This particular customer from the east coast purchased some wedding handkerchiefs from our online store about 10 days in advance and had them delivered directly to her wedding venue. The one mistake she made however was that she addressed the package to her maid of honor instead of either herself or the wedding planner. As a result, the people at the wedding venue had no idea who the handkerchiefs belonged to and the package got lost at the wedding venue itself.

So the day of the wedding, we received a bunch of calls. Since, we are on the west coast and there’s a 3 hour time difference between here and the east coast, we got a series of back to back calls starting at 5am. Our normal office hours are 10-5pm and I always pipe our business calls to my cell phone when no one is in …

Every now and then, we get a customer that drives us totally insane. While it isn’t fun to deal with these customers, working with these difficult people make for great stories to tell our friends. This particular customer that I’m writing about was a very headstrong lady that gave us a really hard time about our products.

Customer: “Yes, I’m interested in your linen towels. Where are they from?”

Me: “Many of our products are from Asia. These particular towels are made in China.”

Customer: “Hmm, China huh? Do you happen to know whether these towels were created from exploited Chinese laborers?”

I was taken aback by the question and needed to gather myself a bit before answering.

Me: “No ma’am, I’m not aware of any illegal labor practices that were used in the creation of these towels.”

Customer: “Did you know that [insert random percentage here] of Chinese laborers are …