The Slippers Didn’t Slip His Mind
My immediate family is spread out across the USA a bit, but we normally try to get together for Christmas, which is also a family birthday. This year, most of us will be gathering, but my eldest brother and his wife will not be able to join us. His wife cannot travel because of a medical condition, and her mother passed away earlier this year, so (for that and other reasons) he will be staying with her, on the other side of the country.
Because there are so many of us, we pick names each year, so each of us only needs to buy one present for one other person in the group. (Spouses/significant others buy each other additional things, generally.) It means we can each get one person something nice, rather than trying to come up with five to ten presents for all the various people in attendance. This year, I picked my eldest brother’s name.
His wishlist had a variety of things on it, including a very nice pair of slippers. How slippers could cost that much, I didn’t know, but he wanted them, and I wanted him to have the nice slippers. I went to the company’s website on Monday, and they were having a Cyber Monday sale! I didn’t think too hard about why slippers would be on sale for Cyber Monday; I just called myself lucky (and used the money saved to get my brother another item from his list).
I ordered the slippers to be sent to his address and went on with my day.
An hour or two went by, and I had a sudden, creeping suspicion that I had ordered the wrong color. I checked his wishlist and then checked my order. I’d gotten the size right but had missed the color he wanted. Drat. I immediately tried to get onto the site’s help chat to see if I could quickly change the color before they shipped. After waiting on a “two-minute hold” on the chat function for almost ten minutes, I dug up their help number and called in.
I waited a couple of minutes before a representative answered.
Representative: “I’m sorry, but because of the high volume of sales happening today, I’m not able to switch the order. The best I can do is place another order for you for the right color slippers and send a return label for the incorrect pair.”
I wasn’t happy about this. It hadn’t been very long, and I was mad at myself for not checking more carefully when placing the order, and I’m not wealthy or anything, so I wasn’t prepared to place another order right that second. While I was waffling, the representative said, “Huh! Look at that!”, and I asked him what was up.
Representative: “Oh, I just saw that you’re in Chicago, I’m from Chicago.”
He said it gave him a little flash of nostalgia.
Me: “Thank you for your time. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about the slippers, but go ahead and send the return label just in case.”
Representative: “I will do that! Could you stay on the line for a moment? The phone’s going to start ringing again as soon as we hang up, and I want to just finish making this note here.”
Me: “Sure, but I’ll need to put you on speakerphone and get back to work.”
Representative: “I’m fine with that.”
I put him on speaker, and we chatted a bit while he finished up what he was doing. When he was done, we said our goodbyes.
I thought about it, and — especially given the rough past couple of years, and the fact that my brother couldn’t join us — I didn’t want to be responsible for my brother receiving a mildly disappointing present. I knew it wasn’t a HUGE deal, but I wanted him to receive what he actually wanted and asked for, so later that night, I got back on the site and ordered the right color slippers to be delivered to him. I figured I’d send him the return label for the wrong ones, and worst case scenario, if he were to forget to return them or something, then he’d have two comfy pairs of slippers and I’d be out a little extra money, but I’d manage.
A couple of days later, I got an email from the vendor saying that my order couldn’t be processed because of missing payment information or something. I logged on to check and saw that the first order I placed had been cancelled. The second was in process.
I have no proof, but I think [Representative] circled back and cancelled the wrong one for me when he was able. I could be wrong, but I used the same information for both orders, so it seems likely, and it’s the option that makes me smile — that he remembered and cared enough to go back and spend time he didn’t HAVE to, to save me a little worry.
Thank you, [Representative], and happy holidays!
