Customer Service

A few years back I decided to try Customer Service with Pampered Chef. I love the Pampered Chef products but usually don’t splurge on them except for the Baking Stones. There is no other product as superior as theirs. After breaking 4 or 5 of them over 25 or 30 years I decided to return a piece of it that would be replaced with a new one at no cost to me.

First, I had to contact a Pampered Chef company. I looked on the internet and there it was, “Pampered Chef”. Next I wrote an email to them and let them know this time I saved a piece of the broken product and it was large enough to identify it as Pampered Chef! They wrote me back. Score one for me! They said I had to identify the person (hostess) who sold me the product. Uh oh, I thought! Now that was difficult. The lights dimmed I thought so hard.

Oh, yes, now I remembered. It was from a co-worker. I called her. She said she had placed the hostess booklet in the break room for her niece. She contacted the niece and gave me her email address. I wrote her. She thought she had the book there for a co-worker or a neighbor of hers – gee, afterall it had been years! I wrote Pampered Chef and explained our office was large with many departments intertwined and employees leave their hostess books out on the break tables for orders. We never pay attention to who we are ordering from, we just write in our orders, and when the order comes in, the person collects from us, end of story. I had to have a name according to Pampered Chef. I gave them Linda’s name, her niece’s name and that was as far as I could go. Six months go by. I get an answer from Pampered Chef with a reference number. All I have to do is box up the piece of Baking Stone and use the reference number and they will make an exception.

“Chick, where is that little piece of baking stone I’ve been saving?” Chick responds, “What piece of baking stone? Oh you mean that broken piece I threw in the trash last Saturday”? Now you wonder why the letters on my license plate has GRRRR on it?

Franklin J. Fullerman

Christmas Eve 2007 you seemed so full of love and joy. What happened? Why were you so miserable you left us with only a memory and a few pictures to grieve over? Franklin, whatever it was I pray you are now walking in the heavenly hereafter and all your troubles have been left behind in the tent you lived in for 58 years.

You left so many good memories behind. In death a person is remembered for all the goodness they bestowed on their friends; family and strangers. In life, you were a complex person with many ideas and racing thoughts that somehow you were able to calm down and put in words. At times you were very comforting and other times you kept your friends at bay and their minds in a whirlwind wondering how to get through to you and how to find you. The real you was a great person clothed in a mental illness called bi-polar. The real you, was a loving friend; a loving adult who always found joy in children; a loving adult who found love in writing; socializing; walking; eating; football etc. You were well rounded and so talented and intelligent. The one word I always thought of when I thought of you was intelligence! You loved learning and teaching others.

Bi-polar was your enemy! It couldn't be controlled for long. It seeped into your brain and spilled over into your relationships. You couldn't contain it, no matter how hard you tried. The more you pushed it back the disease thrust forward like a shadow that always hovered over your relationships and thoughts. Now you are at peace and the shadow is gone. You are walking in fields of God’s light for He holds the sick in his heaven and makes them well again. We’ll see you again some day, but in the meantime, the earthly winter chill is cold.