Free is not always good. Like when you get a free newspaper dumped on your lawn every Sunday that you don’t want and you have complained over and over again to said newspaper to stop delivery and THEY DON’T LISTEN AND KEEP DELIVERING THE DAMN THING!
Welcome to the Washington Examiner’s business model, which may be described as “shove it down the customer’s throat, because when they say no, they really mean yes.”
I thought I may be the only person with this problem, yet was amazed to find with a quick Google search that complaints about the Examiner ignoring people’s requests to stop delivery stretch from Prince William to Mount Vernon to Alexandria to Arlington to McLean and Fairfax City to DC to Chevy Chase to Annapolis. As a matter of fact, “Do not deliver” ordinances have been introduced specifically as a result of people’s frustration with the Examiner in Alexandria, Fairfax City and the state of MD, while the Arlington County Board has formally complained to the Examiner over this issue and has instructions on the County Manager’s webpage for residents with this problem.
The Examiner has managed the rare achievement of uniting the entire Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area — in anger against them. And yet, I continue to ask the Examiner to stop littering my lawn with their right wing rag and they still keep ignoring my requests.
It’s pretty obvious after all these years of complaints — the stories above ranging from 2005 to today — that this neglect of public desires and demands is deliberate, not an accidental behavior. I’m not sure I understand how making thousands of people hate your guts constitutes a rational business strategy, but here are some guesses:
– Maybe, since the Examiner is a right wing rag published by conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz, they assume that those complaining are all liberals, so they don’t care if they annoy them. (Which isn’t true — see this blog on the topic by a conservative.)
– Perhaps, to maintain their advertising creds, they are determined not to reduce their claimed circulation of 300,000 — even though God only knows how small a percentage of that number actually reads the dirty, soggy mess on their lawn.
– Could be that they’ve done the math and determined that altering their routes or training their delivery staff to meet customers’ demands would cost them more than they are losing through bad public relations.
– Or maybe they’re like the Lothario who thinks that if he throws himself on enough women, not caring how many times he gets slapped in the face, he’ll find one or two who actually like him.
Whatever the reason, I’m fed up — and I won’t give up until they leave me alone.
Have any of you had the same annoyance? Any solutions?
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