Unfiltered Story #135149

I work in a boutique that sells made to order evening and special occasion gowns. Occasionally if we don’t have a particular gown in stock, we can borrow a sample from our designers for a customer to try on before ordering. One day a customer calls us asking to borrow a dress we don’t have a sample of for her to try on the following week.

Me: Sure, we can borrow that gown for you! Please send us an email at info@[storename].com with the style code and designer name of the dress and we’ll let you know when it comes in.

Customer: Sure, I’ll send it right now!

[ten minutes pass and the phone rings again]

Me: [Store Name], this is [My Name] speaking, how can I help you?

Customer: Hi, I just called about borrowing a dress and you told me to email you, but I keep getting an error message when I try to send it to the address you gave me.

Me: Oh, I’m sorry. Are you sure you sent the message to info@[storename].com?

Customer: Yes, of course!

Me: [I decide to spell it out because our store name can be difficult to spell and people make mistakes all the time.] I-N-F-O-@-[S-T-O-R-E-N-A-M-E].C-O-M?

Customer: Oh, no – you said imfo@[storename].com. I-M-F-O.

She re-sent it and the email came through, but she sincerely believed “imfo” was a completely normal email address and I was the weird one for insisting it was “info.” After we hung up I couldn’t stop laughing, and my coworker asked me what had happened. After I told her the story she said:

COWORKER: And this is why we can’t have nice things.