Earlier today I was stunned to learn that March 4th is the 83rd birthday of Alan Greenspan, the former head of the Federal Reserve Board. You may recall Mr. Greenspan, who often testified to Congress using sentences that could not be untangled. Andrea Mitchell, the television reporter, says that when he proposed marriage to her, she did not understand what he wanted until the third try. I was stunned to learn that this is only the 83rd birthday for Alan Greenspan, which means that I am his senior by three and a half years. The moral in reciting this incident is that we should not all assume that people who talk like Alan Greenspan are of my father’s age.
But now we move on to other incidents of morality that are much more current. It has always been my practice to write to authors to let them know that their work is appreciated. The writing is not confined to authors. It has always seemed to me that saying “That book is very enjoyable” is not enough. When I am well served by people in the public sector, it occurs to me that it is incumbent upon me to tell them about it.
And so it is that we have several cases where I have written letters of appreciation which were happily acknowledged. On the other hand, there are cases where letters have been written with no acknowledgement. That is where the morality comes in.
To start with, there is the head of the Chase Bank who goes by the name of Jamie Dimon. For a number of years I have dealt with the local Chase Bank and have been well served by the chief teller, Tyra Clark. The manager at the local branch is Ed Rogers, who has been especially nice to me. And so it was that I wanted to tell their ultimate boss about how they had performed.
When Mr. Dimon received my letter, he had his executive assistant call me at 6:30 in the evening. She said that Mr. Dimon wanted to thank me. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned other acts by Ed Rogers and Tyra Clark that were commendable. She promised to go directly into Mr. Dimon’s office to tell him about those further acts. Apparently Mr. Dimon was working late, together with his executive assistant, which is understandable because this incident happened at the height of the banking crisis.
In the end, I received an effusive letter from Mr. Dimon, which thanked me for calling the performance of his workers to his attention. My reading of that letter would suggest that he was strongly considering a salary increase together with a pat on the back for Ed Rogers and Tyra Clark. It also thanked me for my business over the years. I took great pleasure from his letter.
A second case took place a few years ago when the building that had housed the offices of the Long Lines Department of AT&T was sold to a real estate developer. He had no intention of tearing the building down , but rather was intent on using it for another purpose.
In that building, there is a plaque in the lobby that commemorates the death of perhaps forty Long Lines employees who were killed in World War II. In 1941, I sat in a corner of the St. Louis office of the Long Lines Department together with three companions. They were Bernie Wheeler, David Weiss, and Ashby Vaughn. War is an unreasonable plague upon this earth, which is certainly the case as those three men were killed.
I wrote to Mr. Bill Rudin, the new owner, to make sure that the plaque honoring their service would not be destroyed. Mr. Rudin’s response was prompt. He assured me that the plaque would always have a place of honor in that lobby. And indeed, on the occasions that I have visited there, the plaque is prominently displayed with floodlights on it, American flags on either side, and no obstructions to viewing it. Bill Rudin, the real estate developer, is an honorable man.
A third case involved Maureen Dowd, the columnist for the New York Times. I have read Ms. Dowd’s writings for several years and one day I sent a message to her. It said that if Henry Mencken were alive, he would say, “That Irish girl who writes for the Times is a damn good writer.” She responded immediately by saying, “Best compliment ever.”
Recently Jeffrey Tubin, who writes for the New Yorker, wrote a book about the justices of the Supreme Court. The book was read to me and I immediately sent Mr. Tubin my congratulations. Within hours, he thanked me for my readership.
Then there is Ted Sorenson, whom you may recall was the advisor to John F. Kennedy when he was our president. Mr. Sorenson is now legally blind but, one way or another, he had completed this book, which he read in his flat Nebraska accent. A letter to Mr. Sorenson was promptly answered with great appreciation.
Then there is Richard Tofel, who wrote a recent book about the disappearance of Judge Crater, who had an important legal post here in New York. As you may recall, Judge Crater went to dinner on a Friday night in 1930 and disappeared and no one has heard from him since. I enjoyed Tofel’s book immensely and sent him a letter attesting to that fact. Mr. Tofel told me that hearing from me “completes the circle.” He also told me that his next book would appear this fall and that I should watch for it, which I am doing.
Well, there you have several instances where people seemed to appreciate my thanks. Knowing that they were pleased brought joy to myself as well.
But it’s not all happiness in this world. On the other hand, there were three occasions where I wrote to chief executive officers who apparently regarded my communications with a certain amount of disdain. Back in November 2003, I was moved to contact the chief executive officer of the Whole Foods Corporation, who goes by the name of John Mackey. One of the individuals that I praised was a woman who managed the Millburn New Jersey branch of his store and the second was the manager of the fish counter in that store. I praised both of them highly and suggested that Mr. Mackey had made a wise choice when he had given them their current assignments. That was in November of 2003 and to date, Mr. Mackey has not seen fit to reply to me. I am a patient fellow and I guess I have no choice but to continue to wait.
