This story involves a grocery store, but the same can apply to just about any store, restaurant, or establishment of service. 

I knew yesterday as I went to return the 2 packages of pull-ups, without a receipt, at the Kroger in the bad part of town, that I was in for a struggle.  Diapers are a high crime item.  They were Kroger brand, and I knew exactly when I bought them (down to the hour) and how I paid for them so I knew there was hope.  But I knew it wouldn’t be an easy feat without my receipt.

I get up to the customer service counter, and the Manager, whom I recognized, was called up.  He told me as long as I used my Kroger Plus Card, the purchase could be tracked and we’d be good to go.  Awesome!  Here ya go!  He goes into the back to do his thing and comes out telling me he couldn’t find it.  He searched the 1-13th of April.  In case my as stated date-of-purchase of the 7th was off.

Heh so what now?  He asked if I was wanting an exchange or a full refund.  I told him that the 4yo in question was cold turkied from pull-ups one night right after those were bought and has stayed dried since.  That I really didn’t have a need for 88 pull-ups but that the milk and eggs it could buy would be immensely useful.  That’s a lot of milk.  And I would be perfectly alright with store credit because that’s what I figured I’d be getting anyway and was already planning to turn around and use it on food.  Did I have an option?

The manager looked at me and mused out loud that he’s seen me in there a lot.  He’s seen my buy those exact pull-ups a lot.  He didn’t say this part out loud but you could see him silently calculate that I have never been so much as suspected of stealing, and have indeed been seen purchasing.  There was no reason to think  I was lying.  Plus, I wasn’t.

He nodded to the Customer service pipsqueak to run it as a store credit return and I thanked him.

He broke policy.  He had the power to, but didn’t have to.  But he broke it because he knew me well enough as a customer and I’ve never presented a reason not to.  Krogers had nothing to lose in that transaction because Krogers had nothing to lose with me.

That Krogers literally sits about half way between my work and home.  There are weeks where I’m in there at least 5 times.  I’m in there all the time.  I’m loyal to the company as a whole.  And I’m honest.

And I’m thankful because almost 40$ in pull-ups buys a LOT of milk.