Customer Return Story – A time for Giving

This was one of the most disturbing displays of “adulting” I have ever seen. I was barely 16, working at a small nursery selling Christmas trees. It wasn’t the best job in the world, but it was easy money and I got to be outside most of the time. Perfect for a hiker and nature enthusiast like me.

The Christmas rush had just ended, and we were preparing the store for our “New Year New Sales” special. We packed away the Christmas merchandise and whatever discount holiday items didn’t sell, and set up new displays for the next promotion.

I remember clearly, it was January 5th and this poor lady came slamming into the store, dragging behind her the most pitiful looking Christmas tree since Charlie Brown and his friends celebrated. She had two small boys on the tail end of the tree, helping push the once mighty decoration thought the double doors and onto the sales floor where she plopped the tree down and proclaimed, “Now it’s your problem!”.

Apparently, the nice lady had purchased this tree two weeks before the Christmas holiday and it was “very much alive” at that time, but since then it has met its demise. Instead of just tossing the dried up fire magnet she figured the best course of action was to return the tree and get her money back.

The reason why? Oh, well the tree was dead of course! As if that wasn’t cringe worthy enough on it’s own, she initially wanted to be financially compensated for “ruining her Christmas” with a “diseased tree”. Yep, apparently being cut down for a month and never watered is some sort of disease that’s ravaging the Christmas tree community!

I swear, it’s never a dull day in retail!