite a while. I ended up stopping at payless shoe source and found a pair that were under $30 and did not have laces which I liked since dress shoe laces always seem to want to come untied easier than any other kind of shoes. After trying on a couple pairs for the correct size I made my purchase and crossed one more item off of my to-do list for the night.