Can we please ban the word "fine" from the English language?
Recently we got an order from a yoga conference organiser. She wanted 10 hampers as gifts for the speakers and a few other gifts for volunteer helpers. We had advised her that it would take 10 days for delivery. A day later we got an email asking if we could send it quicker. So, we dropped everything and packed up 10 beautiful, gorgeous, above and beyond the call of duty hampers and couriered everything over.
Silence.
No "thank you for delivery 9 days early".
No "thank you for having such a clever bee doing such gorgeous packaging".
No "thank you for the pillars thrown in for free for her to burn on the day".
Just silence.
So, yesterday (which was almost 2 weeks after we dropped everything at our busiest time of year to get her hampers over to her because she wasn't organised) I popped her a quick email to see if she had received everything.
This morning I received her response. "Yes, everything seemed fine. Thanks for following up."
Pu-lease... "fine"? Why not just slap me? Fine? I don't ever recall waking up and hoping that today I would do a job that "seemed fine". I don't recall, as I have pounded my head against the brick wall that is being an Australian manufacturer or making a natural product, thinking that it would be "fine".
I even think fine is an insult to the weather. Your fine may be different to my fine. Is it sunny? Cloudy? Raining? Blowing a gale? Anything, but not fine.
Fine isn't even a worth descriptor when someone asks you how you are! More black and white. Less shades of grey please. Are you really good? Depressed? Having a great day? A little under the weather? Tired? Hungover? Fabulous? Generally well? All the better for seeing you? Let's make it real.
Please, if you are ever going to give me feedback, don't tell me that what we did was fine. You will likely get a response back like Trina did this morning. While she may think that I got out of the wrong side of bed, hopefully she will get a little more in touch with her inner yogi and take the time to show a little gratitude in future.
THAT email wasn't printed out and handed around the worker bees with a little pat on the back for a job amazingly well done. So many hundreds of other are.
To the beautiful, conscious, thinking customers who give us feedback that is meritorious of being part of the english language... thank you. We love you. We love your feedback (be is gushing or helping us improve).
Over and out! :-)
Uplifting blog post to follow!
Cate xx
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