Dear Acqisitivists:

Do you feel a certain sense of assurance or comfort mixed in with the glee when you spot my green map envelope mingled amongst the day’s mail? If not, perhaps that’s something you need to work on. After all, consider how few relatively regular, benign events you can count on in your life during these turbulent times. And it’s free. Of course, that describes junk mail—and advertising in general—for that matter.

One of the bummers about doing this letter only once a quarter is that sometimes I want to write about something that just happened the day after I mailed out my last batch of meletters. Which means it’s bound to be somewhere between stale and forgotten by the time I send that next letter out three or four months later. Oh, well, I’m going to do it anyway because, after all, this letter is for my benefit first, and yours a distant second.

This morning (in mid-January), on some morning news show, they had a feature on “controversy in advertising,” presumably singling out (“tripling out”?) three particularly provocative TV spots that had stirred up much buzz lately. I licked my chops in anticipatory glee. Then they proceeded to show and discuss the Joe Boxer spot with the black guy dancing, which apparently calls up minstrel show issues in the minds of some; the Miller mud wrestling women spot, which, as controversial spots go, is ho hum at best; and a spot in which it turns out that Old Faithful is so regular because the park ranger administers Ex Lax to it.

I was outraged. Incensed. And, finally, crestfallen. This is what passes for controversy in advertising these days? I yearn for the days of the Reebok spot in which a bungie jumping user of brand X shoes apparently falls to his death. Or even the grotesque Wrigley spot in which a fella writhes around in the clenches of a bear trap for twenty seconds or so. Something along those lines. Something I could imagine someone other than a dour, sphincter-squeezing PC fuss budget, or Tipper Gore, getting upset about. Have we become a nation of humorless, fretting, milque-toasty school marms? Or is it just that the uptight, analunatic fringe is getting more media play these days?

I share with most of you, no doubt, the assumption that everything happens for a reason. Where we may part ways is that I think the reason is this: a bunch of other things happen in really long causal chains which lead to everything else happening.

Here’s a little link in one of those causal chains. I’m fairly certain that an awful lot of stoplights out there are, in some sinister, surreptitious fashion, linked to whatever car I’m driving, such that, upon approaching a red light, it will only change to green at precisely the moment the tires of my car cease all forward motion. You see, everything does happen for a reason.

I’ve just got to relate this latest experience with Bank One. Now, I’ve been their customer of Bank One (and of First Chicago before they got sucked into Bank One, and of Lake Shore Bank before they got sucked into First Chicago) for nigh on 23 years. I’ve stuck with them because it’s easier than changing, and because I used to try changing banks when I was dissatisfied and all I accomplished was to become even more dissatisfied, because, as you know, every bank is worst than the last.

It was the advent of ATMs that enabled me to sustain this Bank One relationship for so long. Absent the bank lines and interactions with employees, banking is almost fun.
I’ve become quite fond of certain ATMs. Like the one in the Walgreens near my house. Or the gang that hangs out at the Bank One at Michigan and Ohio. I’m no longer on speaking terms with certain others. Like the jerks at the corner of McCormick and Golf, one of whom recently sucked in my deposit envelope, then promptly took itself out of service, failing to register my deposit. Needless to say, I then succeeded in registering my dismay.

The incident I’d like to relate to you in painful detail concerns the ATM at the Bank One at the corner of Green Bay Road and Central in Evanston. (Speaking of Central, why is it that most movie theatres on the North Shore reside on some Central Street or another?)

I went there recently to make a deposit. It was about 8:45 am on a Wednesday, if I recall. This Bank One is configured such that the ATM is located in its own little room, with a separate outside entrance, accessible by way of card-swiping during off hours, which this was. However, as I was about to swipe, I noticed a hastily scrawled note taped to the door which read, “ATM out of service for 15 minutes.”

Now, on this particular morning, it was eight degrees with a brisk breeze blowing. So waiting around was not a happy option. And anyway, a moment of reflection led me to realize that the note actually conveyed no information, because there was no indication which 15 minutes it referred to. It could have been the 15 minutes from 2:30 am to 2:45 am, or 8:30 am to 8:45 am, or any other fifteen minutes.

So now I was irritated. When I got back to my office, I called Ms. Angela Parks, a high level customer service person from the Office of the Chairman with whom I’d had dealings in the past. I explained what I’d encountered. Ms. Parks explained to me, rather curtly, that most branch banks don’t have a word processing program on any of their computers, thus any note they generate must be hand written. She never did respond to my point that identifying some particular 15 minutes, rather than just “15 minutes” would have been helpful.

I suggested that perhaps Bank One ought to support its branches by creating a note that read “ATM Out Of Service from ___ to ___”, which blanks could then be filled in by hand, rendering the note meaningful. Bank One could create this note on the (only?) Bank One computer with a word processing program, run off a ream of these notes for each branch, and do their customers a favor.

She said she would pass on the suggestion. I thanked her for that. Then, now get this, I asked if, when a decision was made on this suggestion, one way or the other, she could drop me an email or voice mail or something, indicating yay or nay. Her response: “No, I won’t.” She then proceeded to assure me that Bank One would never make a change in their process based on the complaint of one (measly? insignificant?) customer.

I confess, this response pushed my buttons big time. The conversation continued briefly and more heatedly. I then asked to speak to her supervisor. That, she said, is Jamie Dimon, the CEO, and no, I couldn’t speak to him. I asked for his name and mailing address, which she provided, but then pointed out that any letter I sent would go to her, not the CEO.
I had no recourse. She was the end of the line, the last court of appeals. And she wasn’t interested in serving this customer. That has never happened to me in all my years of complaining. I expressed my incredulity at this situation. She recommended that, if I was unhappy, perhaps I should find another bank. Yes she did.

I was, for perhaps the first time in my life, rendered speechless. I hung up. Sat for awhile. Called the Bank One branch on Central and arranged to meet with the manager, Barbara Wright. At that meeting, Ms. Wright responded in precisely the manner Ms. Parks should have, agreeing that the note issue needed to be fixed, apologizing for the inconvenience and thanking me for pointing it out.

As it turns out, not only did Ms. Parks lie about their branches not having word processing programs, she also lied about not having a supervisor other than the CEO. I know because Ms. Wright called him (his name is Ed Rieth, and I had a pleasant, productive chat with him.) Yes, Ms. Parks is just the kind of person I would want dealing with my most unhappy customers. Just show them the door. Problem solved.

This tax season’s final word: fiduchebag.

Stoically,

 

“Until we become nicer people, there will be no peace in the world.” -- Kirk Douglas

“If you will persuade, you must first please.” -- Lord Chesterfield

The common ground Libertarians share with Jews:
a distaste for pork.

$1.5 million of your money paid for a study of parking at truck stops;
$5 million paid for a new Parliament building in the Solomon Islands, which is part of the British Commonwealth;
$70 million each year goes to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, including, recently, $1.2 million to replace the lobby marble;
$109 million was yanked out of our pockets for new federal loans to students who had defaulted on their old federal loans.
[This, of course, is but the rib tip of the porkberg. For 286 pages of additional examples, see The Government Racket 2000, by Martin Gross.]

“When I transfer my knowledge, I teach. When I transfer my beliefs, I indoctrinate.” -- Arthur Danto

NOTE TO MICHAEL MOORE: Why go after the small potato polluters like GM? Are you chicken to take on by far the worst American polluter, which does more damage than all the others combined?