All Julianne Sundin wanted was her Full Monty.
She couldn’t even get half.
Sundin, who retired this spring after teaching 28 years in Lake Zurich, was celebrated at a retirement party in May. At the party, her daughters gave her a card with a surprise inside: the promise of two tickets for dinner and a show at the Marriott Theatre in Linolnshire.
“I thought it was a great gift,” Sundin said.
Even better, the theater was showing “The Full Monty” musical, which she had wanted to see for some time.
The problem was, the card didn’t actually include the gift certificate, which was supposed to arrive in the mail within days.
Days turned into weeks, which turned into months. Still no gift certificate.
In late July, Sundin grew concerned and called the theater.
A customer service representative figured things out pretty quickly. The gift certificate had been sent to her street address, but to the wrong town. Sundin lives in Hawthorn Woods. The certificate was sent to DeKalb, where her daughter lives.
Sundin said she was told there was nothing the theater could do — it was a postal issue. She called the post office, but found no relief there either. The combination of Sundin’s street address and her daughter’s town led to an address that does not exist in DeKalb.
The envelope was never returned to the theater, and it wasn’t held at the post office. Instead, it seemed to simply vanish.
Sundin said she called the theater back and tried to get the gift certificate reissued. What she got, she said, was the runaround.
Knowing “The Full Monty” ends its run on Sept. 21, Sundin e-mailed What’s Your Problem? asking for help.
“Marriott admits that [the gift certificate was] sent to the wrong address, yet there is nothing they can do to help me,” Sundin wrote. “It seems so easy.”
In fact, it was.
The Problem Solver called Terry James, executive director for the Marriott Theatre, who immediately resolved the issue.
James said the problem started with Sundin’s daughter, who bought the gift certificate online but incorrectly entered her mom’s mailing address. After that, he said, there was simply miscommunication.
“It sounds like a comedy of errors,” James said. “Obviously, we weren’t trying to give her the runaround.”
James said Sundin initially called the theater, but in subsequent calls spoke with someone at the hotel where the theater is located. Hotel employees, he said, might not have understood how to resolve the problem.
He said Sundin should have asked to speak to a supervisor or a manager, who would have fixed the problem immediately. All the theater had to do was give her seats to a performance that wasn’t sold out.
“We’ll call her, and she’ll come to see ‘The Full Monty,'” James said.
True to his word, someone from the Marriott Theatre called Sundin the next day. Sundin said the theater employee scolded her a bit for getting the Problem Solver involved, but did offer her free tickets to an upcoming “Full Monty” show.
The tickets arrived last week.
“Everything is taken care of,” said a satisfied Sundin.
She’ll make it with one day to spare.
“I’m going Sept. 20,” she said.
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