Reply #9: It wasn't just the job made it strange ...

[Philostopher]

but the whole circumstance. I once had a job for a 'bonus points' program that was subcontracted to a major upscale hotel chain. This was fifteen years ago, before everybody was handling their own bonus point programs. I was, officially, an international correspondence clerk. That meant I read, researched and responded to people who frequently didn't write very well in English, who often were practicing on us, but who would practically have a tantrum if we seemed not to understand what they wrote. Add to that we were making just barely above minimum wage, so very few of us ever had even seen the lobby of the hotel chain that employed us. We had no translator on staff, but usually the letters were fairly clear.

One of our customers was a German struggling stage actor who developed a crush on the woman whose name went on all the letters (we all wrote them, but they were stamped or signed, depending on the nature of the letter, with her name for consistency). He used to send her promotional packets with photos and posters from his portfolio.

Once, we also had a case of a gay British couple who objected to the fact that only heterosexual, married people could stay in the room as a couple and collect bonus points on both people's bills. Usually, we didn't ask -- but if the hotel made an issue of it, as this one had, the program didn't automatically put the points on the account.

His letter was beautifully written. More importantly, he spent thousands of dollars a year in the chain's properties and threatened to stop and to tell all his friends to stop.

To the chain's credit, they changed their policy -- and elected not to argue it again, in the future. It wasn't worth the money they'd lose making a point, you see. It would have cost them more to institutionalize a policy that appeared to be moralizing than simply to quietly go ahead and credit the points to any room with a couple whose charges wound up on the same bill, if they asked.

Other than the minister's wife in my department, who used to get upset that we used 'Ms.' instead lf 'Mrs.' on all letters that were obviously to women, everybody else was happy about that decision.