The Earliest Identified Buyer Grievance Was Made 3,800 Years In the past: Learn the Rant on an Historic Babylonian Pill

Picture by way of Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

The positioning Quick Com­pa­ny pub­lished an arti­cle that describes the “Com­plaint Restraint mission,” an ini­tia­tive that goals to cre­ate a “pos­i­tive life by elim­i­nat­ing neg­a­tive state­ments.” It’s an admirable purpose. Although most of us have a per­verse love of wal­low­ing in our distress—a human trait ampli­fied a thou­sand­fold by the web—complaining not often makes issues any wager­ter. As within the Buddha’s para­ble of the “sec­ond arrow,” our grip­ing could make our suf­fer­ings dou­bly painful; as within the para­ble of the “poi­soned arrow,” it might publish­pone or sub­sti­tute for the con­struc­tive actions we have to take as a way to heal or enhance our con­di­tion.

However it might be a mis­take to assume that com­plain­ing is a few­how a latest phe­nom­e­non, although we might hear extra of it day-after-day, on a regular basis, from each quar­ter of the globe. The Bud­dhist arrow sto­ries are, in spite of everything, a minimum of a cou­ple thou­sand years previous; lamen­ta­tion roughly con­sti­tutes its personal style in Bib­li­cal lit­er­a­ture.

Even previous­er nonetheless than these reli­gious sources is the primary doc­u­ment­ed cus­tomer ser­vice com­plaint, a spe­cif­ic vari­ety of com­plain­ing that we is likely to be for­giv­en for asso­ci­at­ing important­ly with a mod­ern, con­sumerist age—and one of many few sorts of com­plaints that may gen­er­ate pos­i­tive outcomes.

Absent a Yelp app, the traditional Child­lon­ian con­sumer on this case inscribed his com­plaint on a clay pill—which now resides on the British Muse­um—some­time round 1750 B.C. The irate pur­chas­er right here, Nan­ni, writ­ing to some­one named Ea-nasir, acquired a ship­ment of cop­per ore of an infe­ri­or grade, after some annoy­ing delay and in a dam­aged con­di­tion. Within the trans­la­tion beneath from Assyri­ol­o­gist A. Leo Oppen­heim, Nan­ni vents his spleen.

Inform Ea-nasir: Nan­ni sends the fol­low­ing mes­sage:

Whenever you got here, you stated to me as fol­lows : “I’ll give Gim­il-Sin (when he comes) high-quality qual­i­ty cop­per ingots.” You left then however you didn’t do what you promised me. You set ingots which weren’t good earlier than my mes­sen­ger (Sit-Sin) and stated: “If you wish to take them, take them; if you do not need to take them, go away!”

What do you’re taking me for, that you simply deal with some­physique like me with such con­tempt? I’ve despatched as mes­sen­gers gen­tle­males like our­selves to col­lect the bag with my mon­ey (deposit­ed with you) however you have got deal with­ed me with con­tempt by ship­ing them again to me emp­ty-hand­ed sev­er­al occasions, and that by means of ene­my ter­ri­to­ry. Is there any­one among the many mer­chants who commerce with Tel­mun who has deal with­ed me on this method? You alone deal with my mes­sen­ger with con­tempt! On account of that one (tri­fling) mina of sil­ver which I owe(?) you, you be happy to talk in such a method, whereas I’ve giv­en to the palace in your behalf 1,080 kilos of cop­per, and umi-abum has like­sensible giv­en 1,080 kilos of cop­per, aside from what we each have had writ­ten on a sealed pill to be saved within the tem­ple of Samas.

How have you ever deal with­ed me for that cop­per? You’ve gotten with­held my mon­ey bag from me in ene­my ter­ri­to­ry; it’s now as much as you to revive (my mon­ey) to me in full.

Take cog­nizance that (any longer) I cannot settle for right here any cop­per from you that’s not of high-quality qual­i­ty. I shall (any longer) choose and take the ingots indi­vid­u­al­ly in my very own yard, and I shall exer­cise towards you my proper of rejec­tion as a result of you have got deal with­ed me with con­tempt.

It does appear that Nan­ni possibly took this poor ser­vice a lit­tle too per­son­al­ly. In any case, let’s hope he acquired some sat­is­fac­tion for the trou­ble it should have tak­en to inscribe this offended mes­sage.

Word: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this publish appeared on our web site in 2015.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mark Twain Drafts the Ulti­mate Let­ter of Com­plaint (1905)

Hunter S. Thomp­son Calls Tech Sup­port, Unleash­es a Tirade Stuffed with Worry and Loathing (NSFW)

Behold the Previous­est Writ­ten Textual content within the World: The Kish Pill, Cir­ca 3500 BC

Hear the Previous­est Music within the World: A Sumer­ian Hymn Writ­ten 3,400 Years In the past

Find out how to Write in Cuneiform, the Previous­est Writ­ing Sys­tem within the World: A Quick Intro­duc­tion

Hear the Ear­li­est Report­ed Cus­tomer Com­plaint Let­ter: From Historic Sume­ria 1750 BC

Josh Jones is a author and musi­cian primarily based in Durham, NC.