A 74¢ check arrived in the mail last week from Bank of America.
You remember B of A – the HUGEST holding company on Planet Earth. Borrowed 58 gazillion dollars from the U.S. taxpayer to keep from going belly up a year ago.
Pays its top execs $25.75 a week, plus stock options valued at, oh, $42.7 million annually, give or take a decimal point or two.
B of A sent a cashier’s check for “NO DOLLARS SEVENTY-FOUR CENTS.” Seriously – would you ever pull out a checkbook to belly up 74¢ ’cause you only had $3.24 in your pocket for a $4 draught of Schlitz?
Now, the details aren’t interesting: Suffice to say, B of A inexplicably delayed payment on an insurance claim for three weeks or so ... (but apparently only about 17 hours longer than the bank deemed necessary – interest would have amounted to a little over a buck a day.
Already a month late (in my book), it took ’em six weeks more to write and mail the 74¢ check. Truth be known, nobody here much cared about getting the 74¢ to begin with, but it apparently allowed B of A to close its books on the matter.
The incident offers several telling lessons to the Writer:
• First, meet your deadlines, or there are penalties to be paid (in this case, 74¢ plus a perception of stultifying incompetence).
• Don’t invest in a 42¢ stamp, $2.12 of somebody’s work day, 19¢ worth of perforated check stock, a 9¢ envelope and $24.34 of someone else’s much more valuable time – all just to chip your two cents worth into the general discourse.
• Most importantly, recognize that Joe Sixpack revels at turning a blind eye to the multi-billion-dollar ineptitude bankrupting international coffers ... but he’ll spring from his couch ranting at the idiocy of a 74¢ foible he’s got stuck in his craw.
B of A’s 74 pennies were meager redress for a wound already healed ... scarred, but healed nonetheless. The obsequious proffer of a filching manservant. A nickel tip in a tin ash tray. A condescending nod, regurgitating all the inconvenience, aggravation and suspicion.
If what you have to communicate isn’t enough to put a digit to the left of the decimal point, keep it to yourself.
On the other hand, if you contrive to make it personal, the most trivial of communications can carry a stinging wallop.
Good writing is personal. Bad writing – no matter how grandiloquent – ain’t worth a buck.
Next: PUN-ditry
You remember B of A – the HUGEST holding company on Planet Earth. Borrowed 58 gazillion dollars from the U.S. taxpayer to keep from going belly up a year ago.
Pays its top execs $25.75 a week, plus stock options valued at, oh, $42.7 million annually, give or take a decimal point or two.
B of A sent a cashier’s check for “NO DOLLARS SEVENTY-FOUR CENTS.” Seriously – would you ever pull out a checkbook to belly up 74¢ ’cause you only had $3.24 in your pocket for a $4 draught of Schlitz?
Now, the details aren’t interesting: Suffice to say, B of A inexplicably delayed payment on an insurance claim for three weeks or so ... (but apparently only about 17 hours longer than the bank deemed necessary – interest would have amounted to a little over a buck a day.
Already a month late (in my book), it took ’em six weeks more to write and mail the 74¢ check. Truth be known, nobody here much cared about getting the 74¢ to begin with, but it apparently allowed B of A to close its books on the matter.
The incident offers several telling lessons to the Writer:
• First, meet your deadlines, or there are penalties to be paid (in this case, 74¢ plus a perception of stultifying incompetence).
• Don’t invest in a 42¢ stamp, $2.12 of somebody’s work day, 19¢ worth of perforated check stock, a 9¢ envelope and $24.34 of someone else’s much more valuable time – all just to chip your two cents worth into the general discourse.
• Most importantly, recognize that Joe Sixpack revels at turning a blind eye to the multi-billion-dollar ineptitude bankrupting international coffers ... but he’ll spring from his couch ranting at the idiocy of a 74¢ foible he’s got stuck in his craw.
B of A’s 74 pennies were meager redress for a wound already healed ... scarred, but healed nonetheless. The obsequious proffer of a filching manservant. A nickel tip in a tin ash tray. A condescending nod, regurgitating all the inconvenience, aggravation and suspicion.
If what you have to communicate isn’t enough to put a digit to the left of the decimal point, keep it to yourself.
On the other hand, if you contrive to make it personal, the most trivial of communications can carry a stinging wallop.
Good writing is personal. Bad writing – no matter how grandiloquent – ain’t worth a buck.
Next: PUN-ditry
[For personal writing assistance, go to www.fixadocument.com]
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