As a general principle, when someone greets me, I not only return their greeting but may ask about how they are feeling as well. When someone writes me a letter, I feel commanded to write a letter in return if that is what is required. But as you can see from the title about incivility, that is not always the case. Let me give you a few examples.
Back a few years ago, my wife and I were attracted to an organization called Wegman’s Market. The main attraction for me was that Wegman carried a fresh supply of scallions. In my humble opinion, a meal without a scallion is wasted. And so it was that we drove 18 miles each way to Bridgewater, New Jersey to shop at Wegman’s. That organization was established in Rochester, New York a good number of years ago by the Wegman family and has now grown into a major grocer.
During our visits to Wegman’s, which occurred perhaps once a month, we became acquainted with Richard Lee. Mr. Lee was a native of China and he spoke fractured English. But nonetheless, Richard Lee was very helpful to us and he was thoroughly friendly. When there were specials being held back in the back room, Mr. Lee would retrieve them for us and he was always in search of the freshest produce. I forgot to mention that he worked in the produce department. For my money, Richard Lee was a gem and if I were the boss I would search for more Richard Lees.
Now it has been my custom for more than 60 years when somebody performs a service that is valuable to me to make a note of it. And I often call it to the attention of the boss of that person. I think that is the civil thing to do and I am pleased to do it.
Now in the case of Mr. Lee, I thought it was worth a letter to Danny Wegman, the head of the Wegman organization in Rochester. And so it was in November of 2004 that I wrote to Mr. Wegman to tell him what a valuable employee Mr. Lee was to his grocery store. I also sent a copy of that letter to the manager of the Bridgewater operation. Now remember that was in November of 2004.
Time passed and there was no indication that Danny Wegman had ever told Mr. Lee about that letter nor was there any indication that the manager of the Bridgewater store had done so either. When I wrote the letter, I made a copy for Richard Lee with the thought in mind that his niece could read it to him. I suspect that Richard Lee does not read much English. And so it is now that six years have passed and Mr. Wegman has not seen fit to call my letter to the attention of Richard Lee. The fact that he is a Chinese immigrant may have something to do with it but I suspect that Danny Wegman does not want to become involved in such petty matters. In my book, that is a case of gross incivility. Absolutely gross incivility.
Now we will go further into another grocery store chain. This one is called Whole Foods. It is run from Austin, Texas and now has branches throughout the eastern part of the United States. All things put together, it is an admirable organization.
After we had shopped at Whole Foods for some years, I became impressed with a woman named Helen Serpico, who was the manager of the Millburn store. Helen was on top of the ball at all times and seemed to work endless hours. So in comformity with my thought that such diligence ought to be recognized, I wrote to the president of the Whole Foods Corporation in Austin, Texas to tell him about Helen Serpico. The date of my letter was November of 2003. I am not very good at arithmetic but it seems to me that in November of this year we will have waited nearly seven years for a reply.
In the meantime, the people at Whole Foods have promoted Helen; she now has a job that even takes her overseas. But has my letter ever been acknowledged? The answer is no. I would settle for a nice note that said, “Thank you for your interest,” or some such thing as that. There was nothing forthcoming from the executive offices of the Whole Foods Corporation. But I am satisfied to know that Helen Serpico now has a better job.
Now I suppose that reading the foregoing paragraphs you may come to the conclusion that I have a disaffection for grocery chains such as Wegman’s and Whole Foods. That is far from the case.
When it comes to incivility, I have another case in point here. In September of last year, I had an illness that hospitalized me for 13 days. At the conclusion of that confinement, there were four physicians who seemed intent upon getting this old codger well. They were the internist, the lung specialist, the cardiologist, and the urologist.
So in accordance with my long-standing rules of the road, I wrote to the president of the Summit Medical Group to call attention to the service that these four physicians had rendered to me during my confinement. I did not expect the president to dance a jig but I had hoped that he would first pat those four physicians on the back and/or write me a note acknowledging that I had written him. I have no indication that he ever patted the four physicians on the back. I took care of that, however, by sending them a blind copy of my correspondence with the president, for which in the subsequent visits to those four specialists, I was thanked in great abundance. Apparently physicians don’t get thanked very often and in a case such as the Summit Medical Group the fact that someone gives them an “attaboy” to the big boss is greatly appreciated. So in the end I am sitting well with these four physicians but I have no idea what the big boss ever thought.
