I realized I had a knack for the artfully-worded letter of complaint in 8th grade. At that point, my $$super hip English teacher$$ assigned our class the hard-hitting literary assignment of writing corporate business letters. I believe the goal was to teach us children how to format really intense business correspondence with large companies(...?). Since, you know, within a decade snail mail was clearly still going to be the #1 method of delivering messages to corporations, and people definitely would not just Tweet @ Starbucks to complain when they felt wronged about the horrific lack of tropical-flavored drink syrup options up in the barista bar.
But really, really. Really. The goal of this 8th grade English assignment was to get free shit from companies; via complaining. Education the American way!
Admittedly Abercrombie & Fitch declined to send our 8th grade class free terry cloth halter tops despite at least 10 different people in my class writing to flag the blatant deficit of free "EST. 1892"-branded garb in our lives, it is true.
All 14 year olds circa 2001 were dead inside without a proper "Property of A & F Ski Team" tube top, and yet Google Images fails to provide any proper images of the golden years of Abercrombie branding. THANKS FOR NOTHING, A&F.
However, I received a free-shit A+ when I wrote to famed CVS sparkly-hair-accessory supplier CONAIR. My complaint: my hair brushes kept breaking because my luscious locks were too thick and thus frequently ensnared brush heads, causing the handles to rip off. (Yes: this is a real problem that I still have. ~Strong Slavic Woman problemz~)
Around 1.5 months after mailing my letter—a large box arrived to our English classroom. It was from Conair! It was filled to the brim with brushes! Hip hip hooray for extra-intensely-formatted complaining!
And on that day my love affair with the well-worded written complaint was born. (It didn’t hurt that my Ukrainian-heritage has trained me to be dramatic; victimization-narrative-loving and litany-prone. **so much fun bein' Ukrainian.**)
Of course: With great complaining-power comes great complaining-responsibility, therefore I very rarely "deliver constructive feedback"--unless I have been truly wronged. I have spoken out in vitriolic prose ~5 times in 10 years, guys! But sometimes it just has to happen.
The most recent instance: In December, I went to Moma PS1 in Long Island City. The museum was great and the exhibition was a-ma-zing. Alas, my experience was so truly surreal & awful that I had to barrel straight into complaint letter/email/whatever-the-medium-matters-less-than-the-message-oookay? #5.
Subject line: "Guard Issue at PS1."
I present it below without further comment, after the jump.
----
Dear (Visitor Services Person)
I actively try to only provide positive feedback (if any) when it comes to any service-oriented experience, but my recent visit to Moma PS1 was exceptionally difficult and I feel inclined to flag the issue to you.
---
I entered PS1 very excited for the Mike Kelley exhibit. I walked into the museum with no problems, and travelled through 4 floors of the exhibit with no issues. A great exhibit!
However - upon entering the final gallery on the 4th floor, a guard told me I had to immediately exit the 4th floor and go to the basement to check my small tote bag. This was the 1st mention of this rule to me. (5 more to come.)
At first I was confused as 1) I had already walked through the entire museum with no guard previously mentioning this rule to me, and 2) I would have gladly checked my bag (I hated carrying it!) if I had known that there even was a bag check area. There was no signage or indication for me to check my bag when I walked in.
As I traveled to the basement to check my bag: I was reprimanded 5 more times by 5 guards:
1) When I walked through the main foyer area of the first floor trying to find the basement to check my bag, another guard stopped me to tell me that I have to check my bag. I respond that I had been told to do so ~45 seconds before, which is why I am headed to to the bag check area to do just that.
2) As I walked into the basement, another guard chased me into the hallway yelling at me to check my bag. I was literally 4 feet from the bag check area when this occurred. Since this was my third separate bag-related reprimand in around as many minutes, I decided to just leave the museum all together, since I had already seen all of the exhibit and was not thrilled about having somehow become Enemy of the Bag-Check State #1. I told the guard this, put on my coat and headed down the hallway in the basement towards the restroom.
3) As I walked into the restroom, another guard (evidently infuriated that I had walked past the basement bag check without checking my bag) screamed at me, "YOU. STOP. WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING? CHECK YOUR BAG." I turned to her and stated that I was just trying to use the basement restroom before exiting the museum. The guard gave me a dark look and walked away.
4) Exiting the restroom, I climbed back up to the first floor, and tried to exit the museum, but immediately had trouble finding my way out. As I walked past the gallery with "Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites" I heard a guard and a woman in a loud verbal altercation inside the gallery. Big surprise: Evidently he had confronted her about her bag size and they were yelling at each other about if she needed to check it or not - in the middle of the gallery. All of a sudden, the guard spied me outside of the gallery and began to yell at me to check my bag as well. At this point, I could tell that your museum has a serious bag-checking-messaging problem.
(Ed: Imagine a 300 pound security guard screaming at you about your bag amid a flurry of rainbow stuffed animals. That is my reality.)
5) At this point, frustrated and increasingly convinced that I might be part of some surreal bag-check-related performance art, I walked right past the gallery, looking furiously for the museum exit. Around ~10 feet from the gallery, ANOTHER guard sprinted towards me in the 1st floor hallway. As she ran, she pulled out her walkie talkie and spoke into it: "THAT GIRL. THAT GIRL IN THE DRESS. SHE STILL AIN'T CHECKED HER BAG." It was interesting to me that the guards had been radioing each other about me and my offending bag, and yet none of them had communicated to each other that (as I had clearly told three separate guards) I was trying to exit the museum.
I told the guard that I had been reprimanded six times in 20 minutes, and that I just wanted to exit the museum. I explicitly asked her: "Can you please direct me out of the museum? I would like to leave but I can't find my way out. Every time I try to exit I encounter another guard yelling at me about my bag vs. someone telling me how to get out"
Her response? "(Glare) I don't know... Go out the way you came."
--
Again, I was reprimanded for my bag 0 times in the 2 hours I was in the galleries - and yet in the 20 minutes in which I tried to use the restroom and exit I was reprimanded 6 times and also witnessed another guest involved in a very dramatic altercation re: bags in the middle of a gallery.
I am a huge art aficionado and have never had any problems in any museum I have visited in 10+ countries... The Mike Kelley exhibit was so great, the MOMA PS1 building is so beautiful, but the way I was treated is just unacceptable.
I have no idea why the bag-check rule can't be implemented when guests enter vs. at random and exceptionally aggressive intervals in the museum.
Please improve your visitor experience.
Liza D.
------
No comments:
Post a Comment