>> Yea, it's long. Nobody's making you read it though, so proceed only if you want to.
Okay, so allow me to start by saying that I really only created this account to lurk. Why? See sig, focusing on the "reclusive" part and the "no social life" part (yes, I'm pathetic enough that forums count as social interactions)**.
So I suppose I always imagined that one day I would make my big debut on the
Hi, I'm New page and then throw myself into the discussions that I read so avidly and become one of the regulars around here... but I've just decided that can wait, for there is something that I must share with you all now.
You see, I've gotten very annoyed over the past couple of years reading thread after thread of "OMFG!!! MY SH1RT ISNT HEERE YET AFTER 2 WEEKZZZZZ!!!1!" (exaggerated to emphasize level of annoyance). I guess you could say I finally snapped when I read this thread, or perhaps it just had everything to do with my late shirt finally arriving a couple of weeks ago. Nonetheless, I am here to defend Jeph and Christi and share my story with you, mainly so you'll all stop freaking out about all of this (not that I think that will actually happen, but still, the story must be told). You see, I had a longer delay in shirt delivery than any of those in the stories I've read here, but really, I didn't freak out about it. Sure, I went through a handful of angry phases about it all, and I sent a couple e-mails that were a bit more abrasive than I would prefer them to have been (sorry, guys!), but overall, I kept my cool. In my efforts to get the shirt I had ordered, I also tried looking on AIM but never managed to be online at the same time as Christi (probably mostly my fault, as I'm not a big AIM fan and wasn't really checking that often), and I even sent a PM. Well, I never heard back from the PM, and I only got a reply on a couple of the e-mails, but the responses that I did get were never negative or angry or anything. When I did get responses, they were apologetic for the delay and assured me that the problem would be taken care of. There was no interrogation questioning the validity of my claim of not receiving the product, no telling me to be quiet and just wait longer, and no indication that I was just one more unimportant customer.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that when I
was in communication with Christi, I was convinced that I was really not being ignored or forgotten. I really think that they just get too much volume to keep track of personally communicating with every person who sends an e-mail about merch. I mean, look at how many people post on these forums complaining about "late" merch that is
still within the timeframe specified for the expected delivery. I know a lot of people have legitimate claims, such as things that really are late or the issue of changing an address, but there are a lot of people needlessly freaking out who probably help to fill the qcmerch inbox, therefore make it harder for ANY of us to get a response. When I was waiting for my shirt, I waited quite a while after it could start to be considered "late" (or at least I think I did... It was kind of a while ago, so let's just go with "I hope I did...") before complaining about missing merch. Then, there was no flooding of the inbox, just an e-mail every couple months (and like I said, a few of them were a bit angry, but hey, I'm not here to say I'm perfect... because I'm not, not even close). I never felt the need to come freak out about it on the forum and subject all of the other readers in the community to my personal complaints.
So maybe I did things wrong; maybe I would've gotten my merchandise earlier if I had been more aggressive about it. I have no regrets though. See, after a while, you just come to accept that it will never arrive. You remember to send that e-mail every few months just because it can't hurt to do it, but you don't expect anything of it. The $20 that you spent is ancient history, and while you're not happy to have lost it, you really don't miss it anymore and can at least take comfort in knowing that you did support the artist of a webcomic that you still love, even after all this time, even after feeling a bit betrayed. Then, out of nowhere, a package arrives... a squishy package; you are confused because you don't remember ordering anything recently. Perhaps the surprise is even greater because in the excitement of actually getting something thicker than paper in the mail, you forget to check the return address. You open it up, and there it is---the now epic shirt. At this point, since that money feels like ancient history, it's just like a free shirt! It's like it's your birthday, and a long lost friend that you haven't heard from in ages (but who you may still vaguely remember owes you $20) has sent you a gift! It makes you love the shirt even more than you would have if it had been delivered on time.
That's when you remember that the e-mails you got back, when you did get responses, were always friendly and trying to be helpful. You remember that it really is just two people running this show and that people are fallible. You recall the shear volume of people complaining on the
forums about merch and suddenly shudder at the thought of what the
e-mail inbox must look like; suddenly you're not really angry at all about not getting a response every time and thankful if you even got one! Moral of the story is, there are too many people crying wolf, so to speak. If everybody complains about missing merch before it's really an issue, it just makes it harder for everyone, and the people with bigger merch issues, like severe delays or address changes, might not get noticed. Have some patience, and remember that you're dealing with individuals, not a huge anonymous corporation that you can yell at all you want and that has a bunch of drones to take care of all of the busywork like mailing packages. Yes, there are issues, and no it's not perfect, but just know that going into it. Stop thinking about the "only run by two people" issue as a bad thing. If your order never arrived from a large corporation, you call, sit on hold, talk to million people who transfer you all over the place, and end up feeling hopeless and knowing that you're just a number, your order doesn't matter, and it will probably never arrive. If you get through to Jeph and Christi, they actually treat you like a person and if they receive your message, they try to deal with the issue, no matter how long it's been. You're somebody here, and that should mean something.
So really, the main issue is the communication, I guess. I've been pretty hard on the complaining customers here, so I guess it's only fair to throw some constructive criticism at Jeph and Christi too now. If there is a known delay, a courtesy e-mail would be really nice. Also, a lot of people have issues trying to contact you and get responses, and the longer the issue stands, the more frustrating that becomes. Perhaps you should have more than one e-mail address to deal with merch questions, one for general questions, one for emergency issues (ie. address changes, uhh... yea that's all I can think of for emergency merch issues), and maybe a couple that are specific to how late an item is. That would really help to make sure that the biggest issues are known and dealt with first. Hey, you could even have one address that's just for orders up to 4 weeks late and just NEVER READ IT!!!
So yea, overall, just stop complaining so much, everyone. You're not being ignored, at least not intentionally. And if everyone would calm down, it would make it a helluva lot easier to make yourself heard when you have a REAL issue.
Oh, and by the way, in case you're curious, I waited almost exactly two years for my shirt. That's right.
TWO YEARS!! I ordered it near the end of June of 2006, and it arrived a couple weeks ago. And you know what? I'm thrilled about to have it, and I'm about to go order something else.
Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to crawl back into my shadow and go back to lurking until I decide to properly introduce myself on the "Hi, I'm New" page and actually go talk about the comic. Toodles.
** I use parentheses way too much. You have been warned. Don't criticize; I just like them.
