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Talkin' Trash

Written by: Gary Silverman

Article Overview: Anyone who has read any of my “vignettes knows how critical I have become of everyday “customer service”. Here’s a different spin on the mundane. Every so often you have an experience so memorable that you can’t help but tell everyone about it; something that will stick with you your entire life, or at least the near term.

Talkin' Trash

The other day I had such an epiphany. After my usual diet of Florida based lack luster customer service and the general aire of rudeness, I was dispatched by my wife to clear the toxic waste from our garage...literally “toxic waste”. All my experimental cans of paint, solvents, finishes, bug eradicators, and non organic plant food needed to be purged from our garage in advance of our impending move. I usually prepare a compelling argument about how there will eventually a mutated strain of bug that only formidable opponent was my “aged” bottle of pest control. Somewhere there was a raw board of wood that would surely benefit from a can of Minwax that had been orphaned since before the millennium. Today was not the day. I had a vision of our moving van spontaneously combusting from my inability to part with my signature blend of fumes. The day was Saturday, one of two days a week the local landfill would check in these “guests”.

I approached the gate with the usual trepidation. Do I stop, check in, weigh in, pay something? Things weren’t clearly laid out for my general lack of focus. I walked up to the gate attendant who acted more like a maitre’d. She cheerfully and enthusiastically directed me to the proper “drive through”. I was approached by two gentleman who welcomed me and asked me to complete some paperwork while “they” would empty my truck saying, there was “no need for you to lift things and get all dirty”. They divided my treasure according to category, closed my tailgate and said “have a wonderful weekend, thank you for coming by”. Oddly enough there was no “Customer Satisfaction Survey” to be completed and the service was completely free. Still in shock I rolled into the nearest Mickey “D’s” to partake in a cup of coffee, their latest product offering targeting their competitors. Not bad. I was oblivious to the service I received as I remained immersed in the memory of the “landfill’. But just like being awakened from a precious dream I was shocked into reality by none other than the “talking trash can” who thanked me for cleaning up after myself. I knew that any subsequent contact I would have that day would pale in comparison to my “trash talk”. It’s a sad commentary about the way businesses are being run today. Added bonus, no added “fees”. Is this a great country or what?

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Article Tags: customer satisfaction survey, general aire, gentleman, impending move, lack luster, landfill, minwax, moving van, organic plant food, paint solvents, paperwork, pest control, rsquo, rudeness, signature blend, span style, tailgate, toxic waste, trepidation, wonderful weekend



Related Forum Posts
Don't they know there are spammers out there? - Just a rant.... I have a spam filter on my email, such that every day probably about 20 or more emails a day end up in my Bulk folder and I don't even see them. But I still see dozens of spam messages a day in my Inbox, and I recognize them by their titles, if they just say, "Hello," or "Hi" or some other generic title, I know it's spam and I just delete it without even opening it - as you must do. Today I got an email from someone, and the title was "wff". Just that. Not even capital letters. Normally I would have just deleted it without reading it, but fortunately I saw the name of the author, and it was a name I recognized, not a friend but an acquaintance - someone who works for the Williamsburg Film Festival. And the title "wff" was of course Williamsburg Film Festival. And I wonder how many businesses send out emails to potential customers with generic subject lines so that their stuff gets sent to the Trash file without even being looked at.
Re: Don't they know there are spammers out there? - [quote="OmnivoreInk":utcjbiv6]Just a rant.... I have a spam filter on my email, such that every day probably about 20 or more emails a day end up in my Bulk folder and I don't even see them. But I still see dozens of spam messages a day in my Inbox, and I recognize them by their titles, if they just say, "Hello," or "Hi" or some other generic title, I know it's spam and I just delete it without even opening it - as you must do. Today I got an email from someone, and the title was "wff". Just that. Not even capital letters. Normally I would have just deleted it without reading it, but fortunately I saw the name of the author, and it was a name I recognized, not a friend but an acquaintance - someone who works for the Williamsburg Film Festival. And the title "wff" was of course Williamsburg Film Festival. And I wonder how many businesses send out emails to potential customers with generic subject lines so that their stuff gets sent to the Trash file without even being looked at.[/quote:utcjbiv6] Hi Barbara, Personally, I do my best to skim all the sender names and subject titles before deleting everything in my "bulk folder" because you never know if you're missing out on something. For instance, I had a friend whose email used to make it safely into my inbox, but then I later found a few of them in mislabeled as spam in the bulk folder.


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