World Without Problems

[talktooloose]

Well, US President Obama may think we'll solve the problems by working hard with ingenuity and a sense of common purpose, but the Toronto Public Library and New Balance Shoes have a simpler solution:

Just linguistically erase negativity.

I had a complaint to make about a systemic problem at the library and they handed me a form where I could write out my thoughts. It was labelled: "Compliments and Comments". Cute. When you erase the word "complaints" from a complaints form, you send the message that complaints are not really welcome. This is not a recipe for quality.

I just bought shoes at New Balance's annual sale. Usually, New Balance allows you to return shoes for full refund, but sale items can only be returned for exchange or store credit. This is fine, but the wording on the receipt is hilarious:

"Forunately, you can return this product for exchange or store credit with this receipt within two weeks of purchase."

Heh? What alien planet is this English from? Clearly, someone drafted a message that began, "Unfortunately, sale items cannot be returned for full refund..." and someone decided that it was too negative!

Nothing makes me nastier than the appearance of the "nice" police on the scene.

Comments

[briseur.livejournal.com]

Actually, Barack is doing the same thing, by referring to his enthusiastic support for the health insurance companies, and our jihadi foreign policy, as, "change."

[ginalin.livejournal.com]

I hate it when people try to make something inherently annoying or unpleasant better with using verbal indirection or misdirection.

Like spraying freesia over shit in a public bathroom...you just end up with a smell that makes you wonder if someone ate a lot of freesia then took a dump. No one is fooled about the "dump" part, just mystified about the smell of freesia being there too.

Kind of the "air freshener" approach to business. "We must douse this bullshit with something nice so people won't notice the bullshit so much."

For me, it's more or less a road sign that you're approaching bullshit, and lots of it.