Close Enough

Maybe, I told myself after I'd repeated the story to the fourth customer service specialist, maybe he meant it as a joke. I couldn't convince myself.

The previous week, I'd spent the better part of a day in a frustratingly near futile search for 9X12 presentation folders for our model portfolios and was worn down by the effort but proud of my efforts when I finally found and ordered them. They arrived promptly, as promised. They were purple, as promised and two pocketed, as promised. And they were exactly 9 and one half by 11 and one half inches in size, an essential half inch too short to accommodate our photographs.

“Will they do?” Michael asked.

“They will not!” I said testily and snatched the 'phone to begin what I suspected was going to be a long, involved and probably painful process to correct.

I was patient with the first thickly accented and casually indifferent representative.

I was reasonable with the second whose English was marginally better although her grasp of the situation was fragile.

By the third, I was starting to feel my blood beginning to boil and by the fourth, I was exasperated and angry.

“Listen and listen carefully because this is the last time I'm going to explain it,” I warned him, “You advertised these as 9X12 presentation folders. I ordered 9X12 presentation folders. You sent me 9 and one half by 11 and one half presentation folders.”

“Well, that's pretty close, don't you think?” he said and I could practically hear the snicker in his voice. I paused to let that sink in, not quite able to believe what I'd just heard. That's when I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and failed miserably.

“Seriously?” I demanded, “Is that supposed to be funny? Is that what passes for clever in customer service?

He backtracked at once, offering up a half hearted apology, an unconvincing tap dance about a listing error with Amazon, followed by the promise of a quick refund. As an afterthought, he assured me righteously, there was no need to return the wrong folders, they'd be happy to absorb the cost. Considering we were talking about a grand total of $18.11, most of which was shippping, and knowing it would be more trouble than it was worth for them to deal with a return, the offer was based on practicality and not generosity and I suspected he thought I wouldn't put it together.

Not able to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, I started to tell him how kind he was being, changed it to magnanimous, and hung up. I was hoping he'd have to look it up.

We used the purple folders but had to trim the pictures which were already cropped to the bone and we lost feet on the full length shots but it was the best we could do in the time we had left.

I mourn for the days when close enough wasn't good enough.