Today, I received a phone call from a lady from Eastern Germany. I don’t mention this for discriminating reasons, however, it might be a worthwile to dicuss matters of difference in taste and aesthetics between the two part of Germany. But this is not my concern here at this point.
The lady was really irritated. First, I did not understand her concern. She talked about the lemon taste of the chewables, about whether there are other flavors availbale. I said: »No« and asked her whether she doesn’t like lemon. She said: »No, no, I have not even tried them.« I said: »Okay then, what can I do for you? How can I help you with your problem?« A problem I have to admit I hadn’t understood up this point of our conversation. I heard her inhale deeply on the other side, and then she said: »The package, the letters, it looks scratched, abraded and old. I don’t know, should it look like this?«
I had to smile and said: »Oh, yes, the package, it looks like this. This is our design.« She seemed relieved and said:»Thank you, I only wanted to know whether you are a serious company. Thank you for your politeness, I shall try the lemon chewables now, goog bye.«
»Good bye«, I said, »and have a nice weekend, and please, feel free to call us, if you have a problem.«
When I hung up the phone, I had to laugh. We put so much effort into our design, and sometimes you really hit and sometimes one can lie so far off the mark.
Critiques about aesthetics fill countless books, reading all of them won’t prevent us from collisions of this kind. Never mind, the lady was very polite and did not discriminate us.
