There are verse ways to get things done

There is a lot to be said for poetic licence, judging from the success of a rhyming complaint sent to the budget carrier Norwegian Air: it got the passenger a waiver of the 120 charges for changing a wrongly printed name. Given the sheer amount of carping communications that service providers receive every day, catching their jaded eyes is also an art.

Obviously are verse ways to protest, but tongue-in-cheek poems seem to be a safe tactic to galvanise customer care teams into taking action. No wonder the British musician’s recent rhyming complaint that ended with, “Why can’t you be fair/ Norwegian Air/ Just skip that amendment fee/ And just let us change it for free?” not only resulted in the fee being waived but also elicited the response, “Dear Gus,/ We understand all the fuss/ We try our best to reduce all the buzz/ But fear not because/ We do not throw anyone under the bus.” And the staff added, “We thank you for your rhyme/ We had a really great time,/ You thank us for being fair,/ We thank you for joining us in the air!”

The more prosaically inclined would point out, however,that it was only a one-time waiver of an unfairly exorbitant charge for changing Bill to William, or as Gus put it, “One hundred twenty Euros for what?/ For two minutes of typing that’s rather a lot.” Surely, that is not poetic justice.