by Big Brown Dad | Sep 7, 2018 | HOME AND FAMILY, To Whom It May Concern:
Man reservedly buys designer sunglasses.
Man wears sunglasses regularly.
Man goes to store, leaves but not before noticing he doesn’t have sunglasses on him.
Man panics.
Man retraces steps, real and imaginary.
Nothing.
Man retraces faces, real and imaginary.
Something.
Definitely something.
That lady, she smiled.
She took my glasses.
That man, he avoided eye contact.
He took my glasses, too.
Those kids, all giggling and shit?
They took my motherfucking glasses!
Man talks to store manager. Manager checks lost and found.
No glasses.
Of course not.
He took them.
Man ruefully leaves the store, calls home.
“Are my glasses there?”
No.
He calls the library. The nursing home. The church.
Nope.
The casino. The opiate den. The church.
Nope.
Man drives home dejected. Defeated. PISSED!
“Have you checked my car?,” an angel whispered in his ear.
Man checks her car.
Man ascends to heaven.
by Big Brown Dad | Mar 4, 2015 | To Whom It May Concern:
I’ve been to the mountain top, I’ve seen the promised land…and I can you tell you this, its condiment station is adequately stocked!
As a consumer rights crusader, I have a keen sense for when “THE MAN” is putting one over on the general public.
pass go and collect $200 but then pay administrative handling fees of 36%.
Corporate malfeasance keeps me up at night, as does heartburn and indigestion. My years of public service have taught me that we must stamp out injustice ANYWHERE lest it appear EVERYWHERE. Today’s post is a case-in-point.
The following exchange between Big Brown Dad and Edwards Theatre took place a few years ago. Enjoy!
To Whom It May Concern
I’m writing this letter as a long time patron of the Edward Ontario Mountain Village Theatre. While I have several choices with regards to movie viewing options, I’ve found the staff at Mountain Village most helpful. Regrettably, the staff was unable to help overcome a problem my wife and I encountered this past week when we visited to watch the bromantic comedy, I Love You, Man.
Once we entered, I purchased two Freeze Frames at a cost of $6.25 a piece. As you know, Freeze Frames are very similar to the more popular Slurpee and Icee brands.
While the price was exorbitant, I figured the icy relief of a Freeze Frame would make our movie going experience more comfortable. But we were both flummoxed by the lack of Freeze Frame specific straws at the condiment rack. Both Slurpee and Icee provide a straw with a shovel-tip feature in order to access those parts of the drink too frozen to travel the full length of the straw.
Drinking a Freeze Frame from a traditional straw is akin to eating sushi with one chopstick or a salad with a spoon. While we were able to access some of the icy cold relief, approximately 15% of each drink was non-consumable.
I’m confident legions of Freeze Frame drinkers the nation over have struggled similarly. I’ve taken the time to write this letter in hopes you might redeem our experience and work towards preventing future Freeze Frame travesties from happening.
P.S. Our disappointment in the Freeze Frame was rivaled only by our disappointment in the movie.
Regal Entertainment Responds:
Hi, Mr. Aguilar. Thanks for your concern about no shovel straws for the Freeze Frame drinks. Our food service dept. gives us an order form to use. Our order form does not have the shovel straws, so I cannot order them. I have passed your request on to our food service dept.
Sincerely,
XXX
Big Brown Dad Responds:
Thank you for your note. I appreciate the time it takes to write a letter. As you might have noticed, my letter took some time to write and it took almost 4 months to get a response letter from Regal. Thanks, again.
I have a couple of questions I was hoping you can answer:
1) Do all Regal Cinemas have the same order form? Will the change in the order from take place at a corporate/national level or just locally?
2) On what date will this change be made by?
3) Can you send over two free movie tickets and a voucher for two Freeze Frames with shovel straws?
Regal Entertainment Responds Again and Again
Our Food Service Dept at our corporate offices in Tennessee, create our order form that we use. It is an online system we use. Most Regal Entertainment theatres have the same order form for the managers to use, but one is created foreach theatre individually. It is up to the food service dept. at our corporate office as to what is on the order form. The Manager cannot order anything that is not on the form. I have not heard back yet from our food service dept. as to if they will decide to put the straws on our order form. I will let you know what they say when I hear from them. I do not have vouchers I can hand out for freeze frame drinks, but if you are ever at my theatre here in Ontario again, just ask for me, and I will be happy to give you two Freeze Frame drinks.
