I love these photographs by Paul Octavious. I think you’ll agree. I recommend buying his prints at his shop Just A Few Prints, too.

Awesome, huh?

When speaking to your customers, accommodate to their language. Don’t unnecessarily force your vocabulary on them. And don’t tell them no when you really mean yes.

Redbox is great. I rent movies from them a few times a month. I love the simplicity of the service: show up, pick a movie, swipe your card, and you’re done.

Recently, I had some trouble reserving a movie and so I had to call their customer service hotline. When I got a hold of a human, I was told that I reserved my movie at the wrong location. Bummer. I was in a hurry when I reserved it online, so I must not have selected the right location.

I wanted to pick up the movie at the Redbox I was standing in front of, so I asked if they could cancel the reservation at the other Redbox, and let me pick it up here. The nice lady on the phone said,

“I’m sorry, we can’t cancel your reservation… but we can credit your account.”

Huh? How is that not exactly what I asked for?

Redbox does a lot of things right, so this caught me off guard. What I heard was “sorry, you’re wrong, but we’ll do it anyways” and that’s what I remember the most from my experience. I got my movie, I wasn’t charged double, but what I remember is that weird moment when they told me no but really meant yes.

This could have been avoided if the lady on the phone replied with:

“Sure, we can do that. We can’t refund your money, but we will credit your account, and cancel the reservation at the other location.”

But instead I left scratching my head, confused as to why I was wrong but still got my way.

I miss posting interesting design, photography, and art that I find to this blog. I think you’ll be seeing more of these kinds of posts in the coming weeks.

Typically this is the kind of thing I might just post to Twitter and that’s it. But, for those who don’t follow me on Twitter but do follow this blog, please enjoy Ville Varumo’s photography. It’s fantastic.

Ville Varumo, born and raised in Finland. Started taking pictures as a teenager. Hasn’t done anything else since, and doesn’t want to. At the moment he resides and works in Helsinki, Finland.