TIFU by having to cancel patio furniture for a lady's important celebration

This fuck up actually happened just yesterday and I was still feeling pretty bad about it, but figured it would be good to just get it out somewhere and cleanse myself of the mistake.

So, I've been working for a particular home improvement store as a customer service associate for almost a year now. We typically do not help customers order anything. That is the responsibility of the sales floor associates- ie. The seasonal department would order you your tractor or flooring would help you order your shiplap. Anything that we don't stock at the store or anything considered a special order item actually HAS to be ordered with the associate in that department because at customer service we do not have the selling application to do that.

Earlier this month on April 1st I had a customer (and what seemed like her whole extended family) come up to the desk to ask about ordering a shit ton of our patio furniture for delivery. Of course I gave her the standard, "We don't really order things here at customer service, it's best to order it with the associate in outside lawn and garden." She told me that the associate out there said she had to do it up here. This made me sigh and want to club said associate over the head but it was like 9am and my patience has been running so thin with this job. We're constantly understaffed, overworked, berated by customers and management, and associates just don't know what the fuck they're doing, ever.

So I take a look at what she wants to order and it's all stuff we actually have in stock, no special order items, so I could actually set this up for her. Instead of causing an argument and sending her back outside, I decide that I will help her out and just sell her the damn furniture.

Everything is going smoothly- I double check that we have everything in stock, I get her info for the delivery, which she sets for around two weeks away, she pays and everyone is happy. This is where I fucked everything up.

Because I was the salesperson on this order, I was supposed to email or get with an associate in outside lawn and garden to pull this furniture and mark it as paid for and then put it in the delivery bay.

I did not do that. Customer service gets extremely busy. I totally forget about the order. Fast forward to yesterday, the day before her delivery was scheduled. One of our delivery coordinators comes up to tell me, "Hey, you did and order of patio furniture for this lady and it was never pulled so they sold everything we had of it. You were the salesperson so now YOU have to call this lady and tell her your sorry but the order is cancelled and you're refunding her for it."

I'm thinking FUUUUCK. THIS is why we don't sell shit at customer service! It's impossible for us to really leave the desk and do things meant for other departments to be doing.

I bite the bullet on my mistake and give this lady a call. I explain everything that happened and am sincerely apologizing over and over. I let her know I checked the stock of every store in our district and no one has it in stock any longer, but if she wants to, she can re-order it online and it will ship straight from the vendor to the store for pick-up or to her house but it will take 7-10 more days. I also offered to take 10% of everything and that she can talk to my manager too to find a solution. She starts CRYING and says she's coming by the store to talk in person.

I'm feeling bad but it was just a simple mistake and I know we can find a solution for her. Well, she arrives and here's the big kicker. That furniture was for a CELEBRATION OF LIFE party for her husband who passed away recently! So she's crying, I'm now crying- it was a mess. And the situation could have been way worse. I just hate knowing I made this woman so fucking sad during an unimaginable time in her life.

Luckily my manager helped her pick out new furniture that we did have, matched the price, threw in some extras and we picked out a flower basket after she left to send our condolences. She actually came back in today to say sorry for making me cry to which I told her I just felt so bad and I apologized again and we hugged it out. So, feeling much better about it all, she gets her furniture, and I know to NEVER sell anything ever again at the desk. Period.

TLDR; I sold patio furniture to a customer and forgot to have it pulled. Day before delivery my delivery coordinator told me they sold out of it and I had to call the customer and cancel the order. Turned out it was furniture for her husbands celebration of life party after he passed away! She cried, I cried, but we managed to get her different furniture to make it right.