Shine Bright Like a Diamond

ShineBright like aDiamond

by DOUG HENSLEY

It’s not every day you find a diamond on the ladies room floor, but that’s what happened to Kate Romeo-Holloway.

And it turned out to be the first step in what would ultimately become a happy ending.

“I was leaving the restroom when I looked down and saw the stone and its setting on the ground,” said Kate, general merchandising manager at #566 (Market Street, Plano), and a 29-year veteran of the company. “I knew it was something that needed to be turned in. If it had happened to me, I would have been devastated.”

Kate took the stone to guest services so it could be placed in the store safe and kept secure until its owner could be located.

Meanwhile, Market Street Guest Camille Hussey had recently realized her 2-carat princess cut diamond, setting and all, was missing from her left hand.

“It had somehow broken off at the post below the settings,” she wrote in a letter of gratitude to the store. “It had previously had the prongs rebuilt to hold the diamond in place more securely, which is why I was so shocked it was missing.”

The store team was busy making sure the precious gem was safe and hoping its owner would soon return. “Kate gave it to me and said we needed to put it in the safe,” Shelly Scott, service assistant, said. “It was so big and it looked real.”

Camille’s diamond, which she had been given during her wedding ceremony the previous October, went missing on July 11. She had checked other places she had visited where it might have come loose without any luck, but she stopped by Market Street on July 14.

“We didn’t hear anything for a while, but the guest came in and retrieved it,” Kate said. “I saw them talking at the service counter, and when I came by later we were talking about it. I said ‘did the lady get her diamond back?’ I was the one who had turned it in.” In all the back and forth and ensuing time, it was assumed that a guest had found the diamond and turned it in. Camille was so happy to have the setting back that she wanted to thank those who had found it by giving them a reward.

“In the middle of explaining everything, Kate, a merchandising manager, came up and let me know she was the one who found the diamond in the women’s bathroom and not a guest,” Camille’s letter explained. “I asked if they wouldn’t mind splitting the reward. Shelly told me it was her job and she was doing what was right and for me to keep it. I explained that it is a gift that my husband Matt and I wanted to gift to them, and all we wanted them to do is accept the cash and know that they did the right thing by turning it in.”

Kate said she could understand what Camille was going through because she had a similar experience once. “I’ve worked for the company a long time, and during a remodel once, I looked down and the stone was knocked out of my setting. It was the only diamond I had ever been given.”

That experience was in her mind as she turned in Camille’s stone for safekeeping. “With our clientele, I knew there was a good chance it was something of value. It looked like it had just been sheared off, which made me think it was something pretty valuable.”

“Thank you for having such incredible employees working for Market Street and helping make the world better around them,” Camille wrote.

For the employees of #566, it was just one more opportunity to make a guest’s day amazing.

“I am excited that it turned out the way it did and she got it back,” Shelly said. “It meant so much to her.”

“It was neat,” store director Rob Bazewicz said. “The guest was pretty distraught about the whole thing, but the way it turned out made her day.”