Posted by:Aleksandra Oleksak

 

Yes, you read the title of this blog post right! So you’re probably wondering what it’s all about, well here goes the story……

Myself and my boyfriend Amir, ventured out to Ikea on Saturday to finish designing and order an Ikea kitchen for his latest home renovation project during the Ikea kitchen event. Believe me, we normally would not step foot anywhere near Ikea on a Saturday, but the restaurant was a lot busier then Ikea itself. Anyway, we registered with the kitchen people, got a buzzer and went to indulge on some yummy Ikea food, you know you like their food too. Just as we finished up our meals, our buzzer went off, they were ready for us. We met with Kristin from the Etobicoke store and spent the next 2 hours tweaking Amir’s kitchen and finalizing the design and order. Side note here, Kristin was absolutely amazing, I have used her before to design my Ikea kitchen and she’s extremely knowledgeable and gave us some great suggestions, that Amir and I never thought of or hesitated on. I don’t think either of us have ever been so excited about a kitchen before, so thank you Kristin!

Ok so back to the original story, not sure if you’re familiar with Ikea’s famous kitchen event, if not here’s the quick break down:

• receive 10% back in gift cards for any kitchen ordered
• receive 15% back if you also buy 1-2 Ikea appliances
• receive 20% back if you also buy 3 or more Ikea appliances

We finished up with Kirstin, bought a few other things and went to cash out. Since we didn’t buy any Ikea appliances, Amir was eligible to receive 10% back in gift cards based on his total kitchen amount. So Amir pays, grabs his gift card and after many hours spent at Ikea, we gladly jump in the car. Amir proceeds to take his gift card and put it in a safe place only to realize the amount we received back on the gift card was the WHOLE COST of the kitchen, almost $5000!!!! We are both shocked and surprised and not sure what to do. The options going through our heads are as follows:

• keep the card and go on a shopping spree and hope no one at Ikea notices (fat chance)
• give the card back as it’s not right and we are pretty sure that the cashier will get fired for what just happened

It takes Amir and I about 30 seconds before we realize what we have to do…..give it back. It’s the right thing to do, we would not want someone getting fired over something we could have fixed and generally it’s just bad karma.

So we walk back into Ikea, go up to the cashier discreetly and let him know what he just did. He notifies his manager, they both thank us profusely and the manager voids the gift card and gives Amir the proper amount back, 10% not 100%. The manager calls over loss and presentation and they both tell us how nice of a man the cashier is, how he has a family and how most definitely they would have noticed tomorrow and fired him on the spot. Wow, we are feeling good about our decision As we are about to walk out, both the manager and loss and presentation hand us a bunch a coupons for free Ikea food, yay and thank us for being so honest.

Would it have been nice having that gift card., a whole $5000, yes! Would it have been right, NO! Life is all about decisions, karma and positive and negative energy and although it was a hard decision, it really wasn’t. We spent the rest of our Saturday evening in great spirits!

Has this ever happened to you? What would you have done in our shoes?