Take her back Chicago!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Ye Gords. I spent waaaaaaaay to much time on this one.

Get called to carry out a dining table for a customer. She pulls up in a Honda Accord with Illinois plates. Folding down the rear seat, sliding the table partially into the trunk, and tying down the lid will be impossible because:

1). the trunk is full of crap
2). there's a CD changer or something protruding into the cargo area, and
3). she has to drive this table down to her home in Chicago (I was told later her parents lived in town; hence her presence at my store three hours away from her home)

So she asks me to try to lift the boxed table into the back seat. It doesn't fit. We go back inside because it's a windy morning, it's cold, and there are wolves after me.

At the service desk she asks to borrow a tape measure and measures her back seat. Then she comes inside and asks me to open the box so she can see how big the table top is, since that's the biggest piece.

As I'm opening the box she makes small talk with the service desk girls and myself:

Service desk girl: (as I'm cutting open the box) He' doing all this for you; maybe he can come home with you and put it together.

Customer: Yeah! Want to come down for a little vacation in Chicago? You'd probably have to become a Bears fan though.

Me: There are some depths to which I will not sink.

Service desk girls: HAHAHAHA BURN LOLZ

Customer:

We get the table top out of the box and find it still can't fit in the back seat and allow the doors to close. We have to move the table top very gingerly, since the car apparently belongs to the customer's husband, and she says "he'll kill me if anything happens to these seats."

Then I come up with another option: recline the front paasenger seat as much as possible and try to angle the table top over the passenger seat and the rear seat. This doesn't work either. I'm outside with this woman and her table for close to half an hour, and she's close to tears.

So she had to put the table on hold for THREE WEEKS, until she can return from Chi-Town with her other, larger vehicle.

The woman was a real sweetie, but she happened to be a derp too. Oh well, nobody can say I didn't try.

[sevendaysky]

You're telling me there's no store in Chicago that carries anything like this precious table that she's willing to wait three weeks for? At some point there's a trade off of cost/time/distance. Gas prices, frustration of waiting three weeks, over something you could purchase closer to home for $20 more...

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

There is but she bought it here and nobody thought to tell her she could have her money refunded and repurchase the table at another store closer to her when she had a suitable vehicle.

Of course this would then require her to make sure the other store has the table in stock first. <.<

[sevendaysky]

This would also require her to THINK FIRST. She wants the table for home, yes? Why not look in your own hometown first? I wouldn't dream of looking someplace 3 hours away, with the wrong vehicle... If it was broken/missing an item/needed to be returned, that's another 6 hour trip... Oy. Stop the world, I want off, there's too many stupid people in it!

[Becks]

You know, the whole problem is that she's from IL.

[BeenThereDoneThat]

She could rent a U-haul truck for a day...the smallest ones have good rates and are easy to drive. Just sayin. People don't think...

BTW, I would have been annoyed at Service Desk Girl for what she said about you going home with the customer...maybe it didn't bother you and maybe it shouldn't bother me but it was still kinda out of line, just IMO...

[Racket_Man]

Quoth sevendaysky

You're telling me there's no store in Chicago that carries anything like this precious table that she's willing to wait three weeks for? At some point there's a trade off of cost/time/distance. Gas prices, frustration of waiting three weeks, over something you could purchase closer to home for $20 more...

Quoth Irving Patrick Freleigh

There is but she bought it
<snip>
<.<

there are Clearance Swamps in the Chicago area???????? but then again I left that area 10 years ago.

[XCashier]

Quoth BeenThereDoneThat

She could rent a U-haul truck for a day...the smallest ones have good rates and are easy to drive.

Which is precisely what we did when we first moved out here and needed to buy furniture for the new place. The furniture store employees were very, very happy with us...

[blas]

Is that the chick that broke off the engagement to Jay Cutler? Yeah, she is kind of a big derpa derp.

I think next time I go to my hometown, I'll go to the furniture store and see if they'll squish a recliner into my midsize Pontiac.

[nuthing12]

This story is one of those examples that even when the person is dumb and it's exasperating to deal with them, you're usually willing to go that extra mile for them if they're nice to you.

Something an SC could learn from - but we know they won't.