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At my job I (Ben) often get to handle customer complaints. Whether I’m any good at it may best be answered by those doing the complaining. As with all things, you get better with practice. So this little Saturday morning homily is not a seminar from an expert, just observations from someone on the learning curve.

First, it’s important to distinguish exactly which kind of complaint you’re dealing with here. I think there are two main categories: Justified and Unjustified.

Justified scenario: You have provided poor service. You or someone you manage has slighted the customer through rudeness, oversight or incompetence. Examples: You overcharge someone or leave an item out of their bag. You screw up their food order. You insult their personal appearance, their taste in literature or their appalling lack of fashion sense. You serve them undercooked wings and give them food poisoning and hire Jeremy Piven as a spokesperson. Etc.

Unjustified scenario: You have provided reasonable, maybe even exemplary, service but it is unequal to the customer’s desires (however unreasonable those may be). You moved mountains but didn’t walk on water. You did not have the book or CD or piece of clothing she wanted. You did not make a plane arrive on time. You did not not cook a meal that was as tasty as the one he had years before and has committed to memory with incomparable nostalgia. You did not prevent a hundred other people from rearranging their schedules so as to not impede the pre-made plans of your disgruntled customer’s Saturday. You did not murder in cold blood the person in the Toyota Camry who stole your customer’s spot even when he clearly saw it first and had his turn signal on to indicate this fact. You are incapable of making someone’s spouse finally forgive her or father love him more. You cannot personally bestow unto him or her the peace that passeth all understanding. Etc.

Both scenarios require the same basics in the tool kit: The ability to listen, empathize, apologize, make restitution. Every customer, regardless of scenario, wants to be heard. But from henceforth, I will address only the second category of complaint, the Unjustified.

The Unjustified Complaint always results from the customer not getting what she wanted. The sooner you acknowledge this and apologize for this fact ( “I realize you wanted x, and I’m sorry we couldn’t deliver x for you”), the sooner you arrive at the fork in the road. The customer will either be disarmed by you cutting to the chase (and may even come to her senses and say, “You’re right, my complaining is pointless”), or — more likely — she will redouble her efforts because you are trying, sincerely, to be direct, kind and understanding. Most angry customers hate this.

“If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,” say the Proverbs. “In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” That last part sounds a bit like retribution, but Eugene Peterson translates it a little differently: “Your generosity will surprise him with goodness.”

This is really the only way I know how to deal with an Unjustified Customer Complaint. The customer has pain to dispense, and you give him back kindness.

This is of course the hardest path to take. You (I) want an eye for an eye. It doesn’t take long in retail to wonder if you have a bull’s-eye pinned to your chest. Even if you manage to avoid repaying an unkind customer with unkindness, you still have the problem of inheriting it. The Unjustified customers will win this battle nine times out of ten. They will resort to name-calling. They will spit bile and condescension. They will say, to use one example from my week, “I will do everything possible to take my business away from a store run by a bunch of flippin’ morons.” (Use your creativity to substitute other words for “flippin’.”)

What next? If you give into temptation, you will unload this venom on someone else. Maybe someone you manage, maybe someone you love. Then everyone’s miserable.

To borrow a spiritual analogy, it’s part of what Christians believe about Jesus dying on the cross. When handed injustice and persecution, Jesus took it but didn’t give it back. You don’t even have to believe that the symbolic weight of that injustice is “sin” or subscribe to the idea of atonement to agree with the basic transaction there. Something stopped at Jesus and went no further.

An Unjustified Customer Complaint isn’t persecution (or, obviously, crucifixion), but it’s the meager spiritual offering I could make this week, and I tried to receive it without passing it on. I resisted saying to that customer, “Well, your mom is a flippin’ moron. Sha-blam!” But just barely. You start where you are.

Enough preposterous spiritual/retail analogies for a Saturday. Especially a day off.

from The Huffington Post:

Hold the sushi and the soy lattes. Jeremy Piven, who recently recovered from a long battle with mercury poisoning, claims that he quit drinking soy milk because it caused confusion over his growing breasts.

“I was the guy that dabbled in soy milk, but now I’ve found out soy milk has enough estrogen for me to grow breasts,” he told STV. “I had to put the soy milk down. It was a very confusing time.”

Very confusing indeed.

Jeremy Piven: The gift that keeps on giving.

- Christine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), on “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” after being charged for her in-flight entertainment headphones.

(h/t EW)

It’s a great day for aspiring but beleaguered theater actors everywhere. (h/t Matthew Leathers)

In the meantime, Mr. Piven is still taking questions from Voreblog readers.

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(Jeremy Piven. Martin Luther King Jr. Yup, they belong in the same sentence.)

SWM looking for morally bankrupt company. Let’s talk!

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Time magazine invited Jeremy Piven to its weekly Ten Questions forum. Regrettably, readers lobbed softballs. ( “Of all the different looks you’ve had on film, which hairstyle have you liked the best?” Seriously, Christian Zafiroglu of New Castle, Delaware?)

