I've still got my mini lathe from HFT ....
I also went and got their cheap tool set. I had read the reviews on everything before I got anything, so I knew those tools wouldn't be sharp right out of the box. Thankfully, I also have the 1 x 30 HFT belt sander, with sanding disc combo. I swapped the sanding disc out for a buffing wheel instead ... I use this to sharpen my lathe tools and buff the bevels on them too.
Back in July, I wanted to do some custom grinds on my lathe tools, but I still wanted fairly standard grind tools available too, so I went back and looked for another of the cheap tools. They were not in stock, but I had a 25% off coupon and they were supposed to be on sale for $18.99. I asked I could special order one, and apply the coupon. I was told by the store manager that he'ld allow that, if I was willing to pay for it up front. I was told that there would be a 2 week wait for them to get in-store for me to be able to come pick them up. I was quite happy with the arrangement.
Unfortunately, the order went unfilled for nearly 1 full month, as the warehouse was out of them and none were available to send .... Since this was not a discontinued or clearance item, I sent in an email asking what was up with the wait, and I got a response from the district manager stating that he would look into the problem and have it fixed for me within the week. Even more unfortunately, the district manager decided to take it out on the store manager, who had gone to other nearby Harbor Freight stores looking for the tools on my behalf and calling around to see if anybody could ship the item to his store, and chewed him out for selling something that was not available in-store. Needless to say, the store manager is now unwilling to sell items that are not currently in stock, no matter what it is.
This was a very unfortunate outcome, both for me and my local harbor freight store. I got my tools a week later, but I went ahead and sent in an email to their customer support team, stating that it was quite counterproductive for a district manager to chew out a store manager over doing his best to help his customers. Your story was a much more happy one, and I think these store managers are doing a great job, as long as their bosses don't stick their big noses in the way.