I’d just like to offer a thought for those to whom it may apply.
Mother’s Day is almost here, and it would be a nice thing for folks who are privileged enough to have their mothers still alive to do something for them for Mother’s Day, such as send them flowers. It’s a good way to honor the woman who brought you into this world.
I’d also like to recommend that, if you choose to send flowers, you do not patronize 1-800-FLOWERS.
1-800-FLOWERS is an entity that has a remarkably noxious marketing practice. Frankly, their marketers need to be fired.
If you sign up with 1-800-FLOWERS they will blast constant e-mail offers to you until you tell them to stop. You do not have the option (unless I missed it) of unchecking a "Please send me e-mail offers" box when you register. From what I can tell, they enjoy blasting e-mails indiscriminately to everyone who has ever used their service until such time as the put-upon customer tells them to knock it off.
Thus their "Remove Me" page (which requires you to send a separate e-mail to get removed) states: "You received this email because you are a 1-800-FLOWERS.COM customer." It does not say "You received this email because you signed up for it."
Their marketers are also appalling insensitive.
Given the reality of human life, many of their customers are unfortunate enough to have lost their mothers. Some have lost them at tragically young ages. Some even lost them immediately before, on, or after Mother’s Day, making it doubly painful for them.
It is therefore viciously heartless to send e-spams, such as the one I received this morning, with headlines like:
Stop dilly-dallying! Mother’s Day Weekend is here!
This was apparently sent to individuals who have not taken them up on their REPEATED previous Mothers Day spams and thus, in the judgment of 1-800-FLOWERS, are "dilly-dallying" and thus delinquent in respect of their duty to honor their mothers.
It gets worse.
If you read the text of the spam, it develops the theme that you have done something wrong, harkening back to when your mom scolded you for "dilly-dallying" and then promising "Shop now (yes, now) [sic] and we’ll keep all this last minute shopping stuff just between us."
This is signed by someone named "Jim McCann," who should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.
1-800-FLOWERS thus has a marketing strategy of indiscriminately blasting out spam to their customers so that their customers can be insulted at what is for many a painful time of the year.
I therefore recommend that you give your business to someone other than 1-800-FLOWERS. For example, you might try
Also, if you are of a mind to, you might want to drop the folks at 1-800-FLOWERS a note concerning their marketing policy, particularly if you are a victim of it yourself.
HERE’S THE ADDRESS: custservice@reply.1800flowers.com
UPDATE: It appears that Jim McCann’s e-mail address is jmccann@1800flowers.com. You might want to carbon him, too.