A second case involves Danny Wegman, who is the chief executive officer of the Wegman food markets. For a number of years, Richard Lee, who works in the produce department, had gone out of his way to be kind to my wife and myself. So it was in November of 2004 that I wrote to Mr. Wegman to tell him of Richard Lee’s performance. There was no ulterior motive. The fact that he was born in China had nothing to do with it. He was simply doing a good job for Wegman’s, and I thought that the top man ought to know about it. That letter was met with stony silence. Again, it has been less than five years so I must be patient and wait my turn.
Now we come to a more recent case involving Blake Nordstrom, who is the chief executive officer of the Nordstrom clothing company. The 2008 holiday season was not kind to clothing manufacturers at any level of the economy. On top of that, I gather that the stock in the Nordstrom Corporation is somewhere crawling along the bottom. I sent the following letter to Mr. Nordstrom in the hope that he would restore tags to his tee shirt underwear so that people in my situation could locate front from back. Here is the letter:
February 12, 2009
Private & Personal
Blake W. Nordstrom
Nordstrom
1617 Sixth Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101-1742
Mr. Nordstrom:
Several years ago when the Short Hills (New Jersey) Mall opened, I found that there was a Nordstrom store in a convenient location at that mall. In the years that have passed, Nordstrom has provided me with suits, shoes and other furnishings, including a cap and hat. The point is that Nordstrom has been almost my exclusive supplier of men’s clothing for many years.
Alas, this September my wife decreed that some of my underwear tee shirts should be replaced. A new supply was purchased and I have been attempting to wear them for the last few months. I was astonished to learn that the new tee shirts no longer carry a tag at the neck in the back of the shirt. Instead, the size of the shirt and other information is stamped on the back of the shirt rather than using a tag as had been the custom previously.
To those of us who are visually impaired, this is a disastrous turn of events. As a completely blind man, I now find that it takes perhaps three to five minutes to locate the front part of the shirt as distinguished from its back. When the shirt is donned, I find that it is backwards in perhaps thirty-five to forty per cent of the cases.
Mr. Nordstrom, your clothing sells at a premium. No one would ever mistake your prices for those at Wal-Mart, for example. In cold weather following a shower, the inability to locate the front and back of the tee shirt is a major drawback. More than that, Mr. Nordstrom, I hope that there is a special place in Hell that is reserved for the executive at Nordstrom who decided to remove the tags from the back of the neck of the Nordstrom tee shirts.
I am fully aware that you have your hands full worrying about the slump in sales over the recent holidays. And your stock price gives no cause for elation either. I do not wish to add to your troubles but the absence of the tag in the back of the tee shirt has angered me endlessly. I do not intend to move the small amount of clothing business I do from Nordstrom, however it seemed to me that this was a matter that ought to be called to your attention. It smacks of the Wal-Martinization of an innovative premier clothing store.
Now, having said all that, I feel better and it is my hope that Nordstrom has a very successful year. To that end, I send you a sincere New Year’s greeting.
(signed) E. E. Carr
So far, Mr. Blake Nordstrom has not elected to reply to my letter. I have suspicions that Mr. Nordstrom may never feel moved to reply.
And so that brings me to the moral of this story. Stated one way, it might be that we should never expect generous treatment when there is a grocer or a haberdasher involved in the transaction. On the other side, perhaps the moral in the story is that authors, bank presidents, and real estate developers are genuinely interested in how their work is received. My moral is that, given a choice, always go with the authors, bank presidents, and real estate developers. You will be rewarded with good reading, prosperity, and living quarters that will provoke envy from your compatriots.
E. E. CARR
March 9, 2009
Essay 372
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Kevin’s commentary: This of course was resolved in a subsequent essay, when Mr. Nordstrom did indeed answer: https://ezrasessays.com/?p=1086
It surprises me that for most of these grievances, Pop just straight-up writes to the President or CEO. Given his approach I am astonished that he gets the response rate that he does. He tells me that Judy finds their addresses from Google or just writes to the company headquarters. Now keep in mind that a communication like Pop’s carries with it neither any real threat to Nordstrom’s profits or its public perception, since it has not (until now, I guess) appeared online. In many cases ignoring the letter would have no consequence at all. But yet Blake (or someone who ghostwrites responses for him, which is still fine) responded, as did the head of Chase and many others.
It’s honestly difficult for me reconcile the fact that the people writing to Pop are the same people who, according to most media, are these fabulously powerful and aloof individuals who make hundreds of times more than their employees, pay their way around laws, and generally get up to no good. The act of responding to a letter almost feels like it’d be beneath them.
While I still believe that this depiction of executives is probably accurate for a lot of corporations, it makes me smile a little bit to think of Mr. Nordstrom taking some time out of his day to read and respond to Pop’s 400-word diatribe which explicitly condemns one of his employees to a “special place in Hell.”