On Jun 15, 2005, at 14:05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jacquie) wrote:
One of the selling techniques was to push them as a money earner - any
socks made could be sold back to the company - if they were up to
quality. And therein lies the
rub!
Indeed...
[...] Now, Miss Moore was probably quite young
when she got this sock machine. All steamed up with youthful
enthusiasm, and
that sort of thing. One gets quite a clear picture of her, eh? 'It
doesn't
matter if the foot is an inch too short, just as long as the heel and
toe are done
correctly!' Hmm. No wonder 'Miss-Moore-the-sock-machine' didn't show
much
wear!
<VBG> Just shows that you're much more charitable of spirit than I
am... :)
My reading of the whole correspondence is that the company was fighting
- tooth and nail - against having to buy back the socks as promised;
once they've successfully peddled off the machines, what need did they
have for the product??? So they picked holes - some legitimate and some
not - in the whole cloth; postage must have been cheaper then (and we
know that labour cost of the secretaries was)
Complaining about tension is an easy way out, and they tried it first
with every correspondent... My bet would be that the pair referred to
in letter #1 and the pair mentioned in letter #2 was the same pair. Ms
Moore just tried to see if having a Mr instead of Miss on the header
would carry more weight, and it didn't; both replies mention bad
tension, and the second adds 1/2" lack of length in the foot... And
they saw through her subterfuge, because the letter #3, addressed to
Miss, refers to the pair returned to *her* (not to Mr, even though the
accompanying letter #2 was addressed to Mr) on Feb 10.
Letter #4, dated May 25, 192*7* - 15 months later than the previous one
- remarks on a "mend and hole in heel"... Quite obviously, it's the
same pair, only Ms Moore has enjoyed wearing it (poor tension
notwithstanding) for a winter and a half, before sending it to the firm
again. Not so much different than our saying "just a moment" and
leaving the phone off the hook, in exasperation, when a telemarketer
calls... I just hope she didn't wash the socks, and they were nice and
ripe... :)
My guess would be that, by the end of June (Letter #7), she sent them
a genuinely new pair, which she'd made faulty on purpose; the foot is
now a *whole inch* too short, and the closing of the toe is messed up
also - mistakes which did not happen in the earlier samples, when she's
had less experience with the machine.
She's pulling their, er... foot, IMO :) I expect, given the long and
dreary Canadian winters, she got her fun where she could find it.
[...] I like to think that maybe, just maybe, she had finally got the
hang of
it and managed to make socks good enough to send "in batches of twelve
pairs,
tied with tape" as it instructs you in the manual. And if she looked
after her
machine well and oiled it, perhaps that's why it doesn't look too worn.
To the second, I'd say "amen". To the first... I think she gave up on
them, and made lots and lots of - perfectly good - socks for herself
and family to enjoy :)
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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