I love tea. I drink gallons of the stuff. Mostly green tea but lately a lot of those girly herbal mixes.

So a couple years back I discovered those electric teapots. Fill it full of water, set it on the base and it cooks your water up. Great invention. Given them away as gifts and have one at home and at the office.

Well, the office teapot gets a LOT of use and it finally died. I took it apart, couldn’t fix it. Realized I had to find a replacement for my favorite appliance. I was at World Market buying other stuff and found one. Clear glass, pretty classy unit, liked the idea of watching the water boil. Purchase made and took it home to make a pot of tea.

All was great till I took it out of the box and opened it. It smelled like swim fins inside. That weird chemical silicone/rubber smell. Not very appetizing and probably not adding a lot of important vitamins and minerals to my diet. I cooked some water. Same smell. Added baking soda, same smell. Added white vinegar (two drops deodorize a skunk!)… Same smell.

Sadly, I realized it was a badly designed product in my kitchen. I grabbed the receipt and put it away till I could make the trip back to World Market to return it. Because it’s out of my way, it was hard to get back to return it, but yesterday I did.

There was some confusion but eventually, some kid came out from the back and said I couldn’t return it because it didn’t have the box.

The box?

The box was fine. It did it’s job. But the product stunk.

I was pretty appalled. The box? What the hell? What does the box have to do with anything? They sold a lousy and possibly toxic product and I’m stuck with it forever because I didn’t bother to bring back the box.

I’ve spent literally hundreds if not thousands of dollars at World Market. I’ve bought furniture, wine, most of the dishes in my house, gifts and food at World Market. Now they’re going to dis me because I didn’t keep a box?

I was pretty disgusted. I just left the toxic teapot on the counter and walked away. My final purchase at World Market.

This is bad policy. And what happens when bad policy meets good communication.

Social Media. Blogs. Web site comments. Word of mouth. Bad JuJu.

We all have that power now.

It kinda reminds me of that 80′s movie Ragtime. The African American guy gets pushed around by the local morons in a fire department and he destroys the place. That was within his power to demand justice. But we dont need to go that far (but a lot of people do, look at that nutjob here in Austin that flew his plane into the IRS).

We have a new equalizer. The Web. When a corporate entity does us wrong, we can take to the Webwaves and tell the world. Corporations are aware of this and do everything they can to negate this. Good corporations allow comments on their web sites about the products they sell (a local Austin company helps this… Baazarvoice.com). That’s a great idea. When you see a company that openly allows their customers to honestly interact, you know you can deal with that company. You know they’ll be honest because everyone is looking.

As for the power we all have (and should use), I’m using it.

I’m blogging. I’ll Tweet. I’ll Facebook. I’ll tell my friends. Maybe I can cost World Market tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Maybe executives in charge of policy will start having bad dreams. Maybe their restaurant meals will come out bad and the waiter will say “Bummer dude, you already tasted it. We can’t sell it to someone else now…”

As a famous ad guy once said, “Great advertising is the fastest way to kill a bad product.”

I did a little research and found the CEO of World Market (the Web means there is no place to hide.) He’s making $800,000.00 a year with a bonus of double if he performs (doesn’t say what kind of performance he has to do though).

I also found a lot of negative press about World Market. Darest I share the links? Oh heck, why not.

http://www.rainforestrelief.org/Campaigns/Outdoor_Furniture/Cost_Plus.html

http://www.city-data.com/forum/cincinnati/549164-decline-fall-world-market.html

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Cost-Plus-RVW192382.htm

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2009/01/05/daily55.html

I connected to Barry Feld on Linkedin. He’s the CEO of World Market. You should too. Here’s the link

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/barry-feld/7/500/74a

Or email him at barry.feld@cpwm.com

I’ll tell him about his policies and the fact that they are selling products that nobody tested. Hell, they’ve probably got a dozen containers of the stinky little teapots shipped from some poison spewing factory in China. Something tells me he’s not using one in his office though.

Did I go too far with all this? Well, for one I was bored this morning. Woke up at 7AM on a Sunday morning and had nothing else to do. And I do have a strong sense of justice. We all know when we’ve been dissed and we all want justice. The web is a great place to demand it. It equalizes us all. It gives us all power to be heard.

So next time you get a bad policy tossed into your lap, or have a corporate decision wack you upside the head, make some noise. It’s your right and your responsibility to bring about justice.

Even if it’s for a stupid little $60 Toxic Teapot.

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Yes, for years I’ve been the guy that always said vegans should be shot. I always found it pretty irritating. People would make a big deal about having a label and make everyone around them cook something special at Thanksgiving.

What a pain.

And all too often they were wearing leather shoes.

Then I did a bunch of research on what happens once we stop eating meat.

OK. I was convinced. Then I gave up meat, fish, all dairy etc. And I have to say, it’s been pretty easy:
- It’s easy to order in restaurants. Instead of having to decide which of the delicious meals you can enjoy, you realize that if you’re really lucky, there is ONE thing you can eat. So you order that.
- It’s cheap. No lobster for $25 a pound. A pile of carrots costs a LOT less.
- You eat a lot more.
- You lose weight.
- You get to act snooty at restaurants and ask the waiter if they have any vegan approved meals… While you hide your new leather shoes under the table.

Try it. You might really like it. It’s been three weeks for me so far and I’m not lusting after a big steak yet. We’ll see.

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