Sincerely,
XXX
Hi, Mr. Aguilar. I just heard back from our food service dept. They told me we cannot order those spoon straws for our Freeze Frame drinks. We normally do not give refills on our Freeze frame drinks, but the next time you are at my theatre, I will be happy to give you a free refill on your Freeze Frame drink.
Sincerely,
XXX
Big Brown Dad Responds:
Thanks again for the speedy reply. Did they give you a reason as to why they wouldn’t provide spoon straws? Who can I contact at corporate regarding this matter?
And thanks again for your offer on a free refill but I am bit confused now. Initially you offered me free freeze frames and now a free refill. I’m confused, please help.
Regal Entertainment Responds:
Hi. Mr. Aguilar. I am still willing to give you two free Freeze Frame drinks on me, but I also offered the free refill, because I can only do the two free drinks one time. I offered the free refill, for if you come to my theatre on a different occasion. As far as who you could talk to, you could e-mail Teresa Welsh in our customer service department, and she would help you out.
Big Brown Dad Responds:
Cheers. The GM at Edwards Mountain Village has been very helpful in answering questions regarding the lack of shovel straws for your Freeze Frames. He notified me that the reason his location lacked shovel straws was because the standard supply order form does not list them as an item available for (re)order. He checked with corporate to see if they might add it as an item on the purchase order form. Corporate said, ‘no.’ Your GM could not provide the reasoning behind Corporate’s decision. This is why I’m writing to you.
Can you provide me a reason for failing to provide this convenience?
Thanks again for your assistance in this matter
This exchange took place nearly 5 years ago and I’ve never received a response. I believe I’m due a free refill or a free drink, hard to tell but I will follow up this week to see if the pressure I applied was enough bring Goliath to his knees. I will post their response in Pt. 2.
by Big Brown Dad | Mar 2, 2015 | To Whom It May Concern:
Little known fact: during the renaissance they used Jujubes to extract loose teeth.
Click to read the letter that prompted Farley’s and Sathers to reply.
Their response:
The following is a copy of the letter you will receive in the mail, along with a replacement coupon. Please allow 4-5 days for processing and delivery.
Thank you also for the product suggestion, although, the spelling of Jujubes is almost as nostalgic as the flavors and texture so a change in the name is highly unlikely. But I will certainly pass your comments along to our Marketing Department as they are always glad to hear from our consumers.
Thank you for writing Farley’s & Sathers Candy Company, Inc. regarding Heide® Jujubes®. Hearing from our consumers better enables us to continue to provide quality products and services. Consumer feedback is very important to us, and we appreciate the opportunity to respond.
Your experience concerns us, since we work hard to produce top quality confections. We carefully monitor the production of our products throughout the entire process. Our goal is to ensure that each and every batch of confections meets our high standards for quality and consistency.
The information you provided will be helpful in our efforts to continually improve our products. I sincerely apologize for any concern or inconvenience this incident may have caused. I assure you, your comments will be brought to the attention of our Quality Assurance Management.
Thank you for taking the time to contact us with your comments. We hope our products will be completely satisfactory in the future.
Sincerely,
XXXX
While I wasn’t successful on this campaign, I will have you note that in 1997 I played a central role in having Laffy Taffy change the color of ink their jokes were written in bc they were illegible most of the time. So, take that.
BBD
by Big Brown Dad | Feb 28, 2015 | To Whom It May Concern:
hooked on phonics
To Whom It May Concern:
I’m writing to express my disappointment over a stale box of Jujubes and my concern over the prospect of mass mispronunciation of Jujubes as a result from the current spelling.
First, I purchased a 6.5 oz box of Jujubes from Blockbuster Video at the inflated price of $1.99. As a long time fan of the Jujube, I stomached the price gouging in hopes of enjoying my treat while watching DVDs I’d rented. To my disappointment and surprise, I found the Jujubes to lack their trademark flavored gel pellet appeal and instead found them to be stale and utterly devoid of flavor. It was as if I was chewing on a handful of empty pistachios.
I’m hopeful that you might redeem my experience.
