Writing

Feed Software, technology, sysadmin war stories, and more.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Nitpicking a coupon to talk about customer service

Expired 00/00/11

While trying to figure out if this was actually a deal or not, I spotted something unusual about this coupon.

According to the fine print, this "offer expires: 00/00/11".

This presents a unique conundrum. Does that mean it never becomes valid? Or maybe it's already expired? Or does it last through the entire year -- three more weeks?

Of course, this is just me acting like a typical Silly Valley "language lawyering" engineer. Any reasonable individual would be able to handle this graciously if a customer presented it.

I mean, you wouldn't act like a cold and heartless robot and scare customers away on purpose, right? Valley companies never do that. Never.