To help Sandra better understand the
situation and minimize her frustration, Sandra's manager could have taken her aside after approving the return,
confirmed Sandra's
knowledge of the policy and explained the context in which an exception to the policy was appropriate.
All our understanding
of the real world has some subjective inputs, but its role is really small in the best
confirmed knowledge like the results
of Newtonian mechanics in
situations, where relativity and quantum mechanics can be safely disregarded.