As a footnote, it occurred to me that I should recognize three other physicians who have helped to me over the years. The first was a dermatologist; the second was a neurologist; and the third was an ophthalmologist. When I saw the skin doctor last week or so, he thanked me profusely. In this case I did not bother to hide the fact that I was sending copies to the physicians in question. I simply said, “I am going to send a copy of this letter to the three physicians.” I am glad that I did this because the president of the Summit Medical Group seems to have no inclination to pat people on the back. That is not my style.
Finally, in the history of incivilities, we come to the pants maker who is Williamson Dickie. When I bought my last pair of blue jeans, which I think were not really blue but blue gray so I am told, I wrote to the president of that corporation to tell him how much I liked his product. I told him that they fit well, wore a long time and had plenty of belt loops, and in the area of the crotch department, I told him that they were long. Having a long crotch may not mean much to other people, but in the case of blue jeans the purpose of that garment is working people. Having a restricted crotch defeats the whole purpose and the unrestricted crotch is another major advantage in wearing Dickie clothing.
I wrote that letter to the CEO of the Dickie Corporation in December of last year. So far there has been absolutely no acknowledgement. Other people to whom I have written have almost always sent at least an acknowledgement of my communication. But not the head man of the Dickie Corporation.
On the other side of the ledger, my efforts in letter writing have been amply rewarded. For example, Ted Sorenson, who was John Kennedy’s advisor, wrote me a letter that was very touching in response to my letter. The head man of Chase Bank, Mr. Jamie Dimon not only wrote me a letter but had his assistant call me at nearly seven o’clock in the evening to tell me that the letter was coming. Then the head of the Verizon Corporation, Ivan Seidenberg, answered my letter and saw to it that some of his best help was available to make an adjustment in our telephone service. And then there was the case of Blake Nordstrom, the man I wrote to tell him that when he stamped the instructions on the back of tee shirts, a blind person could not find the rear end of the shirt. There are other examples of cases in which I have received very favorable replies and I believe this makes Danny Wegman and the president of Whole Foods and the new director at Summit Medical Group look uncivil and also rude. I am a big boy and I guess rudeness will not kill me. But I certainly wish that other people had the attitude of Jamie Dimon and Blake Nordstrom.
Curiously, while Wegman’s and the Whole Foods Corporation and the Summit Medical Group have treated my letters with a degree of contempt, we – my wife and I – still patronize those organizations. We shop at Whole Foods twice a week; we make more trips to the Summit Medical Group than I would like, and if there were a Wegman’s store near us, we would certainly use it. So, in the end, while they are rude and insensitive, we have no desire to punish them.
In the final analysis, we have waited for a reply from Wegman’s for nearly six years, and the same is true in the case of Whole Foods. I don’t know what the moral of this story is, except that if you treat me rudely I will be back on your doorstep. But when push comes to shove, all of the organizations that treated me rudely still offer excellent products. And so we still patronize them. If someone could come up with an organization that answered letters promptly and which also treated us warmly and produced good products, perhaps we could be seduced. But that hasn’t happened.
I leave you now to go look in my mail box to see whether we have an answer from any of the three people I have identified as being rude and insensitive. My guess is that there will be no mail from any of them.
E. E. CARR
April 19, 2010
Essay 449
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Kevin’s commentary: Most jobs are thankless ones. I feel like this is particularly true for jobs in the service industry, which is perhaps a little ironic because it’s full of people who are, well, serving you. I dunno. Anyway I like that Pop has no hesitation in reaching out to the highest levels of a corporation to praise someone at the lowest one. At one point when I was applying to jobs, he even wrote to the head of a major bank to recommend me. I suppose a lot of these letters go ignored, but I see no reason why they should, considering that all these companies have communication departments. So what the hell?