14 December 04
Letters of Complaint
Inspired by Natalie of Blaugustine’s recent complaint regarding some boots she’d bought that didn’t, um, work out, I decided to send in a letter of complaint to Canson, a French paper manufacturer whose American subsidiary is based in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
The substance of my gripe is that some layout bond paper I bought for calligraphy is defective, or rather every other page is. This every other page bleeds when ink is applied. I won’t go into the paroxysms of how this feels when you’re trying your hardest to render the perfect Roman capital “Q” and it fuzzes out like wine on cotton wool, but basically I’m not happy. I have suggested in my “letter,” above, that this might have been a fluke, a bad pad of paper. I’m not going back to Berkeley to try to return it; you can’t buy this stuff in Davis or even Sacramento.
My hope with such a missive is that they’ll fix it, or at least be aware that we’re going to notice if they start cutting corners, quality-wise. At worst they’ll throw it in the bin, but I’ve been gentle: maybe they won’t.
Maybe, Natalie, they’ll give me store credit?? Hah.
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In my long history of complaining, I found that it’s a good idea to include at the end of the clear, firm letter, a courteous (but firm) demand for what one is rightfully entitled to. In this case, it probably would be a replacement pad of paper, without flaws.
I’m sure they’ll reply apologetically and make amends.