True candy lovers know the popular pronunciation of Jujubes is ‘Jew-Jew-Beez,’ but is it correct? it’s come to my attention that an alternative pronunciation, given the rules of grammar, is ‘Jew-Jewbs.’ Jew-Jew-Beez would require an additional E in the spelling of JujubEEs. I’m inclined to agree.
Would you please consider adding an E to the spelling of your candy so as to avoid any future confusion?
Thank you for your consideration.
Big Brown Dad
by Big Brown Dad | Aug 11, 2014 | To Whom It May Concern:
To Whom It May Concern:
First, all due propers for capitalizing on the name Quickie. In the spirit of the name, let me pump this out quickly.
I bought a Quickie. It faded…you guessed it…quickly.
Quackery?
No!
An error at the factory, fa’sho.
But I’m hopeful that you might redeem my experience by replacing it with a version that best lives up to your company’s standards.
Sincerely,
Big Brown Dad
by Big Brown Dad | Jul 15, 2014 | To Whom It May Concern:
To Whom It May Concern:
I’m writing to express my dissatisfaction with my recent purchase of Glad’s New and Improved Odor Shield Febreze Fresh Clean Tall Kitchen Drawstring Bags 110 Count.
In my admittedly limited experience with Febreze, I’ve known it to be effective in neutralizing the odors of less than hygienic college students.
I smell the way I look the way I smell.
You can imagine my surprise then at the less than neutral odor emanating from these bags. They smell like wet, baby powder and cayenne pepper.
-
-
GTFOHWTS!
-
-
I’d rather smell my fingers than smell that bag.
-
-
My wife made me take this picture.
I hoped against hope that our household would become desensitized to the smell but alas, no luck. I still have over 100 bags left and I’m afraid they are of no use to us. I’m planning on throwing these trash bags in a trash bag without even the slightest sense of irony. But I paid nearly $20 for these bags!
I’m hopeful that you might redeem my experience by replacing this box with one of Glad’s more proven products. I’d be happy to share my impressions with the readers of my parenthood blog.
Thanks in advance,
bigbrowndad.com
by Big Brown Dad | May 23, 2014 | To Whom It May Concern:
From the archives, this is one of my favorite interactions with a corporation (Williams and Sonoma) mainly because an employee decided to go rogue and write a sarcastic note back to me on Yelp!
My initial email:
To Whom It May Concern:
I recently purchased the Beaba Babycook Machine from your store at the Santa Anita Mall in Arcadia, California.
baby food, poppycock.
I paid over $180 for the machine. Upon opening the box, I noticed the cookbook was missing and the instruction manual was marked with dry-food stains, presumably indicating prior use.
When I called and spoke with the manager on duty, she notified me that it was IN FACT Williams and Sonoma policy to sell open-box items at full price (without disclosing such information) if the item in question was never used.
Is this in fact your policy?! If so, why not provide your customers the common courtesy of knowing they are purchasing previously opened goods?!
Many luxury stores like your own refuse selling open-box items. And those that do they offer full disclosure and a discount.
It’s a shame you don’t do similarly.
Sincerely,
CA
Then came their corporate response:
Thank you for contacting Williams-Sonoma.
We are disheartened to hear about your poor retail experience.
Please know we have contacted the store manager at the Santa Anita Mall in California. She has verified that you have exchanged your original Beaba Baby Cook for a new one. She indicated that she did check the replacement to be sure that it had not been used.
For future reference it is not our policy to resale used merchandise.
We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience that this has caused. We thank you for your patronage. Your business is appreciated.
That was straight-forward enough even while side-stepping the fact they in fact sold an open-boxed item. But then came a response via Yelp where I posted my letter.
I work at that Williams-Sonoma and am sorry about your experience. Unfortunately we are low volume store with a small amount of associates. We often take the word of the customer when they return an item and ask if they “had a chance to try it out” a polite way of saying did you use it. Any item that comes back to the store is suppose to be checked for use. This particular one slipped under the radar. What you failed to mention is that we rectified the situation immediately.
Just an FYI. Most customers get extremely upset when we ask if they have used the item that they return. They take it as an insult. If more people where honest these types of mistakes would not be made. Also when items are retuned to our store it effects our bottom line therefore the more items returned the less money we have to operate efficiently, like adding more associates.
