A letter to Midas.

I'm not to terribly keen on complaints, because so often I don't think they're channeled correctly. We complain to people in our immediate circle who have no way of helping the situation that we're complaining about because they aren't connected in the correct channels that could affect said situation to the benefit of the complainer.

And ya know what happens then? Nothing. Everyone just kinda feels worse, because there's a person in the room who just wants to bounce their complaints off of everyone and no one can do anything to help them feel better. That's a real drain.

However, a complaint can be good if it's channeled correctly. Like if you wanted to change a law or a policy that's causing you grievance.

So here is an example of a (what I believe to be anyway) properly channeled complaint. You can rip the prose' effectiveness, and the writing style, etc. to shreds, but those aren't the point. The point is the channel that it's being sent through. It's the corporate office. People who care about the bottom line. If they lose a customer, they know their bottom line got hurt, and that is the thing they hate most in the world.

Caveat:
I should also point out that since the case is that they don't want to lose a customer, I don't say to them, "You've already lost me." No reason to burn a bridge if there is still potential for Midas to want to bring gifts over on it.

The gift will probably be store credit or a free oil change or something like that, but that's better than nothing for all my damn Midas trouble.

Caveat:
I don't really F with Midas anymore because my brother-in-law is a great guy and an engineer.
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Hello, Midas.

This particular Midas fixed a problem with the coolant elbow that aides in disseminating coolant/anti-freeze to the engine of my '97 Buick Park Avenue. They replaced it at my request, and they did a good job with that.

But when I picked my car up, the gas gauge no longer worked. It just reads no gas in the tank regardless of how much there is or was. I brought the car back to Midas the next day to ask the workers what gives, and the manager said he'd need another 80-something dollars to look at the now-not-functioning-gas-gauge, even though the gauge worked splendidly before I brought my car to Midas the day before.

I declared that the smug diagnosis policy and the set of circumstances were lame, and left the shop.

I am sending this to you now because I just now located the receipt for the work done that day.

I'm not too terribly sore about the whole transaction now. I've taken my necessary steps to get over it. But seeing that receipt reminded me that I still don't care for that type of business: fix-one-thing-and-then-another-doesn't-work type of business. That's not too cool.

And as business folks, I thought you might like to know.

Respectfully,
Joe