This notice recently appeared in our laundry room. The words “pricing update” caught my eye. Darn, laundry’s going up, I thought. Better check this out.
Unfortunately, the text that follows the title is mainly promotional drivel. The cost will increase in “the next few weeks.” If our resident manager hadn’t kindly hand-written a posting date at the top of the notice, anyone back home after being away wouldn’t know when it went up. Short on useful information, the posting also shows a washing machine like the ones we had 10 years ago.
The new price? A “small increase to the overall cost of a wash and a dry.” Ok then, Coinamatic, is that your idea of “small” or mine? And will an increase apply to both washers and dryers?
When we still had coin-operated machines that accepted only quarters and loonies, price hikes had to be at least 25 cents for both washers and dryers, adding 50 cents to the “overall cost.” Now that we conveniently use cards instead of coins, might the increase be smaller? Ten cents “overall” sounds nice. I could handle a nickel more per wash/dry.
I doubt they’re planning such a small increase. But I digress from my main point: the notice’s shortcomings, as described above. Coinamatic, you can do better.
As I took the photo above, I imagined a conversation about it at the Coinamatic office in BC. Their head office is in Mississauga, Ontario, so the Richmond branch is probably small, with at most three staff. Mahmoud, the service technician, is out on repair calls most days.
Milton (branch manager): “Hey, Amira! Draft me a notice about a price increase for the Utopia Estates laundry room, ok?”
Amira (front desk admin, sales rep, dispatcher, overworked, frazzled): “Utopia, sure. How much and when do you need it?”
Milton: “Need it yesterday. Head office emailed me in December, and the increase kicks in next week.”
Amira: “They emailed you in December, and you’re telling me now!? Don’t you remember I’ve got to finish the annual report and weekly service reports for head office today?”
Milton: “Yeah, yeah, I forgot all about it. I get too many bloody emails. Just put in the usual stuff about the value of our services, and that the cost’s only going up a bit, blah, blah. Oh, and stick in a snapshot of a pretty woman happily doing laundry.”
Amira (after muttering under her breath for a minute): “Why don’t I just dig out the one you did in 2012? It has all that stuff in it already.”
Milton: “Good idea! Then you’ll have time to figure out why YouTube keeps crashing on my laptop before quittin’ time.”
Too bad Milton never gave any thought to what residents of Utopia Estates might like to know. And Amira, I’m rooting for you.
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