Friday Or Death

I’m in charge of ordering rain checks and special orders at my store after I receive the slips from my coworkers. We order mid-week and get our truck a couple of days later, so if people fill out a rain check after about five pm on our order day, their order goes in next week’s instead. Some of my coworkers seem to have trouble explaining this to people, as sometimes customers hear “Friday” or “next week” and assume we will have their item immediately, same week.

I deal with one such woman one week. On Tuesday:

Customer: “Hi. I’m calling to check on a special order.”

She gives me her name and I immediately recognize it and know which items she needs. It’s on my list to order for this week, because of when the form made it to my desk.

Me: “Yes, I know that order now. I’ll order those tomorrow and they should be here in a few days!”

Customer: “Are you kidding me? I was told they’d be here in a week.”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we order once a week and get our truck a few days later. I’ll order them tomorrow and we should have them by Friday.”

The customer grumbles and hangs up. I order her items on Wednesday, and she calls again Friday morning, truck day. My manager takes the call and pages me.

Manager: “Hey, [Customer] called about her rain check. I told her to call back after four pm and ask for you.”

Me: “Yeah, I talked to her a couple of days ago. Thanks.”

At 4:15 pm, I catch my manager and ask:

Me: “Do you want me to go through [Department] freight and find those items for that lady in case she calls by 4:30?”

Manager: “Oh. Yeah, let’s go do that.”

He pages a coworker to help us go through the department’s freight while I immediately spot the item I think is correct. I run to grab the special order sheet and bring it back to the stockroom. We set aside the number of items the customer wants, and I go to call her before I leave for the day. I get her on the phone and the exchange goes kind of like this:

Me: “Hi, this is [My Name] at [Location, Store]! I just wanted to call and let you know that your [items] came in today and they’re all set aside ready for you to pick them up!”

Customer: “Oh, great! Um, it probably won’t be today, because we live so far away.”

Me: *Ready to head-desk* “Okay, that’s fine. They’re set aside with your name on them, so just let one of my coworkers know that you’re here to pick them up and they can have someone get them for you.”

I hung up annoyed because she’d made it sound like such a big deal that she hadn’t had them by Friday. Some people. Sigh.