Thursday 2 April 2009

could i be the 'oscar wilde' of strongly worded emails?

In my day job as Content Manager at an understaffed, start up company website, I have the pleasure of juggling many inane tasks. One such task is responding to support and contact us emails. This morning a little gem of a strongly worded email arrived in our inbox.

Please note the send time.


Sent: Thursday, 2 April 2009 2:24 AM
To: Support
Subject: Consumer Comment -- About Tickets

Comment:This is from your Dylan Moran page:

“...labeled 'The Oscar Wilde of comedy'”
What does that even mean?

Isn’t that like saying the Stephen Hawking is the Albert Einstein of physics? Or Vera Wang is the Coco Chanel of fashion? Surely the Oscar Wilde of comedy is Oscar Wilde?
I don’t know what is worse; saying something stupid, or quoting something stupid. Could you please tell me where you got that quote from or explain to me why you thought it made sense?
If you don't think this is important though, feel free to ignore me. Who cares about this stuff anyway, right?
Wow. Awesome rant buddy. Perhaps you should stop drinking though and hit the sack, it's late, you've obviously had a long day. I myself am a huge fan of Irish comedian Dylan Moran and Irish writer Oscar Wilde, and understand that the connection is dodgy at best. I did entertain the thought that Moran wrote the email himself. But I am sure he probably has better things to do with his time than search for all the dates he is performing in Australia and comment on the copy accompanying those event listings.

Being the strongly worded email fan that I am, I was surprised to find myself on the receiving end, but understood the pain that this tortured soul was going through. I wanted him to know that I do care about this stuff.
So I (perhaps foolishly) replied. I may get fired for being unprofessional. It will at least mean more time for me to spend on my strongly worded emails.
"Thanks for your strongly worded email. We love to start the day with a strong coffee and some feisty consumer feedback.
Your argument has merit, but please don't shoot the messenger. We received this copy from the promoter of the event, we cannot claim to have penned it ourselves.
We don't feel the need to justify why we have published this quote, but thanks nonetheless for your passionate late night response to our product, it fills our heart with glee to know that someone out there has taken the time to pay attention to us.
Keep up the good work."

Maybe it will be the impetus for me to finally open that bookstore I have always wanted to open and employ my excellent customer disdain skills I honed over many years of working in retail.

2 comments:

maeve said...

Magnificent.

El Judith said...

I read your response with envy. I am an admirer of great wit as I seem to lack originality myself but recognize and applaud it in others.

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