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I've posted this story before, but a convo with the co-worker at my current job reminded me of this story.
I was a college kid, home for the winter break, at my grocery store job. It's a few days after Christmas, and I'm working away at my post in the Meat Department. I hear an overhead announcement that our department has a phone call, so I pick up and give our standard greeting.
I don't remember the exact conversation, but I'll give you the gist of things. A lady was on the other end, and she had bought a Farmland brand ham. Upon opening it on Christmas, she saw that it was fatty and not tasty, but it being Christmas day, there was no place to go to get another ham or turkey or anything. So she cooked it up and the family ate it anyway. Lady wanted to know if she brought her receipt back, could she get a refund?
I apologized for the ham, but stated that the grocery store had to have a product to return in order to get a refund.
"So you don't stand behind your hams?" She blurts. I pause, then explain that yes, we do, and Farmland isn't our brand. It's just a brand we carry. (Our hams were clearly marked with OUR name, they are all boneless [the one she bought was bone-in] and we baked them in the store every morning with brown sugar and pineapple and they are God's gift to hams. It is nearly 7 years later, and I STILL crave those damn hams.) But I explain in short about the difference between our store brand hams and the Farmland hams and how we cannot guarantee the quality of a ham we don't produce. This didn't suffice. "Then why do you have a sign up saying you guarantee your hams?" I explain that this sign is up next to our store brand hams, as that is what the guarantee covers. The Farmland hams are stocked in a completely different section. FINALLY somehow the lady quits with the guarantee nonsense and asks "Well what am I supposed to do?" I politely ask her to hold, as I want to discuss with my manager and she says okay.
I discuss with my manager, who is God's gift to managers, what he suggests. He says to tell her to call Farmland to complain, as they are good about giving some sort of compensation. He says if for some odd reason they do not do ANYTHING for the lady, to tell her to call back and he'll talk to the store manager to see if they could get her a gift card or something. So I go back to the lady and start to explain about calling Farmland. She inturrupts me wanting to know "Well how am I supposed to call them?" I tell her the number is on the ham's wrapper.
"I threw that away." So I send one of my co-workers to grab another Farmland ham and we give her the number off that. She sighs. I tell her what my manager said that if Farmland did nothing, he'd figure something out.
"Fine, fine. I just don't understand why you have that sign up if you do not stand behind your hams."
At this point, I don't remember what I said. I think I gave a short version of what I'd said before, or more likely, I gave up and told her to have a good day.
I got off the phone and relayed the whole conversation to the manager who got a kick out of it. The whole rest of the day every time he'd walk by me he'd say "Myra, do you not stand behind your hams?" So I grabbed a ham and held it in front of me. Yes, I do stand behind them. Literally. Look at me behind the ham. Bah.
Anyways. Old amusing story, I thought.
I was a college kid, home for the winter break, at my grocery store job. It's a few days after Christmas, and I'm working away at my post in the Meat Department. I hear an overhead announcement that our department has a phone call, so I pick up and give our standard greeting.
I don't remember the exact conversation, but I'll give you the gist of things. A lady was on the other end, and she had bought a Farmland brand ham. Upon opening it on Christmas, she saw that it was fatty and not tasty, but it being Christmas day, there was no place to go to get another ham or turkey or anything. So she cooked it up and the family ate it anyway. Lady wanted to know if she brought her receipt back, could she get a refund?
I apologized for the ham, but stated that the grocery store had to have a product to return in order to get a refund.
"So you don't stand behind your hams?" She blurts. I pause, then explain that yes, we do, and Farmland isn't our brand. It's just a brand we carry. (Our hams were clearly marked with OUR name, they are all boneless [the one she bought was bone-in] and we baked them in the store every morning with brown sugar and pineapple and they are God's gift to hams. It is nearly 7 years later, and I STILL crave those damn hams.) But I explain in short about the difference between our store brand hams and the Farmland hams and how we cannot guarantee the quality of a ham we don't produce. This didn't suffice. "Then why do you have a sign up saying you guarantee your hams?" I explain that this sign is up next to our store brand hams, as that is what the guarantee covers. The Farmland hams are stocked in a completely different section. FINALLY somehow the lady quits with the guarantee nonsense and asks "Well what am I supposed to do?" I politely ask her to hold, as I want to discuss with my manager and she says okay.
I discuss with my manager, who is God's gift to managers, what he suggests. He says to tell her to call Farmland to complain, as they are good about giving some sort of compensation. He says if for some odd reason they do not do ANYTHING for the lady, to tell her to call back and he'll talk to the store manager to see if they could get her a gift card or something. So I go back to the lady and start to explain about calling Farmland. She inturrupts me wanting to know "Well how am I supposed to call them?" I tell her the number is on the ham's wrapper.
"I threw that away." So I send one of my co-workers to grab another Farmland ham and we give her the number off that. She sighs. I tell her what my manager said that if Farmland did nothing, he'd figure something out.
"Fine, fine. I just don't understand why you have that sign up if you do not stand behind your hams."
At this point, I don't remember what I said. I think I gave a short version of what I'd said before, or more likely, I gave up and told her to have a good day.
I got off the phone and relayed the whole conversation to the manager who got a kick out of it. The whole rest of the day every time he'd walk by me he'd say "Myra, do you not stand behind your hams?" So I grabbed a ham and held it in front of me. Yes, I do stand behind them. Literally. Look at me behind the ham. Bah.
Anyways. Old amusing story, I thought.
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