Don't you hate being right

It was another Red  Letter Day today when my Manager pinged me to let me know how much bonus I was to be awarded after a hard year of pushing rocks uphill. I was pleasantly surprised and the news couldn't have come at a better time as one of my teeth is starting to ache, my Land Rover needs some love and attention and ...

... as predicted last Thursday, my suspicions about Canon's customer service were proved right today when Canon UK confirmed that they had absolutely no interest in the faulty camera I bought in America and that I should bugger off and annoy their US colleagues. After some choice invective I decided to attempt this and found that Canon's US web-sites will only allow US residents to raise Service Requests and that non-residents should contact their local Canon Group ...

... Urghh! This was starting to go round in circles. My local Canon Group had already expressed a complete lack of interest and when I phoned again the Customer Service Representative could not grasp the issue and suggested that I use "snail mail" to link up with the US to open my warranty claim. My remonstrations that I could not be the first person to have this issue and the fact that their web applications would not allow me to open a US warranty claim fell on deaf ears and they simply gave an insincere apology and advised that they would be more than happy to fix the camera if I was prepared to pay.

By now I was fucking fuming. Rather than ruin my evening I sat down and wrote a long, detailed and in some places illustrated e-mail of complaint that pointed out the deficiencies of their Global Operating model, their lack lustre Customer Service and their crappy product quality. I hit send safe in the knowledge that someone at Canon was going to wince when they opened that one.

To be fair, the legitimate punishment for poor customer service should be to be flayed and then dipped in a warm salt bath while the recipient of the poor service watches and occasionally shoots vinegar at you from a Super Soaker water pistol.... Too strong?