What we would have asked: “Why have you morally bankrupted yourself as a spokesman for such heinous, soulless companies as Buffalo Wild Wings and Cincinnati Bell?”

And did anyone actually see The Goods?

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(Mike LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle did. He didn’t like it.)

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UPDATE!: We have stumbled across Piven Online News, a fellow WordPress blog devoted exclusively to all things Jeremy Piven. We apparently missed celebrating Piven’s birthday (July 26), but PON didn’t. (See “News Coverage of JP’s BDay.”)

UPDATE 2!: UPDATE 1! was not a joke.

UPDATE 3!: What would be more pathetic: Starting a blog devoted to Jeremy Piven or a blog devoted to the Utah Jazz? This is not a rhetorical question.

UPDATE4!: Piven himself has condescended to answer your questions! Send them now!

UPDATE5!: Is Jeremy Piven the biggest jerk in showbiz? (And does he wear hair plugs?) Page Six tells all!

You may not know this about the Vores, but both, like the Bushes, are presidential. Ben was president of his high-school 4-H Crossbow Team. Duties included killin’, slayin’, slaughterin’, and guttin’. Erin was president of her class. This meant she had the distinct honor of decorating for school dances, judging the battle of the bands, and issuing line item vetoes on pork barrel spending bills proposed by the superintendent.

This past Saturday, Erin celebrated her ten year high school reunion, which she planned with the help of friends. It was way more fun than she hoped to have. In fact, it made the Vore’s top ten list of good times for 2008. (Full list to be published later this month.) Generally speaking, the women got prettier and the men got bloatier.* Below are some highlights.    

The magic happened at the 20th Century Theater in Oakley.

The Lady Planners. They earned those nametags.

If you ever see this group of hooligans crash your party, lock the doors and call the police.

Brad & Christy Daniel had a busy week: They celebrated their first anniversary and Christy’s birthday, ran the Turkey Trot, attended the reunion, then sat in freezing rain for four hours watching the Bengals get routed.

Things we love about Philadelphia: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, National Treasure, cream cheese, and the Henrys. 

Newly engaged, Sarah and Stephen weathered falling rocks on the drive up from Asheville.  

Taking a break from mothering and baking cookies, Meghan and Katie show off their goods teeth.

Dills, K-Schwerdz & Marko guard the “Celebrate 98″ sign, still looking good after a decade in the Thorpe basement.

These two did not graduate from Sycamore but they have been featured in ads for LensCrafters.

The only picture we got of either Sweeney. Andy ducked out soon after to hit on strangers at UDF.

T-Pain did not graduate from Sycamore in 1998. Despite this he is a successful recording artist.

Since we failed to get either Emily or Gail on film last night, we took the liberty of digging into the Sycamore Public Schools photo library from their soccer playing days.

That’s Emily in the foreground executing a devastating version of the Poco de Gato. Gail, background, received a red card for berating a ref and tripping an opposing player. We love her anyway.

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What was your high school (or college) reunion like? Help us relive all the awkward conversations in scintillatingly painful detail. And help us answer just a few of these questions: Do reunions get better with age? Did anyone rekindle an old flame? Just how satisfying was it to see that punk Jared Rosenberg gain 50 pounds? Didn’t hearing Deep Blue Something’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s take you waaay back? And what was the best line from Grosse Pointe Blank**? (Has there been a better movie about reunions than that one? Will anyone seriously make the case for Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion?) Comment now!

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* = Of course, this was not true of our friends, only our enemies***.

** = Our vote is when rival assassin Felix La PuBelle cons his way into the party by looking at a random name tag and saying, “It is I … Sidney Feldman.”

*** = You know who played the character of Paul Spericki in Grosse Pointe Blank? You guessed it.

We have a new Cincinnati Bell spokesperson to hate.

I’m Nick Lachey, and I approve your cell phone carrier.

Cincinnati’s native son can be seen on local billboards wearing all green like an elf and promoting the fascist regime that is Cincinnati Bell.

We’re also no longer buying Hot Wheels.

Thanks to all who participated in the first Voreblog Readers Poll. (It was a nice round number of twenty, although some abstained from answering all of the questions. Apparently the Jeremy Piven question may have been too personal for some.) We invite ABC’s George Stephanopoulos to analyze the results with us.

The results are in. George breaks it down for us. On a black telephone.

Question #1. Who is your favorite member of Voreblog?

1. Scooter Thomas (55%)
2. Vincent D’Onofrio (20%)
3. Erin Vore (15%)
4. Ben Vore (5%)

Stephanopoulos: “Clearly, the people who read this blog do not do so because they particularly care for the Vores. I suspect they’re a rather disreputable pair with poor hygiene and negligent social skills. Scooter Thomas usually polls well no matter what. Voters like lethargic, chunky, disheveled-looking creatures who can be slightly condescending and have the ability to type. Hence Vincent D’Onofrio polling well too.”

