If you want something done right, do it yourself…and be nice.

Ryan and I are doing a little apartment improvement, which included spending a few hours sitting on every chair at Crate and Barrel and stepping on every rug (“too soft? Just the right soft?”). We made our selections and were super excited to get the new stuff into our place before we start some heavy holiday entertaining next week.

That was 3.5 weeks ago. The “end of November” promise has come and gone.

Ryan called and was, um, unsuccessful. Logistics and operations of a global brand is what they do so how it takes a month to get us a rug and chair is beyond me. You’re better than this, C&B.

So I took matters into my own hands, made some calls, was very nice and solution focused (“Sandy, let’s figure out how we are going to make this right”) and boom- a new rug will be at our place on Monday.

A stunt rug, if you will.

Not the one we ordered but a brand new, similarly colored, perfectly fine replacement that will live on our floor until the “real” one comes.

Moral of the story: being nice works. With pretty much everything. It might feel good to yell at customer service people but that’s not who I want to be and I most certainly don’t want anyone talking to me like that.

A stunt rug works for me.