"cheap, nasty and tacky"

When you hear about these things, they're usually American and you never get the email sent to you direct. But this puppy landed in my inbox just a few days old (yeah, ok - that's ancient history in Internet Land) and is a customer service horror story blown sky high, thanks to the magic of email forwarding.

Here's the correspondence:

From: Steve Hausman
To: 'Events Team'
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2006 4:06 PM
Subject: RE: Quote #00002417; from The Great Marquee Company Ltd.

Hi Klaus

Paula and I went and viewed your marquee setup at Devonport the other weekend and unfortunately we did not like it.

So this is just to let you know we will not require your services on 7 April 2007.

Thanks for your assistance and we are sorry that it turned out this way although we are glad we looked at the marquee prior to booking as that would have been a huge disappointment.

Regards
Steve Hausman

Not that bad, right? And it happens all the time in business - you receive an enquiry, they shop around, you roll with the punches. I mean, fergoodnessake, I'm taking a bunch of RSVPs for an up-coming opening night at the moment and some people are just writing the show name and "NO" in the email subject line! Sheesh.
And yet I still haven't felt the need to respond like this:

From: Events Team
Sent: Wednesday, 15 November 2006 6:30 p..m.
To: Steve Hausman
Subject: Thank You From The Great Marquee Company

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your reply. Your wedding sounded cheap, nasty and tacky anyway, so we only ever considered you time wasters.

Our marquees are for upper class clients which unfortunately you are not. Why don't you stay within your class level and buy something from payless plastics instead.

Kindest Regards
Katrina
Office Manager
The Great Marquee Company

Now, is it just me, or do you also detect a touch of sarcasm in that sign off 'kindest regards'? Hmm??

I took great joy in scrolling up through 40 or so people this had travelled amongst to get to my office (each of them forwarding AT LEAST half a dozen people). Third person on the list to receive it (before noon the next day) was the editor of NZ Home & Entertaining, which may explain how the incident wound up in the papers so quickly.

You've simply got to check out The Great Marquee Company's website to read their post-emptive strike disclaimer statement. It mentions that the staff member has been fired, but doesn't reveal that she was the wife of the boss...! What a shocker.

No doubt she'll be on Dancing With The Stars within two months.