The Compleat Natterer

MARGOLIS, RICHARD J.

States of the Union THE COMPLEAT NATTERER BY RICHARD J. MARGOLIS The consumer movement is already a decade old, and all we have to show for it thus far are safety belts that buzz if you...

...VR is in the saddle, and rides mankind...
...There is less to consumerism than meets the eye...
...Moore, or Mrs...
...It seems clear from all this that there is no rest for the corporate dunner and no hope for the hapless natterer...
...In one commercial we see a customer begging to be waited on...
...Hello, Sir...
...Because of VR our house and its many accoutrements are inching toward extinction...
...No, says the clerk with a patronizing smile, "you are free to roam...
...Thomas, my representative from Carte Blanche...
...States of the Union THE COMPLEAT NATTERER BY RICHARD J. MARGOLIS The consumer movement is already a decade old, and all we have to show for it thus far are safety belts that buzz if you neglect them, erratically provided shelf unit-prices you can't read without first squatting and squinting, and 5,846 books about corporate ripoffs, each featuring an introduction by Ralph Nader...
...The incident with my electronics man was, any way you look at it, stereotypical...
...Sir...
...nothing more hopeless," laments K. in Kafka's The Castle, "than this freedom, this waiting, this inviolability...
...Three hot-waterless days passed without word from Silk...
...Another is "the anonymous connection" sometimes called the "CraneMoore-Thomas nexus...
...To tell you the truth, Mr...
...Sometimes I object: "Miss Moore, are you really and truly my representative...
...And, since no one has come forward to lead this promising new crusade, I have appointed myself its temporary executive director...
...Here is a sneak summary of my findings to date...
...Natter, v.i., to complain...
...Maybe I can get Ralph Nader to write an introduction...
...But let me ask you one more question...
...Shapiro or Miss Pucinski...
...This is Miss Crane (or Mr...
...How does one cope with a salesman who won't take yes for an answer...
...It's Smith," he informed me...
...Thomas), your representative from the telephone company...
...Thomas is the name they assigned me...
...You know my real name and I don't know yours...
...VR has grown especially virulent in the men's apparel field...
...Of course, VR is not the only consumer misery uncovered so far by my oneman nattering task force...
...What does a man have to do to persuade a plumber to sell him a new, $300 hot water heater...
...the cabbie whose cab you can't flag down...
...Does the request frighten him...
...How does one bawl out an absent store clerk, or dispatch a sarcastic note to a computer...
...John Smith...
...In April I bought a small FM radio...
...One's best bet, it would seem, is to sleep late, consume as little as possible and never answer the phone...
...Silk know anything about stereo sets...
...the best way to protect my interests is to tell the folks at snet [Southern New England Telephone Company] that I'm a little short on cash right now and maybe they can wait a few weeks...
...Can't my representative be Mr...
...I gave him your message this morning," she said to me one afternoon...
...A friend told me he recently attempted to buy a hat at a local department store...
...the vanishing clerk...
...How much is it, Miss Crane...
...The labels derive from a new tendency among corporations to assign fake names to their bill collectors...
...It's just a convenience...
...Thomas, I'm getting sick and tired of Mr...
...How can I deal honestly with a mere alias...
...I will, I will...
...The trouble, I have come to believe, is that reformers keep inveighing against the larger evils...
...We don't have much of a selection here," he said...
...Okay...
...In the end one is reduced to mere grumpiness, a common mood these days of that unlucky personage, The Common Man...
...Listen," I barked to the assistant, "this is getting silly...
...The clerk talked him out of it...
...I'll get to it right after Christmas," he assured me, "as soon as I have room in my shop...
...Thomas, you have me at a disadvantage...
...VR stands for Vendor Resistance...
...I was contesting part of the bill...
...Thomas promised to reveal his real name in exchange for my promise to pay the bill in full...
...In sum, there appears to exist a well-planned conspiracy among vendors of all types to prevent the public from purchasing their wares and services...
...Such little annoyances tend to pile up and weigh heavily upon our spirits, in part, I suppose, because we have no satisfactory means of venting our exasperation...
...carping is counter-productive...
...For the record, I have never been able to talk my "representative" out of any bill, but once, a few years ago, I did register a victory of sorts...
...So far it works fine...
...Immediately I called Mr...
...One day, after we'd been arguing again, I said, "Mr...
...I called him in late January...
...I'm sure he would have gotten back to you if he thought it was important...
...In any case, these were the highlights of my initial findings on major minor consumer vexations...
...Silk, our electric hot water heater man, and reached his assistant, who promised to pass along the urgent message...
...Because if you are...
...The upshot was that Mr...
...Tell me your name...
...He kept calling me from Los Angeles, demanding that I pay up and threatening to put me on their baddy list...
...If you put the check in the mail today we can continue your phone service...
...These incorporeal employes are forever telephoning and dunning one in their best nom de voix manner...
...Maybe," answered the assistant, "you should take your business elsewhere...
...That's ridiculous," he said...
...Barney's, surely the largest men's store in New York and perhaps the country, makes a virtue of VR in its television commercials...
...From this incident I learned an important rule to follow when trying to overcome VR: The vendor is always right...
...I decided to get tough...
...Well, why is it that these phony names are never ethnic...
...It's not so much the sin of corporate vertical integration that gets our goat, heinous as that sin may be, as it is, say, the mysterious disappearance of everybody wearing a uniform when one is stumbling around the supermarket in search of the hollandaise sauce, or the mindless stutterings of a computer that refuses, month after month, to admit its billing error...
...You'll do much better at the Suburbanite or Ed Mitchell's . . ." "But I like this hat," pleaded my friend, fondly fingering a fedora...
...Okay, okay," I said...
...Does Mr...
...to be peevish...
...What this country needs, then, is not Naderism but natterism, i.e., a way of grumbling at and dealing with the everyday aggravations of consumership...
...the reluctant contractor...
...A stereo set, silent since last December, awaits the ministrations of Bob Miller, our local electronics expert...
...or the Factory Outlet Store, or Harold's Haberdashery, or . . ." My friend left, bloodied but bareheaded...
...In March his wife, theretofore cheerful and sweet-tempered, turned surly...
...VR puts us all on K. rations...
...Eighty-nine dollars and twenty cents...
...All of us are familiar with its manifestations: the waiter whose eye you can't catch...
...to grumble...
...also for Very Rife...
...I hang up...
...It docs no good to light ire with ire...
...You can count on it...
...your friendly nattering nabob—and have formed a task force of one to investigate all major minor consumer irritations...
...Any day now," he said...
...It was with Mr...
...You will be glad to hear that the entire story is eventually to be published in book form, the first of an endless series...
...Your bill is overdue, and unless you put a check in the...
...Thomas...
...I have your bill here and it seems you do owe us for the past month...
...The other day, precisely a decade after its 10-year guarantee took effect, our electric hot water heater sprang a leak...
...monopoly, corruption in high places, stuff like that—while the rest of us keep chafing beneath the smaller irritations...
...By mid-February he was no longer returning my calls...
...The most common major minor irritation among consumers, according to my researches, is a phenomenon called "VR," a social pox said to be as dangerous as VD and nearly as widespread...
...All I know is your alias...
...I don't think you understand...

Vol. 59 • September 1976 • No. 18


 
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