shopathome vindicated

if you don't remember my late night diatribe against shopathome, you should go back and read it ... be sure to track on the comments as well.

i'm pulling their response up here so it can be more readily identifiable by search engines ... i'm also critiquing what they said in-line here because i'm bratty and i think it's both interesting and funny in that 13-year-old-kid-yelling-from-the-back-of-the-class-room-kind-of-way.


So glad we stumbled across your blog. 


let's be honest here ... they didn't stumble across my 'blog because they wanted to know something like "what's the number for SONIC FM?" ... they ran across it because some tattle-tale search engine (or outside research company) said i was bangin' on their door.


nevertheless, they didn't have to respond, and they didn't have to be nice about it.




Sonic is awesome! 


let's see ... is this the right approach to take with someone who is completely obsessed with SONIC?  i wonder.




It seems, however, that the Sonic Restaurant Coupons posted on our site were not so awesome. And we’re super sorry about that. We have removed every last one of them. 


front line winner.  from this point they could say probably anything, including, "we're burning down flamingo SONIC in your honor."



While ShopAtHome.com offers some fabulous coupons, deals and incredible Cash Back rebate offers, we realize that some of the content provided by our community members is not quite up to snuff. 


exactly right behavior.  say i'm right and then reiterate about how much of a genius i am.  nothing is more convincing to the psychology of people than intermittent reinforcement.  okay, sure, they said i was right just one sentence ago, but i may have lost track, right?  i mean, i answered two TXT messages in the time in took me to write the last two sentences ... 


and notice too how we get a little ad in there.  nothing like giving a kid a shot after they get the sucker.



The Sonic “coupons” that were previously listed on our site were provided as part of our community contribution program. We encourage our site members to post deals that we may have missed in order to benefit our members. And, we offer an incentive for doing so. That’s good, right?


of course that's good.


what else are you selling?  i'm buyin'!




Well, only when the posts are actually valuable to our members. We make every effort to monitor these posts and ensure they provide valid offers. Unfortunately, sometimes we miss a few. 


the truth of the matter is probably something closer to "we make a small effort to monitor posts until some jackass points out something they consider to be a 'crime' to some goddamn search engine ... at that point we turn the bacon-eaters out with well-written responses and pray to a merciful god that we can get the tigers of the enemy to fall asleep."




And we’re sure sorry that our oversight resulted in your time being wasted and has left you with a bad taste in your mouth for ShopAtHome.com.


hey, i'd almost forgotten about that.  you bastards!  you wasted my time.


oh, that's right, i'm not mad any more.  and that bad taste?  it's probably just the cooking grease being a bit off ... i don't blame you guys.


We don’t always get it right, but we do always make it right. 


oh, oh, oh.  jetblue could stand to learn this lesson.  morgan johnston, are you watching what's going on here?  have you considered this approach?


you will.




Thank you so much for taking the time to write about us and for keeping us honest. We sure prefer to see positive posts, but we appreciate the opportunity to improve our site, our service and our deals!


Annette Nueske, Customer Service Manager


you'd think this would be the end and everything would be "just fine" in the land of yick-yack.


but you'd be wrong.


i got a follow-up to the versatran mailbox and they're gifting me a card to restaurant.com.  (i sincerely hope it's something they get in bulk or pay less-than-face-value for or some such.)


no, thank YOU, shopathome.


BUT WAIT!  THERE'S MORE!


FORGET ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE AND READ ON!


i asked the woman involved here, "annette nueske" if she was of the famous bacon nueskes.


she is.


let's back up.  


Q: what's this 'blog about?


A: food.


Q: what kind of food?


A: crappy fast food and spectacular drinks.  which i like.


having a shirt-tail nueske talk to me is like writing a transportation 'blog, complaining about some ghetto kid having his feet on the seats and getting an apology from the illegitimate great great great great great grandson of thomas jefferson, who also just happens to run customer response for the chicago transit authority.


i mean, this is a big big deal.


SONIC could do very very well by talking to a nueske or two and getting their bacon in line.  in fact, if SONIC apologized for their bacon the way shopathome apologizes for their crap users, the whole world could be snackin' on cheddar 'n' nueske's tots RIGHT NOW, man!


"annette" claims that they're not close to the bacon side of the family ... that's WORSE than being a hunt and not being close to the oil side of the family.  


what you need to do, "annette," is talk to every damn person you possibly can and see if you can't arrange a family reunion on some easy day ... say, christmas ... and add, "hey, it'll be so so GREAT to finally meet you ... and don't worry about the food, we'll bring a crappy oscar mayer ham, so you don't have to bother with anything."


and your relatives will just cronenberg.


you'll end up with so much delectable meat products that you'll have to be followed home by a battery of EMTs.


i swear to you, you eat your relatives' bacon and you'll quit shopathome in a (what could be ultimately be your last) heartbeat, just to go work with the 'cuz.


what's that?  it's too much for you?  fine.  adopt me.  i will gladly be a nueske and forgo the greatness that is in my immediate family tree.  i'll do it and we both can reap the benefit ...


... and i just know that the huge feast would all wash down well with lemon slushes.  (those, of course, would be on me.  well, sorta.)