2. Is Jeremy Piven a jerk or what?

1. Absolutely (63%)
2. Some of the time (21%)
3. Stop slandering his good, BW3-shillin’ name (11%)
4. No opinion (5%)

Stephanopoulos: “The results suggest that most of the Voreblog readership 1) hails from Cincinnati; 2) was once a Cincinnati Bell customer; 3) got food poisoning at BW3s; or 4) worked with Jeremy Piven during a commercial shoot. I couldn’t stand those interminable spots. Why does America passively accept such smug media personalities? I can’t fathom what the life of a slick, well-coiffed and conceited talking head is like. No idea. None.”

3. Harsh accusations have recently been leveled against Scooter Thomas. Do you:

1. Find them to be scurrilous attacks impugning his character (40%)
2. Agree with the substance of the charges and find Scooter Thomas to be a preening, snobbish toad (30%)
3. Just wish the candidates would talk about the issues (30%)

Stephanopoulos: “Again, people love Scooter Thomas, although a significant number of respondents point toward a potential Scooter Thomas backlash should he become further embroiled in scandal. I’ve heard whispers of voter fraud, though, coming from some shadowy special interest groups loosely affiliated with Mindless Comfort. I’d also note the craving for a more serious, substantive campaign this year, not just tit-for-tat and lipstick-on-a-pig and who-can-drink-a-gallon-of-milk-in-an-hour.”

4. The best TV show that the Vores watch and blog about is:

“Can you spare $128.11? I’ve already sold my Emmy.” 

Although we cancelled our wireless service with Cincinnati Bell several months ago, we still pay for Zoomtown, Cincinnati Bell’s Internet service. When this month’s bill arrived it was $128.11 — not, as we were anticipating, $31.95 plus tax.

We suspect a phone call something like this took place the morning after the Emmys.

CINCINNATI BELL CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE: Good morning, thank you for calling Cincinnati Bell. My name is Rebecca. How can I help you?

JEREMY PIVEN: Rebecca, it’s Jeremy Piven. You probably saw me on TV last night.

REBECCA: Jeremy! I sure did. I’m glad you took those hosts down a peg or two.

JEREMY: Yeah, listen, Rebecca. I need $128.11.

REBECCA: But Mr. Piven, you’re no longer a spokesperson with us.

JEREMY: I DON’T WANT THIS TO BE HARD, REBECCA.

REBECCA: And I think I can smell the alcohol on your breath through the phone.

JEREMY: Wait, where are my pants?

REBECCA: Plus you just won an Emmy. Your suit looked pretty nice too.

JEREMY: I’d rather not go into the details, but I need money. Fast.

REBECCA: I’m afraid I can’t just authorize giving you $128.11. 

JEREMY: Rebecca, have you ever crossed the Russian mafia?

REBECCA: Excuse me?

JEREMY: I didn’t think so. Listen, Rebecca, this is a matter of life or — why do I have BW3’s Mango Habanero sauce in my armpits?

REBECCA: Okay, Mr. Piven, here’s what I can do. Let me just riffle through some of our accounts and find an unsuspecting customer whom we can slap with an unnecessary charge. Here’s one that looks promising: Ben & Erin Vore. 

JEREMY: Oh I hate them.

REBECCA: Good. I suspect they’re sufficiently dense to not notice that we’ll continue to charge them for wireless service even though they cancelled it on July 25.

JEREMY: Yes! Brilliant!

REBECCA: Then when they write that check in a month I’ll wire you the money.

JEREMY: No, that won’t do! I need it now! Do you know what happens when you betray someone named The Greek? HAVE YOU NEVER WATCHED “THE WIRE,” REBECCA??

REBECCA: Mr. Piven, calm down. If the Vores are late with their check, that’ll be an extra ten dollars in your pocket.

JEREMY: I don’t think you understand my — why is there a tattoo of Shia LaBeouf on my inner thigh?

REBECCA: I’m afraid this is the best I can do, Mr. Piven.

[Silence. Muffled sobs from the other end of the line.]

REBECCA: Mr. Piven, are you crying?

JEREMY [crying]: No.

REBECCA: You’re going to get through this. We’re going to get through this.

JEREMY: I suppose I can go on the lam for a month. I’ve got a friend who could do some cheap reconstructive surgery on my face to disguise my appearance. Do you think I’d look good with cheek implants?

REBECCA: I thought you already had cheek implants.

JEREMY: Anyway, the life of a fugitive can’t be worse than being a Versace salesman in Rush Hour 2.

REBECCA: Or your role as Herbert Hortz in Car 54, Where Are You? when even Daniel Baldwin got higher bidding than you.

JEREMY: That was a very dark period for me. If you remind me of that again, I’ll hunt you down with this bloody machete I somehow woke up with.

REBECCA: That’s the can-do spirit I expect from an Emmy winner!

“I’d like to thank BW3’s for paying for this suit.”

Just because he wins another Emmy and calls out five totally inane hosts for the worst opening monologue ever doesn’t mean we’ve forgiven Jeremy Piven for endorsing Cincinnati Bell or Buffalo Wild Wings. But let’s give credit where credit is due.