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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Post #1 - Why Letters? 8/25/2009

Why Letters?

When I was in high school, I worked as a lifeguard at an outdoor pool. I heard other lifeguards around me complaining about minimum wage. I crafted a letter, to a city official, citing our responsibilities and training. This letter served two purposes. First, it worked—we all received raises. Second, I learned that by making a convincing argument, I could influence a result.

Over the years, I’ve written to companies, politicians, famous people, and district courts. I’ve written to receive freebies, ticket reductions, late fees waived, product replacements, and autographs. I’ve written, at times, about real issues to stir change. I’ve written silly, off-the-wall letters, just to get an equally off-the-wall response. I find the process to be a stress release.

At times, my brother Jim, and I have teamed up, and that’s a powerful synergy.

My Mission Statement: My primary goal is to entertain. My secondary goal, if you need it, is to help you. If you have a situation where you need help with a letter, let me know. The only thing I ask is that you allow me to share the letter (anonymous) and response. This feeds right back into the first goal.

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3 comments:

  1. Jerry,

    I need you to write a letter for Lynette and I. We use Nestle Coffee mate creamer for our coffee. While the product sweetens the coffee to our liking, the packaging is crap-tacular. It is intended to look nice, which it does, but it fails in one of its other main functions, neat dispensing. Once shaken, if you poor it out, the creamer ends up all over the cap and down the side of the bottle. For packaging engineers, this disgusts us.

    If you want to send it in yourself, or craft us a letter to send in, your help is much appreciated.

    Sincerely.

    Dan and Lynette
    Frustrated Coffee Drinkers

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dan, I've been letting this pne perculate all day. I have it. I'll do it.

    ReplyDelete