I was called up to the Service Desk today to check on a customers return. As I was walking up, I saw this little old lady watching me, and as I passed the counter, I saw this DVD/VHS player we have not carried in a couple of years. I walk around the counter, the guy taking care of her hands me a slip of paper and tells me he has no idea how to handle it. The slip of paper was a register print out saying that it had been purchased 12/25/02, was not available for refund, and to check the manufacturer's warrenty.
I am sitting there reading this, thinking it kinda explained itself, when the little old lady started talking. She said that her husband had died some time back, and that she was given five weeks to get out of the house, so most of her stuff was in storage until recently. She had been living with her daughter, and had only just moved into the area within the last few months. After moving here, she started to recieve her stuff from storage. She said it played a tape shortly after getting it out, but now after a couple of months it would not play DVDs.
So here I am, wondering what the hell I should tell this lady. Or more appropriatly, what I WAS going to tell this lady. I already knew what I should say to her...what I was supposed to say to her. Which was that we were sorry, but it was far past our warrenty, and so old that it was past the manufacturer's warrenty, there is the door, have a nice day.
But for some reason, I balked. The whole thing felt wrong. I was not sure what was wrong, so I copped out, told her it would be a minute because I had to run it past my department manager. Who basically told me the same thing I already knew, no. We ran it past an assistant manager, who unlike every other manager probably would have, also said no.
So, now I am going back up to talk to this lady, and a thought hits me. I am going to go up there, and aplogize to this woman that we can't do anything because the length of time it has been, but I am also, implying that we don't care about her dead husband, we don't care about her being forced out of her house, we don't care that her daughter was inflicted with her presence and probably only had a small room and an air mattress for her to sleep in, we don't care that she is old and does not understand return policies. So, now, I want to take it back. For some lame reason, I did not want to make this insignificant woman hate the place I work for. But then, I also knew that I was going to go up there and break this little old lady's heart.
I did. I told her everything she did not want to hear. I swallowed any sort of compassion in the big corporate mouth that I work in, shit it out, and covered her in fecal face paint.
In pure bluevest fassion, I countered her every statement to show how it was not our fault and could just as easliy be hers. I pawned everything off on policy...which is true. And she finally broke and stopped fighting.
So while I normally love sending people packing with their crap..I feel bad today.
