In the land of the blind . . .

Sooooo, just peeking in.  Will catch up with detail sometime soon but today was "call complaint day".  Yes, I'm that customer.  The one that calls only when something is wrong.  In my defense, I blab to others when I love a product but complain directly to the manufacturer when something goes wrong.  No, this is not a blog post in hopes that the manufacturer will contact me arms filled with apologetic product samples and defensive PR.   If you've been around for a while you know it's not my style and I don't even run ads on this blog with good reason.  It's my personal sandbox and I like to remain transparent about my intentions.

 

Back to complaint day.  If it's true that in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king, then in the age of the internet, the ADHD customer is heard.  Back in the day one had to take pen to paper and more importantly, remember to do so at a later date and time, past the moment of irritation with widget #1 going wonky.  Meh.  That requires a brain that functions in a neurotypical manner.  Strike one against Marielle.  Then you'd have to wait to hear back from the offending company and not look blankly at the letter responding quite seriously to a list of complaints you forgot the minute the postman picked up the original complaint letter.  Strike two.  Usually, included in the letter would be a couple of options to resolve your complaint which would be wonderful if you had not already replaced wonky widget #1 with newly fabulous widget #2 from the competitor.   Like three seconds after the first one failed.  Strike three.

Enter the instant age of the internet and now, even we task-list-challenged, three steps ahead but two dollars short ADHDers can join the land of the complaining consumer.  Two seconds after widget #1 fails you've googled HQ and are on the phone with a spectacularly bored customer service rep who will now get an earful of what's ailing you.  Today's complaints involved 3m command hooks (the fastener of choice for those of us who loathe to paint) and my facial toner.

Exhibit A:

Sigh.  See that little black box at the top?  Some people get excited to see something New or Improved but I just shudder.  I hate when companies rework something that's already working.  I'm that 80 year old woman who wants her original Pine Sol formula from 1976 thankyouverymuch.  My toner worked well.  Didn't break me out (a miracle), irritate the heck out of my skin (a challenge that came with age), slightly lower in crazy toxins and fragrance free.  Do they know how long it took to research and then track down the perfect toner for me?  Do they know that I simultaneously had windows open for Vitacost, EWG, Makeupalley and random google reviews to cross check each toner as I went down the list of possibilities?  No, but they heard about it today when I told Avalon Organics that now the toner foamed up on my face like I had a bad case of rabies.  New and improved my butt.  I was offered a refund, which will take close to 6 weeks to process.  Woohoo, that's one amazing turnaround.  In the meantime I'm moving on to widget #2.

P.S.  I haven't been neglecting comments.  Somehow I was not being notified and oops, suddenly a ton of unanswered comments when I make it a point to respond to each one.  I promise I'll get around to it.  Better late than never right?