Expense Report #5

I spent more than usual on food and entertainment this week--dinner with my family yesterday for Mother's Day, of course, and Friday I had dinner with a friend and then saw Avatar at the IMAX theater at the Aquarium--so in between, the Mrs. and I ate our evening meal at home on Saturday, which we normally wouldn't do. (She doesn't have a thrift problem; she has to be talked into buying even things she needs.)

Elsewhere, I did make a purchase this past week, and the story is kind of an exclamation point to the J. Crew story I told last week. After I had received the replacement hat, I emailed the rep who had helped me to express my appreciation. He encouraged me to contact him again if I had any other issues or needs. I decided to take a chance and ask if he might be able to locate the gray plaid flannel shirt that I've been going on about for months now.

Given how quickly it sold out in the fall, and that my previous attempt at ordering it from their web site had gone awry, I didn't hold much hope of him locating one, but it seemed like it was worth asking. A couple of days went by, and I thought it was a bust. Then, last Sunday afternoon, I found an email from him in my inbox. I thought it was strange that he'd be working on a Sunday, but customer service doesn't get weekends off, and he explained that he had been off the previous two days.

He said that he had the shirt on his desk, and as soon as I confirmed that I wanted it charged to my J. Crew card he would ship it. I was pretty blown away by this, and I still didn't quite want to believe it until I had the shirt in my hands, but I guess since he works at the main warehouse/distribution center, they can sometimes track down stuff tucked into dimly lit corners.

By the time he received my response it was Monday, so the package came to me at work last Tuesday. He'd sent it overnight, and didn't even charge me for regular shipping. I was hesitant to open it right away, fearing more disappointment, but after a few minutes I sliced through the tape and there it was.

I just realized that after all the fuss, I should have added a picture (hastily taken this morning in the midst of getting ready for work):

[Seems like they should have used white buttons, and the Mrs. agreed with me. I have to think about whether it's worth it to get some white ones and have the tailor change them.]

So, for the second time in a week, J. Crew's customer service came through huge for me, because I bothered to ask about something. Of course the rep mentioned that I should let him know if I needed anything else, but in the interest of restraint, I'm going to refrain from doing so. There are a couple of other items I would like to get hold of, but nothing that I wanted as much as this shirt. I think the difficulty in getting it has made me like it more, and the weather even cooperated by cooling off over the weekend so I could wear it.