Who Says Customer Service is Dead?

Long time no walk...
This year is the second in a row that Megan and I will be spending Thanksgiving at home in St Paul. This is due to her schedule down at UW-L. Last year we figured to get a turkey breast and that would be that. I was in Trader Joe's and found a turkey breast with a cranberry apple stuffing. It looked good, it was good. So this year we planned on that for Thanksgiving. Getting it was a little more difficult this year.


So last night, the Monday before Thanksgiving, I went to the local Trader Joe's looking for the stuffed turkey breast and some other things. No luck, there weren't any on the shelf. I found a helpful crew member and they checked whether there were any in the back. No luck but they were supposed to be on the truck, that wasn't there but was due "sometime tonight". Okay I told her I'll try back tomorrow. So this afternoon after work I came home by way of Trader Joe's and still no turkey breasts on the shelf. In fact the shelf that had been turkeys was now back to being other meat items. They were out of turkeys, and it appeared stuff turkey breasts. Enter Russ. I explained to him my discussion with one of his colleagues the night before. He checked on what was there. Well the truck was there, but they weren't scheduled to unload it until 7PM. He was willing to go out to the truck and see if he could find the turkey breasts and bring me one. I thanked him for doing that. When he returned, he apologized but the meat pallet was behind a dozen other pallets stacked 8 feet high with merchandise. He took my name and said he would have one set aside for me. Okay I could live with that. But that wasn't the end of it. Enter Laura. She was prepared to try and work her way back to the meat and find the turkey breasts. After some discussion we all agreed that it would be best if I stopped back later. I was headed to Lord of the Rings Online session with friends from work and stopping there on the way home wasn't a big hassle.

So at 8:30PM I was back at the Trader Joe's and I went to the desk. The gentleman behind the desk, "First Mate" Ignacio, called to the back looking for Russ and/or Laura. After a couple of tries Laura came out. Checked that I was looking for one of the stuffed turkey breasts and retreated to the cooler and returned with one for me, and two for other customers who had obviously been in earlier as well.

Hat's off to the Trader Joe's crew in St Paul. We've been led to believe that customer service is dead. I'm here to tell you that it's not. Well at least it's not at the corner of Lexington and Randolph in St Paul.