Okay, all you customer service miscreants: Listen up! Customer service boot camp is back in session. (No gum chewing or fly swatting!)

Back in July, I recounted my run-ins with some less than able customer service representatives and suggested some ways to fix what too often seems so obviously broken. Remember, it's called customer service, not customer disservice, and it's that way for a reason.

I've come to believe that if you take a job, you ought to do it the way it should be done, not half-assed because you think you're getting lousy pay and little or no respect from your superiors (or the customers). Although those things may be, and more often than that, are true, customer service people have no right to take their job dissatisfaction out on Joe and Joanne Consumer and all their little Consumers.

Today, I went to one of the local stores that carry all things musical in nature. My goal was singular: Get the September issue of MOJO magazine, the one with the Volume One Beatles covers CD affixed to it. I drove about 25 minutes, parked my car, and went in the store, figuring I had a 50-50 chance of snagging my prey.

The issue was in stock, but only the one with the Volume Two CD (the one I wanted has an unreleased Posies cover of "I'm Looking through You," recorded for, but not used in, the movie The Royal Tenenbaums). There were about 20 or so copies, but I didn't want any of them. I flagged down a young customer service guy, who greeted me with a misery-soaked long face. I told him what I was looking for, and he said, shrugging his shoulders, "Uh, I think that's all we have, what's there, I mean."

"Might you have any in the back? I'm looking for the one with the Volume One CD." "Uh, I don't think we have any in the back. Uh, probably not." "Uh, could you go look?" "Uh, we probably don't have any." I wanted, in the worst way, to ask him whether probably was good enough for him, or whether it was that MOJO sells for only $8.95 and that nifty Paul Simon box set sells for about $150. I wanted to say, I bet you'd hightail it to the back to see if you had any of those.

I prevailed on Speedy Stevie to check for me anyway, even though he probably didn't have any in the back. Now, in all fairness, he was probably right about that probably thing, but, as I wrote back in July, I've worked in retail, and I know that probably is never the right answer, especially when checking will only take a minute or two. And besides, it's the job.

Speedy came back a little while later and said that, indeed, there were probably no more issues in the store. I probably left, like, that minute.

I decided to try another store, out about another 20 minutes to the north (or is that south? I'm not a compass kind of guy). They, too, only had the issue with the Volume Two CD on it. I was beginning to sense some kind of senseless attack on my desire. But I was not to be thwarted, probably.

I decided to call yet another store that I would be passing on my way home. The girl I spoke to didn't know what MOJO was-fair enough, if you usually don't venture farther than the sewing magazines.

I decided to call one other place, figuring that I had burned enough gas ($1.79 a gallon!!) and agreeing with myself that I was going to call this a day right soon. A bored youngish sounding woman answered. I explained what I was looking for; did she have it in stock? "Uh," she said, obviously a close cousin to the guy in the first store, "is that a CD or a magazine?" "Well, it's a CD that comes with." I was proud of myself, throwing in a little youth speak. "Comes with what?" she said. Uh-oh.

Well, we eventually agreed on what I wanted, and she put me on hold. Five minutes later, another woman came on the phone and asked if she could help me. "Somebody else is helping me, but she seems to have gone missing. Could you help?" "Yeah, she got a bit…uh…preoccupied and asked me to help you. What can I find for you?" I explained what I was looking for, again. "Let me see if I can come up with that. Will you hold?"

Now, realize that I was about five minutes away from the exit that would take me to the very store I was connected to, so the collective customer service trust would have to leap into action and come up with the goods but quick. Two minutes or so later-right on time!-the first woman comes back to the phone and asks if I've been helped.

"Well, another woman was helping me, but-" "What was she looking for?" She had forgotten me, forgotten my question. "You were talking to me before," I said. "Well sir, I talk to a lot of people here." "But it was only about 10 minutes ago!" I said, my voice rising. "Oh, yeah! I remember you." Oh boy. She went to look for the magazine. Not more than a minute later, the other woman picked up. "Can I help you?" Argggghhhh!!! I missed my exit!

I told the woman that she shouldn't worry about it, I said thanks, and I hung up. To get to the store now would be a chore, but I was determined to take the chance and go there, and look for the magazine myself, and find it, and rub it in those two customer service people's faces!

Within seconds of arriving in the store, I found it, right in with the other music magazines. I took it to the register, where a nice young woman looked at my purchase and asked, "Did you call about this before?" "Yes, that was me." "Well, I went back to the phone to tell you I'd found it, but the other woman told me you'd hung up." I asked her if the other woman had told her that she couldn't find it after looking everywhere. "Uh, no, she didn't." Well, that was a big surprise, but I had my magazine, so I was happy.

And then the most amazing thing happened, a thing that almost never happens after you get bad customer service. The ceiling blew off the store, a rainbow appeared in the sky, angels sang in the key of C, and the woman at the register apologized. More than once. With a smile on her face. "I'm glad you got the magazine," she said. "I'm really very sorry you had to go through so much to get it, but I'm happy you did."

Now, that's the way to give good customer service. She turned a frown into a smile. I'm pretty convinced the other woman didn't even look in the right place, if she looked at all. But this woman…well, she wins the award. She wins the very first The World Is Round Customer Service Commendation. Free smiles for a month!

That's all it takes, folks. I remember when I was a country music disc jockey, and there I was one day, right after my father had died, feeling really sad, but having to be all happy and perky and joking around on the air, but not making a very good go of it, and playing one sad country song after another. A regular listener called me up and asked me to stop playing so many sad songs. I was depressing him. Now, he didn't know why I seemed sad, and I didn't tell him. But he was right. So I forced myself to kick a little country butt, and got the beat goin' strong. If I couldn't hack the shift, I should have gone home. As a wise philosopher once sang, You gotta know when to show 'em, know when to fold 'em." He was probably right.

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