{ Friday, February 14, 2003 }
I was overjoyed yesterday when the postal worker rang my doorbell -- ending a long string of never-attempting-delivery and just-leaving-claim-form which resulted in my having to go to the post office and wait in line for every package I received. I'd made two complaints to Canada Post that this was happening -- apparently they subcontract some of their delivery services and whichever subcontractor was responsible for my building wasn't doing his job. In any event, I was so happy to get my delivery and told Stewart the story and he said, "If you were a Superhero, your superpower would be Complaint!" which is not necessarily true, I prefer to think of it as the superpower of drawing-things-to-people's-attention, but it is true that I have gotten hotels to reduce their charges after discovering mildew in the bathroom, or non-functioning DSL, and once -- I still don't know how I did this -- I wrangled a seat in an overbooked flight in a section of the airplane I didn't even know existed, up a little spiral staircase on one of those gigantic Boeings. It wasn't business class, and it wasn't first class, it was Royal Class where there were only six leather loungers with personal video screens which were occupied by a Chinese businessman, and Italian countess, a sheikh, an actress and me. Occasionally a flight attendant would come around and offer us foie gras and champagne. I felt like I had entered a parallel universe in which an Agatha Christie novel was unfolding, certain that at any moment I would hear the screams of a passenger who'd found a body in an overhead bin.
I think I inherited this drawing-things-to-people's-attention tendency from my father who once engaged in a 15-year correspondence with The State of Maine, disputing some property tax or other, I forget the details. Endless letters of wearying detail -- "In reference to paragraph three, line four of my letter of May 17, 1986, reiterated in my letter of November 18th, 1989 paragraph two line two..." He comes from a long line of lawyers and judges, though he doesn't practice law himself. "What is this?" he would exclaim, exasperated, having received yet another letter. And, as he read, the solution would dawn on him like revelation, whereupon he'd declare: "I will write them a letter!" He eventually wore them down -- probably three generations of tax clerks -- by out-bureaucratizing them. He's the master.
As my mother always liked to say: "It never hurts to ask."
LINK | 1:41 PM | TB
"The squeaky wheel gets the grease!"
Do not underestimate the power -- super or otherwise -- of Complaint. When wielded judiciously, for non-trivial matters, Complaint can bring personal rewards, right cruel injustices, and generally fix things screwed up by bozos.
The thing is: most people do not complain; they lead their lives of quiet desperation, and suffer the tiny injustices which are heaped upon them. The few which do complain find their lot in life improved, if slightly. If you are, indeed, a super-powered Complainer, you are doing the world a favor, and we ought to thank you. That you reap personal benefits from Complaining is beside the point.
J.D. | February 15, 2003 7:10 AMIn German we say: "Fragen kostet nichts." ("Asking is for free.")
Are we more money-obsessed than you Canadians? It is/was a favourite of my mother and grandmother, too.
Your father is my kind of man. And sometimes, three decades is barely enough to complete a communication. I feel fortunate that my recent correspondence of one year with State of Missouri taxation division ended with someone finally understanding "paragraph 3 of my letter dated..." What I fervently wish, though, is that I could send them letters like they send me, you know the ones where they claim to be on the brink of attaching my assets and relegating my sorry self to the slammer. And when they find out I was right all along, do they apologize for their unseemly threats? I don't think so!
katy | February 15, 2003 3:00 PMThe sadism of the I.R.S. cannot be underestimated. I also was falsely accused and threatened with wage-garnishing -- though I was an unemployed college student at the time -- and the clerk, Karen something, called me every morning at 5 A.M. I kid you not -- daily, and generally for no good reason. It was clear she was getting sadistic pleasure out of my suffering.
As it turned out, they owed me money. I wanted to find out Karen's home number and start calling her at 5 A.M. every morning. Her behavior was unforgivable.
Caterina | February 15, 2003 3:27 PMOuch! I don't know which is worse, to be called every morning at 5 am by sadistic Karen, or--as is now their modus operandi--not being allowed to ever speak to the same sadist twice. As a college kid, you must have been freaked!
katy | February 15, 2003 4:26 PMRe long correspondence: this weekend we saw a local amateur performance of the play "Love Letters", about a correspondence lasting 50 years or so. No paradigm-rocking bit of theater, and appealing primarily to a white-haired audience, it was nevertheless engrossing. (A few years back the veteran stars of better-quality popular Indian movies Shabana Azmi and Nasruddin Shah toured the Indian expatriate world with a subcontinental adaptation that I now desperately wish I'd seen.)
Anyway, the theme of obessive long-term correspondence as a form of courtship puts your father's relationship with the State of Maine in a comical light. As my father used to say about dogs that chase cars, would your father have known what to do with the State of Maine if he'd caught it? :-)
Prentiss Riddle | February 16, 2003 7:09 PM{ Post a comment }
" It never hurts to ask " - and the worst answer you can get is no - but it's only a word!
Jules | February 15, 2003 3:57 AM