30 years ago while the three of us were growing up at our old place at Sembawang Hill Estate, we had a lot of Lego bricks. And we had huge tubs and boxes of those things. They must have cost our parents a fortune too, and a couple of the smaller pieces get lost easily. In fact, I recall one or two pieces turning up on occasion underneath the bed, shelves etc. years and long after we were done with those toys.
One great thing about Lego bricks though is that they’re pretty much unbreakable unless you’re out on a limb to destroy those little plastic pieces. So, they make for great hand-me-downs: from my elder brother to me, then from me to my younger brother.
Thing is, you don’t really read about Lego bricks in The Straits Times, so a letter like the below which showed up on Saturday’s forum page was an eye-opener…
More than 50 pieces missing from Lego set
AS A mother of two, I believe in fostering creativity and learning through play. And Lego fits my criteria when it comes to buying toys for my children. To date, we own five sets of Lego bricks.
One afternoon, when I sat down to play with my child with a new Lego set bought on Nov 11 last year, I realised that a brick was missing. After counting three times, I realised that more than 50 bricks were missing.
One week later, I called Crestar Education Group, where I had bought the set. The sales assistant I spoke to was not helpful and said the missing bricks could be due to packing errors at the factory.
She insisted that there was nothing she could do to help, and said: ‘You are just unlucky to have bought that box.’
(etc.)
… and followed immediately by wonder why the newspaper would have wanted to print such a letter to begin with. I mean, shouldn’t the lady had kept this to the distributor / shop…?
It does bring to mind what someone lamented on the forum page a few years ago: that some letters to The Straits Times really makes him bewildered on exactly what is the national significance or interest for some of the letters that see print.
but what i gathered is that at times, in order for your complaint to get through, the straits times forum route seems to have more effect.
filing complains at the distributor level and so just gets you that – it gets filed!
i get bewildered at some of the letters to the straits times too but i guess they must have tried and failed at all other avenues…
Yeah that was what someone pointed out in a follow-up letter years ago too: that responses from some companies are lethargic until it hits the forum page.:)
yah…one lecturer here wrote to the forum about her 02 (palm, i think) phone explaining along the way that she was thrown from pillar to post when she called their customer service. The response was pretty fast, the letter from the ang-mo representative appeared within 3 days, matters all sorted out!
the lego bricks letter is better than the one where the parent complains about his daughter’s birth cert no. right? the birth cert no. contains quite a few of the number ‘4’…