my food site is weber_cam

August 16, 2008

The persuasion of a thoughtfully composed message

I like the concept of Freecycle. Have something cluttering up your digs and want it hauled off? Just post an offer on the Yahoo! group and someone will want it. Promise.

Used tires? Hideous 400 lb, concrete, garden, cherub fountain? Gone. I've done it.

However, the lure of free stuff is tough to resist. Many offers proceed thusly: receive 50 interested inquiries in less than a few minutes, busily begin working through the list and try to line up someone to pick up the item. It is frustrating and frequently ends in no-shows and people who leave town after 10 email volleys. arrrgh.

I recently purchased dog food that didn't agree with the Queen, our dog Suze. I had a bunch leftover. Not cheap either. Perfectly packaged (a can) to give away with no worries. This time I decided to try to make it a tidier and more convenient transaction. I stated in the offer I would only read requests that were legible and that were composed of full sentences - capitalization, punctuation - the works. My grammar is pretty bad, so it might sound like a hypocritical request, but I didn't want a text message. I said I interpret that kind of message as careless and not serious about the transaction. For example, I would not consider the person who wrote
i want the fud 4 my hungri dog as i can use it dog for my --thx ;) **&^ heehee
I thought I'd be flamed. Emails poured in agreeing with my sentiment. The food was taken from my driveway within 30 minutes of the post to the first responder. A Freecycle first.

3 comments:

Miss Lexiloo said...

That. is. awesome!

Tho I mst say im srprsd u didnt get flmd. Srsly.

Nancy said...

Crud...there's no freecycle in MN. I have a giant heavy picture window with a bad seal I need to get rid of. Tht sux!

Dave said...

Hey Nancy, Search for a local "franchise" at Freecycle.org. There's a bunch in MN.
4 sr.