Monday, June 15

WNTD: Keep your staff notes to yourself!

What Not To Do: Random horror stories from the trenches.

Keep your staff notes separate from the customer correspondence:  (My grandfather actually got the bedbug letter in the late 1920s, after being bitten on a Pullman carriage - though not the attached note.)

“The Bedbug Letter”  (from http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/bedbug.asp). 
A wealthy gentleman was badly bitten by bugs while riding on a certain railway line.  Arriving at his destination, he wrote the company an indignant letter and received a prompt reply.  It was, said the letter, the first complaint the company had ever had of this nature.  Inquiry had failed to reveal any explanation for this unprecedented occurrence.  Nevertheless, a number of new precautions were being taken to make absolutely certain such an unfortunate incident never happened again.  The letter was signed by a high official of the railway.
The gentleman was well satisfied with this reply and was returning it to the envelope when a slip of paper fell out onto the floor.  The hastily scribbled note on it read: "Send this guy the bug letter."