Joanie, it has been a thrill to spend the last forty-five minutes helping you in Macy’s today. And even though you’re leaving the store empty-handed, I’m not discouraged! I’ve got something from this interaction that’s worth far more than a sale: your feedback on the Michael by Michael Kors Hooded Down Packable Puffer Jacket.
When I showed you the Michael by Michael Kors Hooded Down Packable Puffer Jacket—the fourteenth coat I’d shown you this afternoon, by the way!— you said, “That brown isn’t brown enough. Can’t you people make a brown coat that’s actually brown?” As a part-time employee of this Macy’s, I was definitely the correct person to yell at about this!
That’s why as soon as you leave Macy’s store #4,679, I’m going to pick up the red telephone at the register that exists only as a direct line to Michael Kors and let him know your notes on his designs.
Michael Kors, one of the most successful fashion designers and television personalities, is definitely going to want to know that a middle school teacher from Pennsylvania thinks the short version of his Hooded Down Packable Puffer Jacket is too short, while the longer version of his Hooded Down Packable Puffer Jacket is too long, and can’t he make a Hooded Down Packable Puffer Jacket that’s somewhere in the middle?
Good thing one of the benefits of my minimum wage job is constant, unfettered access to Michael Kors’s time and ears! Sometimes I call him just to say hi. We’re close like that!
In fact, if Mr. Kors doesn’t answer the telephone right away, I’ll probably shoot him a text. That way, if he’s in a shareholder meeting or on a plane to Milan, he’ll still be able to know that Joanie found the asymmetrical zipper on the Hooded Down Packable Puffer Jacket “random and confusing” ASAP.
You really lucked out today, Joanie. In some department stores, the salespeople would think things like “buy it or don’t buy it, I truly don’t care” or “stop wasting my time” or “you’ve had problems with so many coats that maybe the problem isn’t the coats, maybe it’s you, Joanie.” But that’s not the Macy’s Magic!
Here at Macy’s, we see your complaints not as pathetic power trips from a woman who bosses around salespeople because she can no longer boss around her adult children, but for what they truly are: little pearls of wisdom, each more precious than the last, that will make Michael Kors weep in his shame at disappointing you, but come through it more inspired than ever to get the next iteration of the Hooded Down Packable Puffer Jacket right.
Don’t worry, I’ll also be passing along your other suggestions. First of all, we will be closing this Macy’s, effectively immediately, because—as you so succinctly pointed out—what’s the point of having all these coats if we’re not going to have any that actually work?
I’m also planning on lighting several strategically placed small fires, since you complained that the store was “so cold you could keep a chicken fresh.” Hopefully the warmth of the blaze will be enough to stop your shivering as flames engulf the whole store! (Actually, I have to come clean, Joanie: I was kinda planning on doing this even before you came into Macy’s today!)
And finally, since you complained the service was a bit slow, I’ve decided to raise my own wage so that I actually feel invested in this job. Weird that I never thought to do that sooner!
Thank YOU, Joanie, and be on the look-out for a call back from Mr. Kors very soon.