The toys of choice for my wife and I this Christmas were a couple of matching Nokia cell phones. The quad-band GSM world phone includes Bluetooth capability, a music player, a camera, a radio, and email functionality, among other stuff. I spent the better part of the last couple days familiarizing myself with its bells and whistles and am impressed with it. But what I am even more impressed with is the service of the local AT&T store manager.

We actually purchased the phones on sale at the Target store across the street but went to AT&T to get them activated. During the process, a store associate unnecessarily got in a hurry and sliced into my wife’s new phone with a razor blade while trying to retrieve it from the vice-like grip of its plastic packaging.

To his credit, even though we did not purchase the phones at the AT&T store, the manager not only agreed to give us a brand new phone but also allowed us to keep the damaged one for its extra battery and memory card. One does not ordinarily experience such extraordinary service, so I am seizing this opportunity to celebrate high tech stuff and high touch service.