The Extra Mile at Office Depot

Celeste, who really should have her own blog but I’ve given up that fight for now, asked me to share this tale of great customer service.  Yesterday she went to the Office Depot on Hanes Mall Boulevard to buy a certain electronic item that they had on sale.  They were sold out and when she asked if she could have a rain check they said "no".  To his credit the man helping her, a fellow named Tim, offered to call the other stores in the area to see if they had one.  He did and informed her that one store did indeed have two units but there was no guarantee they’d be there when she got there.  She didn’t have time to go, but Tim offered to call her and let her know if his store got more of the units in the next couple of days.  She gave him her cell number and thought that was the end of it.

This morning Celeste got a call from Tim.  He’d driven to the other store, gotten one of the units, brought it back and had it waiting for her behind the counter and said she could drop by any time to pick it up.  Tim, who asked that she not give his last name, definitely went the extra mile and the folks at Office Depot should take note.  If he hadn’t gone the extra mile I’d be writing a post about how they’d lost a sale because of their silly rain check policy.  Celeste had already identified a store with a price matching policy where she could get the item she was looking for, and had Tim not called she’d have gone by there today.  I’m thinking Tim deserves at least a bonus, if not a raise.

Sunrise and Mountain Meadows; Now That’s a Wedding

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This past weekend my cousin Adam Good married up, somehow convincing a young lady named Kat to marry him.  Actually Adam’s a heckuva catch himself and he’s even had at least 30 seconds of fame.  He was featured in the Washington Post’s story on "manny’s".  Kat just finished spending two years with the Peace Corps in Africa.  An impressive young couple to say the least.

The wedding was held in the mountains of northwest North Carolina at the Moravian Church’s Laurel Ridge Camp, Conference and Retreat Center. It was an outdoor wedding and Adam & Kat must have had a direct line to you-know-who because the weather was perfect.  The ceremony itself was beautiful, held as it was on a mountain meadow and evident as it was that Adam and Kat couldn’t be happier.  For that matter it was evident that the family and friends in attendance couldn’t be happier for them.  Here’s to a long, happy, prosperous life together for them.

The day of the wedding I was up early to go golfing with my uncles Frank and Ken and my cousin Jeff.  That’s how I was able to see the sunrise and snap a couple of pictures I’m pasting below.

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links for 2007-10-16

History of Religion

I came across this very cool site called Maps of War (via Boing Boing) and found the map you see below.  It depicts the spread of various religions throughout recorded history.  This is a fantastic tool to grasp both the historical relevance of religions and their scope.  You’ll notice that in the grand scheme of things Christianity and Islam are "johnny come lately" and their spread has largely occurred in the recent past. 

links for 2007-10-15

links for 2007-10-13

DonorsChoose Update

I posted earlier this week about DonorsChoose, which is a service that helps teachers raise money for projects.  One thing I wasn’t clear about is how the donated proceeds are handled, but today I read Fred Wilson’s post about his DonorsChoose challenge and he offered this useful tidbit of info:

I want to emphasize something that most of you probably don’t know
about Donor’s Choose. The public school teachers use the Donor’s Choose
procurement system to "buy" the supplies they need. Their shopping cart
becomes the "cause" that is funded, and when the total is reached, the
supplies are purchased by Donors Choose and sent to the teacher’s
classroom. This is not about sending money to teachers. This is about
sending supplies to classrooms.

That makes a lot of sense to me, and I’m sure it quells the misgivings of some potential donors who don’t want their funds to mysteriously morph into a trip to the ice cream shop for 30 kids.  So, if you were thinking about taking part in my challenge and had some second thoughts here’s your chance to help some teachers in Winston-Salem do better for their students. 

Lowder’s Lewisville Challenge