Sample Anecdata Stories
Stumped on what to submit? Perhaps these actual submissions will help spark a few ideas...
Industry: Restaurant/Fast Food
“As I have done each week for the past four years, I went into XXX to get a cup of tea for $1.49. I usually put two or three tea bags in my cup. The employee behind the counter noted this, and told me that you were only allowed one tea bag. Because I was in a rush, I blurted out that I had already put the tea bags in my cup, so there was nothing I could do, and left. The employee made me feel like a criminal.
Had I had more time, I should have asked her, “Well, what should I do?” and see what ridiculous response she came up with. Or I could have either asked her, sarcastically, whether this meant I could only take one ketchup or mustard package for a sandwich! Maybe I should have taken the “alleged” wet tea bags out of my cup, and stuck them back in the jar.
If there was a one tea bag policy, at a minimum the restaurant should have posted a sign to that effect, and taught the employees how to handle this kind of situation—delicately.
Industry: Other
When we went apartment hunting in Denver, we had a great experience at the first apartment complex we went to. We were immediately greeted at the door by a very friendly leasing consultant. She had us sit down with her and discuss what we were really looking for in a place to live. She showed us multiple floor plans and then took us to sample apartments that we might be interested in. She then gave us names of neighboring complexes we could call to compare prices. She also talked to us about the area of town, the commute to downtown, and gave us the name of a real estate agent we could call to find out about more areas of town that we might be interested in moving to.
We went to another complex the same day where a man on the phone asked us to sit and wait for him to get off the phone. After 20 minutes of waiting, he told us he could not help us. He didn't have any sample apartments to show us, he could not tell us which apartments might be available for the dates we were looking to move, and he could not give us examples of pricing. We then decided to leave after he wasted our time.
Industry: Telecommunications
XXX offers cellphone customers the option of paying the monthly bill by credit card, but they don't make it easy. When I first took out a service contract with them, I filled out the automatic credit card form and mailed it in to XXX's address. That was the last that anyone ever saw of that form. XXX proceeded to bill me monthly, claiming they had never seen the form. This should have been a clue.
After months of haggling and no service rep ever being able to activate that automatic charge process, I started paying the monthly bill by filling out XXX's pre-printed credit card voucher and mailing it back each month in their envelope.
Last month, a week after I had paid the monthly bill (in full), by completing and sending in their voucher to their address in their envelope, they cut off the phone altogether. I ignored them. A week later, they turned it back on, without having had any contact or request from me, and billed me $25 for their trouble.
That was when I decided I had had enough of XXX, and joined the hundreds of thousands of other former customers of XXX who had switched to another carrier.