Complaining is easier than complimenting. At least for one company and at least in my (recent) experience.

Yesterday morning was rainy — not raining necessarily, but moist and the ground was wet. I was also expecting a delivery of flour. I was keeping an eye out for the FedEx delivery truck while I went about my day for two reasons, the first was because I was hoping the delivery would arrive by noon since I needed to make some bread and was out of an ingredient that was in the order. The other reason was because of the rainy day. I worried that the delivery person would toss the package on the porch and the bottom of the package would become damp which could then seep into the flour.

The doorbell rang around 11:30 am and when I answered the door, saw my package leaning up against the house so only one edge touched the wet porch. I was so happy with the delivery I immediately called FedEx to provide positive feedback. I was on the phone for half an hour, with someone who at first didn’t understand that I was not complaining, but complimenting. When he seemed to understand this, he didn’t know what to do, so asked a supervisor. The supervisor was no help, so after some long waits on the phone the FedEx help person said they’d call me back “within an hour”.

The call never came and meanwhile I turned to Twitter where I followed FedEx’s help feed and posted the following:

“a delivery containing flour was delivered on a rainy day. The FedEx delivery person did everything right: rang the doorbell, placed package near the house and tilted so only a small edge touched the (not covered) porch. How can I make sure he knows I appreciate it?”

It’s 23 hours later and no one has replied but since my message they’ve replied to at lease 350 tweets — I got tired of counting.

I get it, but it’s frustrating when you want to provide positive feedback and there seems to be no way to do that.