Sweetest Customer EVER Award

So toady I was sitting at work, minding my own business.

Okay, so I was actually on the phone with Bird from our South Store, trying to get through a very complicated pain in my ass special order for a sheet music customer. 

(By the way, Reverend retired. And by retired I mean he came into the store Monday morning and said he was resigning. And then he packed up his things from his office and left and we haven't seen or heard from him since. I just tell his customers that he's retired now because saying he just up and quit on morning doesn't sound as pleasant.)

I was on the phone with him, talking about how inventory was claiming we had six of them, when I heard, "Channelle? She's standing over there."

So I looked up, wondering who had come in looking for me, and there was a delivery guy holding a huge bouquet of red and white flowers in a giant vase.

Flowers. 

I was...surprised. Shocked. Immediately thrilled. 

In a confused voice, I interrupted Bird's sentence to say, "Hey, I'll call you back. Some flowers just walked in the door with my name on it." And I hung up.

Everyone was looking at the flowers and saying how sweet Padawan was for sending them, and I was agreeing as I was opening up the card and the delivery guy was getting the paperwork ready for me to sign.

And when I read the card, I was beyond shocked.

"Uh...these aren't from Padawan."

Every single coworker's head swiveled to stare at me.

"They're from a customer."

Everybody hurried over to see.

Oh, I kid you not. A customer sent me flowers. Actually, not even a customer since I failed in every respect to get her what she was trying to find. You see, this woman lives out of state, and she was trying to find sheet music for a song called "Phoenix Burn" by a local band of Austin's called Alfa Rev. The song was featured at the end of a movie called The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and her daughter loved it so much she wanted to use it as an audition piece for a prestigious choir at her school.

So over the last month I have been in contact with the customer, our sheet music suppliers, and the band and band manager trying to locate a single sheet for piano and vocal for this song. And in the end the last answer I received was, "For legal reasons, our manager advises against sending a copy of our originals. We have no printed music."

And that was the end of it. Once they cite "legal reasons" there is no further argument.

So I had to call this awesome customer who was so friendly, so patient, so understanding, and tell her that I couldn't find it. That I couldn't get it. That for legal reasons, there were no copies to be had. And she thanked me and we talked for a few minutes, because she's cool and I like hearing about the goings on up there, and then we hung up and I felt like I had disappointed her. We had been hoping...and all for nothing.

And then she sent me flowers today as a thank you for going above and beyond to try to help them out, and a promise to let me know how her daughter's audition goes. (It's tomorrow.) 

The flowers are red and white, and there's a red and black ribbon around the vase to represent their school colors. And it's honestly the sweetest, most amazing thing a customer has ever done to show appreciation. In fact, I'm the only person in the store to have had flowers as a thank you. (Although one of our regulars did send us pizza as a thank you for some repair work and general awesomeness, but that was for everyone.) 

It was epic. 

And just for kicks...here's a picture.

This completely and totally makes up for every single rotten customer I've had in the last year. I'm even feel ready to forgive the jackass who said my eyes were creepy and lifeless.