Comprain comprain

There's always never a harm to lodge a complain. Any complaints at all. Even when you think the probability of getting a civil reply is close to zero. Sometimes, you just gotta bite the bullet and put it in writing. Comprain...comprain....that's what Silver Bullet just did with regards the recent insensitive reply from a certain Mr Bruce and my food poisoning incident. Silver Bullet gave an earful in a long and garang email the next day and received the following reply within the same day:

From: On Behalf Of ChefsXP
Sent: Friday, June 26, 2009 04:21 PM
Subject: Re: Order received by the restaurant

Dear XXX,
First of all, I am very sorry to hear your wife was ill last night. I myself had food poisoning many years back and it was NOT a pleasant experience. I have called the restaurant and specifically inquired about ingredients in the Spaghetti Kamut with spicy seafood, which I gather was the item your wife ate. They claim to use frozen ingredients and suggest it is not likely their food was tainted. That's not to say it wasn't their food that caused your wife's illness, only that we cannot know for sure. Could it have been something else? They are reletively new to Chefsxp and we have not had any complaints about them to date. Of course, I will monitor their sales for any other similar claims and take appropriate action should it come up again.

On the other matter: my appologies if my attempt at levity was misplaced. When I checked our system to compare times, I noted your order was called into the restaurant at 7:14. When I checked with the driver, he said he delivered it at about 8:15. And your email came in at about 8:04. I am checking this 7:35 time stamp...it doesn't jive with the way the system is meant to work.

Nevertheless, and considering even the possibility of tainted food, I would like to offer you a credit on your next food order with chefsxp.com as my way of saying sorry. 50% value of your last order (335baht incl VAT) will be credited to your account.

I hope we will see you again soon.
Bruce
08412xxxxx

My take on this? I don't understand why he thought that it's necessary to put in his personal experience from a few years ago into context. Who gives a crap? From the tone of his email, it did appear like the guy doesn't really wanna take the blame from the onset, too. But at least he was civil enough to apologize and offered a 50% off from our previous bill to be credited to the next. As such, as far as we are concerned, this case is closed. It also wasn't in our intention to boycott ChefsXP and it was only necessary to let them know what we thought of the intial email response. However, that being said, I'm pretty certain, that we definitely will not be ordering from Olivie Cafe. Make that E.V.E.R. A.G.A.I.N.

* garang = fierce in Malay