Little Guy Integrity
Soul Searching for Our Better Self
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
As it happened, Casper the box bed company was running a limited time sale the weekend we found out our friends, Christine and Sam, would be visiting at the end of October. The sale was great timing because of the two twins we have in our guest room, the non-Casper twin mattress was done for despite being relatively new, bought four years earlier. It had started off promising, just like the Casper. But while the Casper twin flourished, getting only cozier and cozier with time (as we’d found with our own Casper mattress bought ten year prior), quite quickly the dud mattress developed a huge pit in the center. Why oh why did we stray from perfection?
So done deal. Of course I took advantage of Casper’s limited time package that included the mattress, a mattress pad and the foundation platform, promised to us in just two days’ time. We received the instantaneous congratulatory email about our order followed quickly by notification that the order had been fulfilled and was heading our way! Two pieces of it anyway, as it turned out: the mattress and the mattress pad. But the platform? No mention at all about that missing piece of the trio. Which was weird, making me worry about ordering the wrong package or some tricky fine print.
I drafted an anxious note to Casper Customer Support about our missing platform and was so gratified when Francisco got right back to me, a note filled with genuine understanding and regret about the missing piece though oddly no mention of when we could expect the platform. I wrote right back getting right to the point in question. A very prompt and friendly reply was returned, letting me know there’d been a run on the limited time deal so there would be a delay. Again, how much of a delay I had to prompt, my eyes narrowing suspiciously as I typed. By November they should have the supply answered the charming, ever regretful Francisco. This wouldn’t do at all I screeched back! We’d purchased the bed for the arrival of our guests at the end of October! The exceedingly sympathetic Francisco felt for me and said he wanted to take the matter to his managers to see what might be done in compensation for the delay which was exactly what I’d been thinking. A swift opportunistic thought surfaced. Taking my time to browse the website I replied with a suggestion. “May I suggest a set of sheets would go a good distance in repairing trust after the false promise?”
At this point I never heard back from the dashing Francisco (I’d been imagining him as the ever-courtly, swashbuckling Wesley from Princess Bride).
As I waited at first patiently and then resentfully for his reply the silence ate away in a corner of my mind. However, life had gotten very busy during those couple of weeks and I did not have the energy to pursue it. Nonetheless, I was both righteous about the grave mistreatment (which I interpreted as Casper’s anger over my aggressive suggestion but who are they to get mad at me?) and a fraction doubtful about the decency of my own part. Had I gone too far? Was I tactically working the whole “breach of promise” angle (aka false advertising) for my opportunistic gain? The sheets were about hundred bucks. Probably not what Casper had in mind as a gesture of good will.
When things quieted down I wrote again, this time going for a more even-handed approach, carefully and gently pointing out to Francisco that it had been several weeks and I hadn’t heard back. I wanted to make a return to communication easy, no friction whatsoever.
But nothing. This bugged me; how dare they not reply! We were long time customers. Over the years we’ve bought three mattresses! Still, an unquiet part of me continued questioning my own integrity and how at-the-ready I’d been to grab for what I could get. The truth was we’d both behaved badly, Casper and me. Neither of us was bringing our better selves to the table. I cared about Casper and didn’t want our relationship to end this way. Plus, I might need another mattress and didn’t want bad feeling between us. Or righteously obligated to renounce them. What to do...
The answer came swift and clear: therapy.
This was offered up seriously from a mind that is just as big a fan of therapy as it is Casper. I knew therapy would help Casper and I work through this joint breakdown of integrity and loss of trust in our relationship.
Of course, that would be absurd. At the same time, the breakdown between Casper and me does point to something broken between the big guy and the little guy that needs repair. There is the big guy fronted by the seemingly sympathetic Francisco who has all the power to write off the little guy while the little guy throws impolite mouse punches at a perceived weak spot for an easy grab n’ go.
In retrospect I imagine it would have gone better if I had just asked Francisco if he thought a set of sheets would be fair and treated him like a person to work with instead of a company to take advantage of regardless that the sheets probably cost them a pittance and would not hurt them in the slightest. They might indeed, have cost the company a pittance, but it was the human interaction between Francisco and me that suffered the real hit. If I were serious about repair, maybe I should reach out and be straight about it all, acknowledge my part and so forth.
It's possible I may be taking it a bit too far. Putting way too much thought in repairing a relationship that for all practical purposes isn’t even a relationship. On the other hand, maybe I would get a response if I went for it and sent him the whole story. In fact, maybe I’d even get a set of sheets…
My how the road back to self-interest is an easy turnoff too take…
To our better selves,
E