Thursday, April 19, 2007

Follow-up

After I wrote the other day about my income tax filing debacle, I got an email from H&R Block's local product manager. He said that someone had forwarded my blog entry to him, and he apologized for the bad experience I had had, and said that they had already processed a refund of my filing fees back to my credit card.

It was quite a surprise! I hadn't really decided whether I was even going to pursue a refund. I just wasn't sure whether it was worth the hassle. To have it already be accomplished without my having to contact anyone directly was very welcome, and very surprising. And certainly great customer service.

I know that people read what I write, but I consciously try not to write specifically with that in mind, because if I start thinking about it too much, I become too self-conscious. I've been doing this so long that it's ingrained in me not to write personal things about other people, but I sometimes go too far, I think, when I'm talking about something "faceless," like a company that produces a product that I may not be fond of, or that doesn't work for me.

It's a good reminder that we don't write in a vacuum, particularly now, when blogs are so prevalent. I'm sure that companies search all the time for mentions of their names, and just like newspaper-clipping services, there are companies that provide that service for them.

It's worth remembering that even when we don't realize it, our words have power, and we should be mindful of it.

On a separate note, I gave Barbara Bretton permission to publish my creation myth, "Knitting the World," on Romancing the Yarn, but I forgot to go look and see if she had. She had -- a couple of weeks ago -- so I thought I'd link to it here.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the story "Knitting the World" - but mostly because I'm a third daughter and my eldest sister is so very like the First Daughter in your story. Having come through a time of caring for my Mom after surgery, I have a greater appreciation for her which was sort of mirrored in your story. So - not just about yarn, or knitting! Lovely stuff.

gillian said...

ha! that's funny, willa. it reminds me of the time where i totally trashed this book i had read in the amazon.com reviews. a couple of days later the author wrote me an e-mail saying that he had really worked hard on the book and he was sorry that i didn't like it. eeek! it was a humbling experience.