An Open Letter to Jeff Bezos, Top Suit at Amazon.com

I’ve been an Amazon customer for years and have spent thousands of dollars on your website. Until this past week, I’ve been completely satisfied; that is, until I encountered one of your customer service drones who could nothing more than strictly adhere to her script. Her lack of common sense cost Amazon about a $1000.

Here’s the story, and I encourage you to incorporate it into your staff training program.

I ordered a MacBook at a price of $994. The day it shipped I saw on your website that the price had dropped to $979. Since I could find nothing on your website about a price guarantee policy, I Googled “Amazon price guarantee” and learned that, even though it’s one of your dirty little secrets, it does exist and it extends for 30 days from the date of purchase.

I called the appropriate number and requested that the $15 be credited to my account. The drone told me that couldn’t be done, as the item had already shipped. I asked her why the policy is called a “30-day price guarantee.” This is what’s referred to as “talking to a wall.”

So here’s the bottom line. I returned the item to Amazon and ordered it from Apple for $999—a slightly higher price but a much better feeling.

I’m sure you know the expression that begins, “For want of a nail . . .” Well, one of your customer service reps just lost you the battle.

Our manager is the idiot of our little village.

A Complicated Relationship with Reality
She occupies space
But without self-awareness
Still, she threatens us

For Whom the Bells Don’t Toll

I was a Good Humor man in the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college.

As you probably remember, the ringing bells on the Good Humor truck signal for the waiting customers the arrival of their daily treat to the neighborhood.

One of the towns on my route, Fairlawn, New Jersey, had at that time a noise ordinance that prohibited the ringing of my bells.

The impact of that prohibition should be fairly obvious.

Also, Fairlawn was a suburban community, fairly well off, where a large portion of the middle to upper-middle-class kids went away to summer camp.

Again, the impact.

I’ve had countless jobs since the summer of ’63, many of which reflect the then unseen writing on the walls of Fairlawn: Welcome aboard. Bend over so we can screw you and move on.

Pew Editor Fired: “Search and Replace” Gone Terribly Wrong

WASHINGTON, April 30 (Geuters) — People experienced in the use of the “search and replace” function in word processing software understand that, even though it’s a valuable tool, it’s also a potential minefield.

Editors in particular understand this. Copy Editor Ruud Ozkapici at Pew Research, however, evidently had a mental lapse in running a search and replace and has been fired for the results.

The following is part of the result of Ozkapici’s search and replace, in which he inadvertently searched for “religion/religious” and replaced it with “underwear” rather than “religious affiliation.”

Underwear Changes in the U.S. in Flux

April 27, 2009, Executive Summary

Americans change their underwear early and often. In total, about half of American adults have changed underwear at least once during their lives. Most people who change their underwear leave their childhood underwear before age 24, and many of those who change underwear do so more than once. These are among the key findings of a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. The survey documents the fluidity of underwear in the U.S. and describes in detail the patterns and reasons for change.

The reasons people give for changing their underwear – or leaving underwear altogether – differ widely depending on the origin and destination of the convert. The group that has grown the most in recent years due to underwear change is the unaffiliated population. Two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated and half of former Protestants who have become unaffiliated say they left their childhood underwear because they stopped believing in its teachings, and roughly four-in-ten say they became unaffiliated because they do not believe in God or the teachings of most underwear. Additionally, many people who left underwear to become unaffiliated say they did so in part because they think of underwear people as hypocritical or judgmental, because underwear organizations focus too much on rules or because underwear leaders are too focused on power and money. Far fewer say they became unaffiliated because they believe that modern science proves that underwear is just superstition.

In his unsuccessful defense (following discovery of his error just prior to publication), Ozkapici said he was preoccupied with “underwear” when he was editing the report. “I had ruined many of my wife’s panties when I did the laundry,” he said, “and I promised to pick up new ones for her that day.”