I am one of those people that are constantly critiquing customer service wherever I go.  I think because I know how important it is in our industry and I am always curious how people outside our industry handle certain situations.  I have to admit that for the longest time when I encountered a young Gen "Y" employee and received "undesirable" customer service, I chalked it up to that generation.  But just last week, I was pleasantly surprised at the "over and beyond" service I received. I was on a mad search for some ant cupcake toppers that I had seen at one of the grocery stores here. I could not remember which one so I started at the one I most shop at. The young girl working the bakery counter looked at me as though I had two heads as she told me "no, we’ve never had any of those".  
 I drove to the same chain of the first grocery store that is located by the post office, since I stop there quite often thinking I might have seen them there. Again, behind the bakery counter was a young guy, who could not have been older than seventeen.  My immediate thought was that this was a total waste of my time.  I told him what I was looking for and he knew immediately what I was talking about. He explained that they recently had run a promotion of a cake in the shape of a watermelon and the ant toppers were spread all over the cake.  Unfortunately, they did not have any left. He began to call the other stores to check on their ant availability - no luck.  I thanked him for his time and was about to leave when he offered to order me some from their cake supplier. I agreed and gave him my follow up information and left the store. The next day, I received a call from the bakery dude telling me that he stopped off at one of the stores located in Bargersville on his way home the day before, and not only did they have my ant cake toppers, but he brought them back with him and I could pick them up at any time! WOW! He went "over and beyond" for me and I was floored! I made sure to speak with his manager and brag on him for his gracious behavior!

My ant cake toppers are great and besides the excellent customer service experience, they were FREE because the promotion was over!