Today, I got a response, along with a $10 gift certificate. In the interests of fairness, I’m quoting their letter.
Dear Mr. Singer:
Thank you for bringing to our attention your concerns regarding the lack of customer service you received in our Los Gatos, CA store.
Please accept our apologies. We always enjoy hearing from our customers, especially when they offer us the opportunity to correct a problem situation and regain customer satisfaction. We hope this incident does not discourage you from shopping with us. For your next visit we have enclosed a Staples Gift Certificate to use toward your purchase.
We appreciate that you shop at Staples and look forward to serving you again.
Sincerely yours,
[name redacted]
President’s Office
Customer Relations Specialist
The nearest Staples is now significantly less convenient than Office Depot, so I doubt I’ll do much shopping there, but I do need paper, and it’s hard to imagine that they could screw that up, so I’ll probably redeem the gift certificate. I guess.