06 March 2011

"You Must Be Super Busy, Since My Letter is Three Months Old Now"

At writethecompany.com, there are amusing stories of company communications and the lack thereof.  The title of this blog post reflects just such as a lack, this time by the manufacturer of Better Life green cleaning products, who took three months to respond to a letter from writethecompany.com. 

A central, if implied, message of writethecompany.com is that clever letter-writing doesn't always produce better, or more prompt responses than fiery, obscenity-filled expressions of outrage.

But it should. Instead of relying on the sturm und drang of dialectic disagreement, each post is a pleasant but insistent (sometimes cleverly indirect) essay on enterprise responsibility or consumer rights. Some might draw the line at teasing out the difference between the taste of gray squirrel and red squirrel as judged by the British palate. On the other hand, in the post "Old Spice Roulette," writethecompany.com acknowledges a generous response from the manufacturer Olde Thompson -- including free replacement products -- but politely observes that the manufacturer does not address the original offense -- i.e., fading product labels, as carefully observed in the original writethecompany.com letter:
The reason I’m writing is to inform you about some spices now on my rack called Ba l, hyme and Italia soning. At one time, they were known as Basil, Thyme and Italian Seasoning. Whatever you’re using to print names on the caps doesn’t seem to be worth its salt. Rather than reaching for specific spices on my rack, I’m concerned that I will soon be racking my brains to figure out which spice is which after the letters are all gone. Of course, I’ll always be able to spot the Sage.
Variety is the spice of life, but if you can’t tell which variety the spice is, what kind of life can you have as a chef?

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