“Cynics will never greet the Divine Presence.” – Talmud, Sotah 42a
We got the suitcase in April. Now the zipper is broken. The pull came off the teeth on one side. Luckily, there are two pulls, so we’re able to close it – sort of. Clearly not ideal. I went on the company’s website to explore repair options. I mean, a zipper should not break on a suitcase’s third use. “No problem!” declared the website, “It is definitely under warranty.” All I had to do was drive it to their repair location in Brooklyn or Syracuse. I could also ship it to them on my own dime. No, thank you. So, I called their customer service department.
“Hello, this is Silver with customer service, how are you doing today?”
“I’m doing well, Silver, and how are you?” I said with my friendliest voice.
“I’m good, how can I help you?”
And he could not have been more helpful. He agreed that the zipper should not have broken. He confirmed that the closest locations were, indeed, in Brooklyn and Syracuse. And then he said, “This should not cost you anything. I’ll send you a prepaid shipping label.”
There are so many reasons to be cynical about life, about people, about the state of the world. And then there are people like Silver who remind us that much of the time people just want to do the right thing.
I’m reasonably confident that they’ll be able to fix the zipper. And I know that, at least for today, Silver was able to lower my level of cynicism.
Happy Thanksgiving.