I hope you won’t allow this one incident to detour you from shopping with us in the future. Oh and by the way the Beaba is 149.00 not 180.00. Sorry for your inconvenience.
Oh, no, she didn’t! Pass the mic back over here!
I appreciate the response. And I empathize with the challenges of working with customers who aren’t always honest. But when you say you ‘rectified the situation immediately’ what that really means is I had to make the half hour drive to return the item, walk half a mile around the mall and into your store, explain the situation, walk the half mile back to my car and drive another half hour home. In all candor, you didn’t do much.
With regards to returned items effecting your bottom line, that seems to me precisely the reason your store doesn’t more thoroughly inspect returned items. You have a vested interest in selling as many as you can.
Lastly, I paid $180 total (tax included). If you’d like refund me the difference I paid then I’d be more than happy to collect.
Big. Brown. Dad for the win!
by Big Brown Dad | May 22, 2014 | To Whom It May Concern:
To Whom It May Concern:
Cheers. My name is Carlos Aguilar. Yesterday, I called your customer service line and created a file re: my Shark S3101.
I recently took up the inglorious task of maintaining the tile throughout my home.
While I’m happy to report that my Shark S3101 has served me well, I’m sad to report that it hasn’t serve me always.
We bought our Shark at the local Target over a year ago. We considered it an investment. Sadly, the hook piece on the handle snapped thereby rendering the pole inoperative.
This meant I had to continue the job on my hands and knees.
As you might recall the temperature in LA was in the 90’s that week.
I called in hopes of redeeming my experience by having a replacement piece sent to me. I was surprised to learn though that you do not provide a replacement for this part. While you were courteous enough to offer a great discount on the
S3251, I’m afraid even then I would have to come out of pocket over $50.
I’m hopeful you might redeem our purchase by replacing our S3101.
I look forward to hearing back.
Big.Brown.Dad
by Big Brown Dad | Apr 29, 2014 | To Whom It May Concern:
This is a follow up to TSSK, TSSK, WISK PT 1 that you can find here.
I’m happy to report that Sun Product Corporation (makers of the Wisk Deep Clean Power Blasts ) recognized the challenges presented by their product and sent coupons as a gesture of goodwill.
That was cool of them.
They also sent a polite letter.
That was nice of them. In all honesty, I anticipated a different response:
Dear Carlos Aguilar
Thank you for contacting us regarding Wisk Deep Clean Power Blasts. We are very sorry to learn that you have nothing better to do than interrupt our otherwise productive day in order to respond to what is obviously a letter written to provoke our contempt. Mission accomplished, big brown fat slow dad.
Hey, let’s make this easy for all of parties involved. Never, ever buy one of our products again. We don’t need your penny-pinching, constant complaining, long-letter loving ass.
If for some reason you feel compelled to respond to this letter, be sure to send it to
2323
Whogivesashit Lane
Sincerely,
The Boss
by Big Brown Dad | Apr 25, 2014 | To Whom It May Concern:
Wick.Wack.Wisk.
Every now and again a company violates me in ways that compel my fury. Exhibit #4217
Wisk Consumer Services
To Whom it May Concern:
Cheers. My name is Carlos Aguilar and I’m writing regarding a concern I have with Wisk Deep Clean Power Blasts Super Concentrated Laundry Detergent. I recently purchased 3 (24 count) bags at a local CVS this past month. We’re a Tide family but I was compelled to try your brand for the first time because of the great value being offered. CVS was selling 3 bags for $10.
Unfortunately, I encountered a problem across all three bags that I’d never encountered with Tide. Namely, the Power Blasts were stuck together (see attached picture).
This left me with a couple of options, neither of which were satisfying. First, I could attempt to detach the Power Blasts. I did that a few times and busted several blasts in the process and wasted product. My second option was throwing all the pods in the laundry. That also had deleterious consequences: wasted soap and soapy clothes. Each of the three bags had several Power Blasts conjoined in this way.
In the end, my purchase was not the deal I thought it was. The savings washed away. But I’m hopeful that you might redeem my experience by providing additional detergent.
I only have one package left. The UPC is 0 7261345962 9.
I can be reached by email @ XXX or by phone @ XXXX.
Sincerely,
Carlos Aguilar, bigbrowndad.com
