Questionable Correspondence
Scott Paton
During my 19 years at Quality
Digest, I’ve fielded countless questions, comments,
complaints, compliments and rants about the magazine and
quality in general. Some of these have been insightful,
some stupid (I really don’t know a nicer way to say
it), some humorous and some downright mean.
As e-mail became the medium of choice for business communication
in the last decade, the amount of communication I receive
has grown exponentially. Unfortunately, the ease of sending
off an e-mail has also increased the number of silly, bizarre,
ranting and mean-spirited letters to the editor that I receive.
To demonstrate, here are some answers to a few of the questions
that I’ve received. (I chose not to include the original
questions, but I think you’ll get the gist of the
communications from my responses.)
“I’m sorry that you feel that way about ISO
9000; however, it’s anatomically impossible for me
to insert the standard into the orifice you suggested. I
suggest you forward your comments to the ISO Central Secretariat
in Geneva.”
“It’s unfortunate that you found our ISO 9000
Registrar Customer Satisfaction Survey so upsetting. However,
I don’t respond well to threats of lawsuits. Have
your attorney call my attorney.”
“I’m sorry that you found our cover story on
quality in the U.S. Postal Service to be ‘ridiculous.’
There are many fine women and men working hard to improve
the quality of postal service. In addition, I must apologize
for the delay in responding to your letter. It was delayed
due to insufficient postage.”
“Yes, it was ironic that one week after our cover
story on union-management cooperation at Eastern Airlines
was published, the airline was forced to shut down due to
a labor strike.”
“You are correct. I have never been employed as a
quality professional.”
“Ouch! I understand that you found the two typos in
our latest issue to be representative of less-than-perfect
quality, but ‘idiotic,’ ‘moronic’
and ‘dumb ass’ aren’t representative of
very good etiquette either.”
“Thanks for the apology. It’s easy to forget
that real people read those e-mailed letters to the editor.”
“Thanks for your input. However, I prefer to spell
the word you indicated that I misspelled the way Webster’s
New World Dictionary suggests it should be spelled.”
“I can’t speak for Dr. Juran. The comments he
made about ISO 9000 are his own.”
“I can’t speak for Dr. Juran. The comments he
made about Dr. Deming are his own.”
“I’m sorry that you found our name change to
Quality Digest [from Quality Circle Digest] to be upsetting.
It was part of an effort to cover the broader world of quality.
I’m sure that we will continue to cover quality circles
in every issue.”
“No. We don’t publish poetry.”
“I’m sorry that you found the misspelled word
in one of advertisers’ ads to be representative of
less-than-perfect quality. However, I suggest you forward
your comments to that advertiser. We don’t produce
the ads; we just publish them.”
“That’s really very flattering. However, my
wife probably wouldn’t like that very much.”
Keep those letters coming. I really do enjoy reading them.
However, you might want to read your letter a second time
before hitting the send button. E-mail me at letters@qualitydigest.com.
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