One of the services we offer is photo restoration. You bring us that totally beat up, bent, discolored, and perhaps even torn photo and we send it to a Photoshop expert to make it look like the original (sometimes even better).
George had been in the store about a month ago to pick up a photo restoration that we had completed for him. It was a photo of his grandfather. He was very happy with the result which was why I was surprised he had come back to the store with that same photo.
Somewhere between scanning the original to the Photoshop people, getting it back, and printing, his grandfather's feet had been cropped ever so slightly. I called the company and they were willing to add on the cropped off portion at no additional cost. Great! My manager told me to just scan it in to our computer and send it as an attachment to them. No problem.
Me: We'll give you a call when it is back.
G: Ok great. You guys are going to take good care of it right?
Me: Of course we are!
About a half hour before closing I finally got around to scanning the photo. We have 2 scanners we use. One is a manual flat bed scanner while the other (a Kodak scanner) has rollers and feeds the photo(s) through. I decided to use the Kodak since it was already hooked up to our computer with internet access.
I pressed "Go" and what I saw was the top layer of the photo literally getting stripped by the rubber rollers pulling the photo through. The scanner was spitting out bits and pieces of the original photo George had left us.
I wanted to DIE!
After screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! (in my head)" the next thing I wanted to do was hit "ctrl+z" to undo it all. When I realized that this man's photo was physically in pieces and I couldn't ctrl+z, I wanted to cry. After picking up my jaw off the floor I tried to salvage whatever pieces were left and put them all in one place. If there was anything positive about the situation it was that the feet we were going to add on to the restored photo miraculously were scanned.
Not knowing what else to do I gathered the remaining pieces and placed them in one area and saved what had been scanned into the computer. I went home that night and upon consulting with AB we decided it would be best if I wrote an email to my manager explaining what had happened so he wouldn't be blind sided by it when he came in the next morning. I said I would take full responsibility for the mishap.
I then proceeded to sob into AB's shoulder as he reassured me it was going to be OK, it was an honest mistake, I wasn't going to be fired, and he was sure the customer would understand.
I was not so optimistic about the situation. Even if the photo was restored to perfection I feel there is some kind of sentimental attachment to the original photo. How can anyone be understanding of a mishap like this?
The next morning Mr. Manager took a look at the pile of photo, took a sip from his ice coffee, and uttered, "yep, that's pretty bad". Thankfully he's a bit of a Photoshop whiz himself. He took a large part of the morning to attach the feet on to the restored photo and then followed that up with some color correction.
After he finished he walked over to me with the phone and said, "Now, you're going to have to call George and tell him what happened."
He proceeded to go over how I should tell him what happened, what we could offer in compensation, etc... It was actually a really good teaching moment and I was very grateful he didn't just hand me the phone and tell me "good luck!".
I called hoping to catch George on the phone so I could get it over and done with. *Ring, ring, ring, ring* nothing. I got the answering machine. I left a detailed message describing what had happened and encouraged him to call back and ask for me.
A few days passed with no word from him. I was in agony. Finally, on a Saturday afternoon he strolled in saying he was here to pick up a photo restoration. I ran to get his order, showed him the photo, and said, "We were able to complete the restoration."
G: *looking at the photo* That's great!
Me: But did you listen to the whole message I left you?
G: Oh I don't know. It was a few days ago. I don't remember these types of things.
Me: The original photo was damaged when we scanned it.
G: Oh that's OK. It was damaged to begin with. That's why I brought it in to you guys.
Me: No, I mean it's really, really, damaged. It's in pieces.
G: Oh don't worry about it. It was my fault for leaving having it exposed to the sun for all those years and then I put it over the fireplace where the heat damaged it.
Me: Oh my gosh. Thank you for understanding, but I just feel terrible!
And then an amazing thing happened. He touched my hand and said, "Look, you're Asian and I'm Italian. You understand the significance of our ancestors and what they mean to us. This is a photo of my grandfather. Between me and my family in Italy I was the only one with a photo of him. I was entrusted with the task of making sure this photo was salvaged and copies were made. All that matters is that we have a photo of him to remember him by."
The weight of the world had been taken off my shoulders. I wanted to hug him.
I don't know how many times it happens that the customer consoles the employee (I'm guessing never), but it happened to me.
His compensation was just extra prints and he was very happy with that. I wish I could have done more for him, because I don't think he realizes what he did for me by being so understanding.
