United Airlines LOST my Brooks Brothers suit!

I was on a business flight back from Tokyo to the US when the most valuable piece of clothing I needed at that time disappeared.

It was the year 1990.

I had spent 14 months in Tokyo finishing coursework at Tokyo’s famous ICU university, and as the very first undergraduate apprentice at Sony.

That’s when I got a call from my cousin.

David Oreck. The known-founder of Oreck Vacuum, New Orleans at the time.

He had worked an arrangement to have American Express carry his vacuum cleaners in their catalog in Japan. Unit sales were disappointing. David wanted me to represent Oreck and expand his business out east.

We started by identifying specific milestones and goals to objectively measure “success”. We decided on weekly telephone calls to educate the Company on the market.

Over a period of 12 months, I met with dozens of white goods buyers.

The differences between the US and Japanese consumers were stark. Japanese preferred silent vacuums while Americans preferred loud!

Americans believed the sound was a characteristic of a good vacuum.

So typical.

That said, I successfully negotiated a deal to have the Oreck line fully tested, assigned the proper approvals, and a minimum order structure to widely distribute Oreck.

Then, back in the US, David invited me to New Orleans to finalize the plans, including meeting with the Japanese team in January 1991. He had me fly from Philadelphia to New Orleans, my classic Brooks Brothers suit stored by the steward.

Problem was…

the suit did not arrive with me.

David was furious.

Not at me!

at United Airlines.

The first of four days of work was changed to get a few suits at a local tailor. Inexpensive, but classic nonetheless.

My reckoning with United was next.

For David, companies need accountability, no matter the size. United needed to make due on the loss of my suit. I spent the next few hours on the phone with the office of United Airline CEO, Stephen Wolf, demanding resolution for my case.

This, more than the detail for negotiations with the Japanese (a few months out), was the lesson David gave me.

Never forget: the customer is always right.

A day before heading back to Philadelphia, my suit was found. United paid for the suits David purchased for me. United also provided a free ticket as further compensation.

Fully 18 months into the project now, I started early in the morning to fly to Washington DC and ended up in a taxi to Kennedy Airport in New York. 18 hours later, receiving a phone call from a college friend.

I was told by the JFK “yellow phone”, “the Iraq War has begun”.

David canceled his flight out of caution.

I still made the trip and successfully completed our negotiations with the buyers in Japan.

Never ever give up.
Always hold people to account.
You have a voice. Use it.
Do your best anyways, no matter what.

United may have screwed up…

but we still got the deal in the end.