General Mills... An Experiment

Do you ever get a bad box of candy, or bag of chips? What about a box of cereal? Well, I have found that if you inform the parent company about the issue, in a calm, cool and collective manor they will reward you.

Take for example the time I got a bad box of JujyFruits. The candies had what at the time I thought could possibly be little pieces of glass stuck in them, and not just one of them, all of them, I checked. So, in my somewhat over dramatic fashion I wrote the manufacturer, Heide Candy Company about my concern that I could die from the little pieces of glass getting stuck in my throat because it somehow got mixed in with the little pieces of chewy goodness.

So, obviously I did not die and a couple weeks later Heide Candy Company sent me a thank you letter, an explination of the "glass" and like 5 boxes of Jujy's! Apparently sometimes the sugar crystallizes in the candy making process and hardens into the candy creating something similar to little pieces of "glass"! ha ha ha

Okay, so back to the experiment with General Mills... Last week I opened a new box of Oatmeal Raisin Crisp, Hearty Raisin. Everything seemed normal with the box, from the outside, but once I tasted the cereal I found out that was not the case. So, after a little investigating I found the contact information where you can email General Mills about consumer related issues. Below is a copy of the email, notice my calm, collective and cool ways ;)

My First Correspondence Email to General Mills:

Everything seemed normal about this unsuspecting box of Oatmeal Raisin Crisp, Hearty Raisin... until I ate a bite of it. Me and my mom have been eating oatmeal raisin crisp for as long as I can remember, it's like a staple in the kitchen pantry. That's why we were so surprised that this box was so bad. The crunchy flakes were yummy but the raisins were not so yummy. The raisins must be like ancient or bad. They stuck to our teeth and we had to spit them out, eew tmi. Anyways, normally we love the stuff, not this time though. Just thought y'all should know, maybe there was a mix-up in the raisin factory...

General Mills Response:

Thank you for contacting us.

Your message is being forwarded to a Consumer Services Representative who will review your inquiry and reply. Please be assured that we will respond to you as quickly as we can.

General Mills Consumer Services

Please do not reply to this mailbox. This address is not monitored for incoming mail.

TO BE CONTINUED...

5/17/10

wow, General Mills get's an A++ in the customer service department... check out their super fast response email:

Dear Ms. Stoffer:

Thank you for contacting us regarding your disappointment with Oatmeal Crisp hearty raisin cereal. As a responsible manufacturer, we strive to produce high quality products and are sorry your experience did not meet the standards we expect from our products.

We are sending you some certificates for compensation. Please allow up to 10 business days to receive the certificates.

We appreciate that you have shared your concerns and hope you continue to use and enjoy our products.

Sincerely,

Tracy Tanner

Consumer Services

putting my pants on...

around 7 am this morning I stopped at Starbucks on my way to work/Kens 5 TV station for a live spot on their AM news show Great Day SA. I usually make coffee but due to the early hour, I thought I'd just make a "quick" stop at Starbucks. So, as I pull into the overcrowded strip-center parking lot I have to swerve to barely miss an oncoming SUV with some stupid-ass crazy Volvo driving soccer mom yelling at her kids.

Well, I manage to get parked, safely, walk in and am shocked to see the line is almost to the fucking door and is full of like a million little twelve year-old kids in their catholic school uniforms. Isn't there like an age limit on who can legally drink coffee? Do 12 year-old hyperactive children who probably are already drugged up on adderall and/or ritalin really need caffeine? Seriously, I am supposed to be somewhere in like 30 minutes and these little fucks are going to take forever ordering their double shot vanilla caramel chocolate latte machiatos or whatever the fuck it is a 12 year old at Starbucks at 7 am drinks... ugh!

So, as I'm waiting in this ridiculous line my phone rings. Most of my contacts have customized ring tones, and this particular one happened to be "A Whole New World..." AKA work. Our office isn't even open, so I'm like who could be calling me??? So, as if this morning couldn't get any better (that's supposed to be sarcasm), I get a phone call from one of our most "special" employees...

Here's how the phone call goes:

"Special Employee": uuuhhh um uuhhh Hellooo is is the this is this uh Meg?

Meg: (I'm thinking: no you fucking moron, it's your mom) Yes, insert special employee's name, this is Meg.

"S.E.": Uhhh well this this is uhhh ummm insert special employee's name, and I uuhhh have ummm a qu-qu-question.

Meg: (I'm thinking: no shit Sherlock, why else would you be calling me at 7 am?) yes, insert special employee's name, what do you need?

"S.E.": Well, uhh la-la-last night I uh had to uh dr-dr-drive uh my uh significant oth-oth-others c-c-ccccar on an er-er-errand and uh well I uhh p-p-put um her uh ke-ke-keys uhh in my uhhh po-po-pockettt.

Well uh I uhh well I was pu-pu-putting on my pants and my boo-boots this morning and I uhh forgot that I uh had the keys in them. So I uhh need to ummm uhh well uhh to uh clock-out and ummm take her um the keys so um she can uhhh drive to uh work.

Meg: ok, insert special employee's name, just do whatever you need to do and please don't forget to clock out. Click, as in I hang up before he spews out anymore diarrhea of the mouth.


So, I wish that these blogs could be more interactive, because I would really love to know what others thought of "Special Employee's" rantings. Here are my thoughts:

A. Technically you don't have to be at work until 8 am, so go deal with it before then! I mean fuck it was only like 7 am, so just go, take her the keys, get back within the hour and don't bother me with a 10 minute long phone call to see if it is ok if you clock out and leave!

B. Why didn't you ask your direct supervisor? Oh wait, that's because he's on vacation for like the 5th time this year.

C. I really could have gone the rest of my life without knowing how you put your pants or boots on in the morning. Thank you for creating that disturbing visual image that I still have not managed to get out of my head.

Moral of the story- when you see a long line at Starbucks, full of catholic uniform-clad school kids... turn around and get back in the car and be sure that you don't answer the phone if it rings to the song "A Whole New World"... you are pretty much guaranteed to be annoyed otherwise.