the middle of the office we’ve got three boxes, marked A, B, and C, respectively, where we toss the letters. An operation we call “Trilevel Rationality Evaluation.” In-house joke. Forget I mentioned it.
Anyway, to explain these three categories, we have:
Reasonable complaints. Cases where we are obliged to assume responsibility. We visit the customers’ homes bearing oxes of sweets and exchange the merchandise in question.
Borderline cases. When in doubt, we play safe. Even where here is no moral obligation or business precedent or legal iability, we offer some appropriate gesture so as not to compromise the image of the department store and to avoid unnecessary trouble.
Customer negligence. When clearly the customer’s fault, we ffer an explanation of the situation and leave it at that.
Now, as to your complaint of a few days back, we gave the matter serious consideration and ultimately arrived at the conclusion that your complaint was of a nature that could only be classified as belonging to category C. The reasons for thiswere—ready? listen carefully!—we cannot exchange (1) a record once purchased (2) one whole week later (3) without a receipt.
Nowhere in the world can you do this
.
Do you get what I’m saying?
End of explanation of the situation. Your complaint has been duly processed.
N ONETHELESS , professional viewpoint aside—and actually, I leave it aside a lot—my personal reaction to your plight—having mistakenly bought Mahler, not Brahms—is one of heartfelt sympathy. I kid you not. So it is I send you not your run-of-the-mill form letter but this in some sense more intimate message.
A CTUALLY , I started to write you a letter any number of times last week. “We regret to inform you that our policy prohibits the exchange of records, although your letter did in some small way move me to personally … blah, blah, blah.” A letter like that. Nothing I wrote, however, came out right. And it’s not as though I’m no good at writing letters. It’s just that each time I set my mind on writing you, I drew a blank, and the words that did come were consistently off base. Strangest thing.
So I decided not to respond at all. I mean, why send out a botched attempt at a letter? Better to send nothing at all, right? At least, that’s what I think: A message imperfectly communicated does about as much good as a screwed-up timetable.
As fate would have it, though, this morning, standing before the kangaroo cage, I hit upon the exact permutation of those thirty-six coincidences and came up with this inspiration. To wit, the principle we shall call the Nobility of Imperfection. Now, what is this Nobility of Imperfection?, you may ask—who wouldn’t ask? Well, simply put, the Nobility of Imperfection might mean nothing so much as the proposition that someone
in effect
forgives someone else. I forgive the kangaroos, the kangaroos forgive you, you forgive me—to cite but one example.
Uh-huh.
This cycle, however, is not perpetual. At some point, the kangaroos might take it into their heads not to forgive you. Please don’t get angry at the kangaroos just because of that, though. It’s not the kangaroos’ fault and it’s not your fault. Nor, for that matter, is it my fault. The kangaroos have their own pressing circumstances. And I ask you, what kind of person is it who can blame a kangaroo?
So we seize the moment. That’s all we can do. Capture the moment in a snapshot. Front and center, in a row left to right: you, the kangaroos, me.
Enough of trying to write this all down. It’s going nowhere. Say I write the word “coincidence.” What you read in the word “coincidence” could be utterly different—even opposite—from what the very same word means to me. This is unfair, if I may say so. Here I am, stripped to my underpants, while you’ve only undone three buttons of your blouse. An unfair turn of events if there ever was one.
Hence I bought myself a cassette tape, having decided to
Anyway, to explain these three categories, we have:
Reasonable complaints. Cases where we are obliged to assume responsibility. We visit the customers’ homes bearing oxes of sweets and exchange the merchandise in question.
Borderline cases. When in doubt, we play safe. Even where here is no moral obligation or business precedent or legal iability, we offer some appropriate gesture so as not to compromise the image of the department store and to avoid unnecessary trouble.
Customer negligence. When clearly the customer’s fault, we ffer an explanation of the situation and leave it at that.
Now, as to your complaint of a few days back, we gave the matter serious consideration and ultimately arrived at the conclusion that your complaint was of a nature that could only be classified as belonging to category C. The reasons for thiswere—ready? listen carefully!—we cannot exchange (1) a record once purchased (2) one whole week later (3) without a receipt.
Nowhere in the world can you do this
.
Do you get what I’m saying?
End of explanation of the situation. Your complaint has been duly processed.
N ONETHELESS , professional viewpoint aside—and actually, I leave it aside a lot—my personal reaction to your plight—having mistakenly bought Mahler, not Brahms—is one of heartfelt sympathy. I kid you not. So it is I send you not your run-of-the-mill form letter but this in some sense more intimate message.
A CTUALLY , I started to write you a letter any number of times last week. “We regret to inform you that our policy prohibits the exchange of records, although your letter did in some small way move me to personally … blah, blah, blah.” A letter like that. Nothing I wrote, however, came out right. And it’s not as though I’m no good at writing letters. It’s just that each time I set my mind on writing you, I drew a blank, and the words that did come were consistently off base. Strangest thing.
So I decided not to respond at all. I mean, why send out a botched attempt at a letter? Better to send nothing at all, right? At least, that’s what I think: A message imperfectly communicated does about as much good as a screwed-up timetable.
As fate would have it, though, this morning, standing before the kangaroo cage, I hit upon the exact permutation of those thirty-six coincidences and came up with this inspiration. To wit, the principle we shall call the Nobility of Imperfection. Now, what is this Nobility of Imperfection?, you may ask—who wouldn’t ask? Well, simply put, the Nobility of Imperfection might mean nothing so much as the proposition that someone
in effect
forgives someone else. I forgive the kangaroos, the kangaroos forgive you, you forgive me—to cite but one example.
Uh-huh.
This cycle, however, is not perpetual. At some point, the kangaroos might take it into their heads not to forgive you. Please don’t get angry at the kangaroos just because of that, though. It’s not the kangaroos’ fault and it’s not your fault. Nor, for that matter, is it my fault. The kangaroos have their own pressing circumstances. And I ask you, what kind of person is it who can blame a kangaroo?
So we seize the moment. That’s all we can do. Capture the moment in a snapshot. Front and center, in a row left to right: you, the kangaroos, me.
Enough of trying to write this all down. It’s going nowhere. Say I write the word “coincidence.” What you read in the word “coincidence” could be utterly different—even opposite—from what the very same word means to me. This is unfair, if I may say so. Here I am, stripped to my underpants, while you’ve only undone three buttons of your blouse. An unfair turn of events if there ever was one.
Hence I bought myself a cassette tape, having decided to
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