Marriage 210, Lecture 902: Life with an idealist

How SH handles a customer service issue:

I'm sorry to be so blunt*, but this is a major disappointment to me.

*He thinks he is such a tough guy because he is an engineering Terminator.

Then he tells the BMW magazine he will have to take his business elsewhere. That will show them.

I suggested he might have wanted to

1. Tell them exactly what he wanted (a refund on the ad that ran without the photo, a free ad in January, them to pay for an ad to run elsewhere so we can sell the car that is already starting to rust before winter, a refund of his membership dues for the next two years)

2. Provide documentation of the correspondence about the issue over the past two months ("But they should look it up!" "Why?" "Because IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO!" "Yeah well they don't care." "Oh you think it's all about money." "It is.")

3. Trust my experience in getting this kind of issue resolved even when it's MY OWN FAULT (replacing the broken Cuisinart lid, the melted KitchenAid bowl, the fried HP mouse, the expired AMC passes, etc, etc, etc).