Lost memories can feel like they’re gone for good, until the right person takes the time to look deeper.

So, what would you do if a customer told you they’d lost years of irreplaceable photos, from family trips to a beloved pet? Would you offer sympathy and move on? Or would you dig in and try to recover what matters most to them?

In the following story, one employee finds themselves in this exact predicament and goes above and beyond. Here’s how it all happened.

Today I Made a Customer Cry

I work in photo finishing, and I was helping a friendly lady who wanted prints from her phone. She off-handedly mentioned that she recently lost all the photos on her phone, so she was only able to get prints from the last few weeks.

I found it odd that the photos would just disappear, but the phone was still working. She insisted, despite being a “technology illiterate,” that she didn’t accidentally delete them. She also off-handedly mentioned that she thought her phone had a memory card in it.

This needed further investigation. I fully expected her not to have a micro SD card since many older folk call the SIM card a memory card, but lo and behold, there was one inside.

After a little effort, he was able to format the memory card.

I put the card into one computer, and it didn’t show up at all, so I tried our Windows PC instead. It told me the disk was unformatted, likely corrupted somehow by her cheap off-brand Android.

I didn’t want to get her hopes up, but since Windows was able to see it, I thought there might be a chance. So I took a deep breath, formatted it, and threw it into our recovery software.

I was able to recover 90% of the photos and video on that card.

The lady had been waiting for her prints anyway, so I waved for her to come around to my computer and take a look. She looked at the photos on the screen and literally started bawling.

The lady was at a loss for words.

It contained all her most important pictures—her grandson’s graduation, her dog that had passed a few months ago, family trips, years’ worth of pictures that weren’t backed up anywhere.

In the end, she bought a new Micro SD, and I gave her a DVD of the pictures at no charge. After paying, she ran behind the counter and gave me a big hug.

I later found out that she had hand-written my boss a letter and said it was the best customer service she’d ever had.

Today has been a good day.

Wow! That was such an unexpected ending!

Let’s see what the fine folks over at Reddit think about this story.

That doesn’t mean it’s a re-post.

This person understands what it’s like to work at a photo kiosk.

Here’s someone who always helps people in these situations.

Great questions.

What a great employee! Most people would’ve just blown the woman off and not gone above and beyond like this person did.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.