Today was tied for the most bizarre phone call I’ve taken at Stortz Tools. Here’s how roughly how it went down:

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Old Man: Hi, I ordered two pounds of copper slate hooks from you guys and they’re a little short.

Me: Short? What?

Old Man: I ordered two pounds of slate hooks. It said there’s 45 hooks per pound and I only received 82 hooks.

Me: You literally counted out all 82 hooks? We don’t actually send a specific number of hooks, we sell them by the pound, so we weigh the amount then send that, we just say on the site that it’s approximately 45 hooks to a pound so people have an idea of how many they’re getting.

Old Man: Right, well I ordered two pounds and only got 82, so I’m eight hooks short.

Me: So are you asking me to send you eight extra hooks?

Old Man: Pretty much yeah.

Me: Wow. I mean, I guess I can do that but it seems extremely trivial.

Old Man: Trivial huh? Well it’s real convenient that approximately 45 a pound ends up being 41 a pound and not 48 a pound, you know what I mean? That’s almost 10%!

Me: We don’t say it’s 45 hooks, we say it’s a pound. We’re not going to count out every single hook for every pound of hooks that’s ordered, that’d be insane. I swear we’re not trying to pull a fast one by sending .95 pounds, the website says approximately for a reason.

Old Man: So are you going to send me the 8 extra hooks?

Me: No.

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This blew my mind.

First off, I was lolin that he counted all 82 hooks. That’s amazing. I kind of felt bad that he went through that trouble.

But more amazing is that he actually called us to complain! Eight hooks!

I’d guess the guy was in his 60s or 70s and he clearly has a different view of the world / money than I do.

So after hanging up, I took out eight hooks, wrote him a hand-written letter, and mailed him eight extra hooks. I figured it would make his day. The cost to us is basically zero and the effort was equally low.

I know he’s crazy, but am I equally crazy for caving? Or was it the right thing to do?