Earthquake in Christchurch NZ

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Don't have an answer, however have a story (I ALWAYS have a story... lol..
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This was around 1994.  At the RadioShack I originally trained in, we had a practice of stamping our store's address on the back of our catalogs.  It was during the summer and we'd get many tourists that would get off the interstate for pitstops, stop in for batteries, etc.  We found out later that was such the case.

In 1995, I became manager in a closely related store under Woolwoth's.  One day over a year later out of the blue a fax comes across my machine, someone wanted to order two digital sound meters; they were from Christchurch, New Zealand, and the order was sent in my name!  I contacted corporate in Fort Worth, Tx., and found out we had nothing remotely in their area so go ahead and fill their order from store level.  I was given a phone no. to call them collect with any questions so I called...

Apparently, members of a movie making company from NZ was in the 1000 Islands area and stopped in our store.  As a practice, we'd hand out catalogs, and I would always try to personalize it with my business card as we worked on a commission basis.  They bought batteries and had a camera that wasn't working, thinking they'd have to buy a new one, it was an expensive Canon SLR 35mm.  I looked at it and scraped off corrosion from the battery terminals and got it going again, of course no charge.

A year later, they still had the catalog and card and called the store, but found out I wasn't there so they asked for the current store's fax no, likewise how I got the fax.  They were shooting a movie in Christchurch and needed a digital sound meter, so they wanted to order two, one for backup.  I was flabbergasted!  But, I got the particulars and did an international shipment and got out their sound meters asap.  They placed three more orders over the next year for them until their movie was completed!  I remember quite distinctly however, it cost more in shipping charges than the cost of the meters, but they didn't care, it was having the contact to get what they needed first, it was just the cost of doing business and it was a multimillion dollar movie, apparently!
 
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