If I were in his shoes and saw someone genuinely sorry for what happened I believe I would have reacted the same way he did. Perhaps it was just Karma being on my side that day.
George had been in the store about a month ago to pick up a photo restoration that we had completed for him. It was a photo of his grandfather. He was very happy with the result which was why I was surprised he had come back to the store with that same photo.
Somewhere between scanning the original to the Photoshop people, getting it back, and printing, his grandfather's feet had been cropped ever so slightly. I called the company and they were willing to add on the cropped off portion at no additional cost. Great! My manager told me to just scan it in to our computer and send it as an attachment to them. No problem.
Me: We'll give you a call when it is back.
G: Ok great. You guys are going to take good care of it right?
Me: Of course we are!
About a half hour before closing I finally got around to scanning the photo. We have 2 scanners we use. One is a manual flat bed scanner while the other (a Kodak scanner) has rollers and feeds the photo(s) through. I decided to use the Kodak since it was already hooked up to our computer with internet access.
I pressed "Go" and what I saw was the top layer of the photo literally getting stripped by the rubber rollers pulling the photo through. The scanner was spitting out bits and pieces of the original photo George had left us.
I wanted to DIE!
After screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! (in my head)" the next thing I wanted to do was hit "ctrl+z" to undo it all. When I realized that this man's photo was physically in pieces and I couldn't ctrl+z, I wanted to cry. After picking up my jaw off the floor I tried to salvage whatever pieces were left and put them all in one place. If there was anything positive about the situation it was that the feet we were going to add on to the restored photo miraculously were scanned.
Not knowing what else to do I gathered the remaining pieces and placed them in one area and saved what had been scanned into the computer. I went home that night and upon consulting with AB we decided it would be best if I wrote an email to my manager explaining what had happened so he wouldn't be blind sided by it when he came in the next morning. I said I would take full responsibility for the mishap.
I then proceeded to sob into AB's shoulder as he reassured me it was going to be OK, it was an honest mistake, I wasn't going to be fired, and he was sure the customer would understand.
I was not so optimistic about the situation. Even if the photo was restored to perfection I feel there is some kind of sentimental attachment to the original photo. How can anyone be understanding of a mishap like this?
The next morning Mr. Manager took a look at the pile of photo, took a sip from his ice coffee, and uttered, "yep, that's pretty bad". Thankfully he's a bit of a Photoshop whiz himself. He took a large part of the morning to attach the feet on to the restored photo and then followed that up with some color correction.
After he finished he walked over to me with the phone and said, "Now, you're going to have to call George and tell him what happened."
He proceeded to go over how I should tell him what happened, what we could offer in compensation, etc... It was actually a really good teaching moment and I was very grateful he didn't just hand me the phone and tell me "good luck!".
I called hoping to catch George on the phone so I could get it over and done with. *Ring, ring, ring, ring* nothing. I got the answering machine. I left a detailed message describing what had happened and encouraged him to call back and ask for me.
A few days passed with no word from him. I was in agony. Finally, on a Saturday afternoon he strolled in saying he was here to pick up a photo restoration. I ran to get his order, showed him the photo, and said, "We were able to complete the restoration."
G: *looking at the photo* That's great!
Me: But did you listen to the whole message I left you?
G: Oh I don't know. It was a few days ago. I don't remember these types of things.
Me: The original photo was damaged when we scanned it.
G: Oh that's OK. It was damaged to begin with. That's why I brought it in to you guys.
Me: No, I mean it's really, really, damaged. It's in pieces.
G: Oh don't worry about it. It was my fault for leaving having it exposed to the sun for all those years and then I put it over the fireplace where the heat damaged it.
Me: Oh my gosh. Thank you for understanding, but I just feel terrible!
And then an amazing thing happened. He touched my hand and said, "Look, you're Asian and I'm Italian. You understand the significance of our ancestors and what they mean to us. This is a photo of my grandfather. Between me and my family in Italy I was the only one with a photo of him. I was entrusted with the task of making sure this photo was salvaged and copies were made. All that matters is that we have a photo of him to remember him by."
The weight of the world had been taken off my shoulders. I wanted to hug him.
I don't know how many times it happens that the customer consoles the employee (I'm guessing never), but it happened to me.
His compensation was just extra prints and he was very happy with that. I wish I could have done more for him, because I don't think he realizes what he did for me by being so understanding.
If I were in his shoes and saw someone genuinely sorry for what happened I believe I would have reacted the same way he did. Perhaps it was just Karma being on my side that day.
