Complaints

Categories: translation

Date: 23 March 2009 16:39:38

There is a saying which goes "be careful what you pray/wish for because you might just get it" - the implication being that 'it' is greater and therefore more complicated than you had imagined.

Having just translated a response to a letter of complaint I would add "be careful what you complain about". I haven't seen the original letter of complaint but gather from the response that a customer bought a packet of biscuits. These biscuits are a sandwich-style biccie with a filling in the middle. The customer had apparently complained that one side of one of his biccies was missing.

What a kerfuffle this mild complaint has unleashed! The customer services department has written a long apologetic letter; involved Quality Assurance and Production depts; set two ladies on the production line with the specific task of making sure that all biscuits are produced with a biscuit on both sides of the filling; changed the production procedure so that workers can reject substandard biscuits by hand; they have even installed cameras to monitor any biccies with a mind to go solo into this world (although they admit this system has not been as effective as they had hoped - I suppose even if a camera can spot the defective bic, it can't then pluck it off the machine) and there is yet another system in development but they can't say yet how effective it will be as it is still in the testing stages.

I suspect the complaining customer just thought s/he would write a little letter in the hope that the company would say "Very sorry; here's a couple of free packs of blemish-free sandwichy biscuits to make up for your distress." As it is, the customer gets a lengthy scientific discussion of all the procedures, processes and production lines, a bewildered shake of the head that such a terrible thing could happen in such a slick operation - and not a whiff of a free pack of biscuits.

It's good to know that these biscuits are produced to such exacting standards. I don't know if I would be able to drum up the energy to care that much about biscuits... but perhaps that's just the kind of gal I am.