Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-check It Out!

I now have a tentative idea of what my monthly income will be once I move to Houston. As a result, I was able to begin apartment hunting today, if only virtually.

I emailed an apartment location company recommended to me by my sister, via one of her friends. I told them what I'm looking for and the areas in which I'm looking, and continued to look online.

A few minutes on Craigslist.org led me to another property locator that specializes in 4-plexes, duplexes, etc. It allows you to look at the different properties, and then request more info. I thought it was pretty cool.

Then, after submitting the list of apartments I would like information about, I received an email that definitely qualified for a "Too Long: Didn't Read" response. If printed out, it would be 4 pages long.

Seriously, who the hell is going to read through 4 pages of snarky commentary? The people who wrote it pretty much say, "We run this website as a business, but we might choose not to get back to you because, meh..."

And I quote:

Obviously we cannot help 10 or 15 or 20 people a day--which means that it is inevitable that many prospective clients are going to fall through the cracks. We try hard to get back to everyone, we try hard to return every email and phone call, but we're people, not machines.

Not "a few prospective clients" but "many prospective clients."

They then go on to insinuate that their users are morons if they overlook a piece of info in the property listings but include it in the "what I'm looking for" section. I, for example, said that I would prefer a washer & dryer in the unit, but I put a couple of apartments on the list that didn't have them just because they were uh-mazing and had a laundry room in the building.

We'll see if that brands me as a moron.

It never ceases to amaze me how people who run a business seem to have no concept of whether or not their "auto-response" or their work emails are going to hurt their image. I tend to take the approach that, no matter how annoyed I might get or how frustrated I am, it's always best to be nice to someone, to try not to sound arch or holier-than-thou, because that person might be impressed with my service and decide that they want to work with me again.

On the off-chance that I receive a response from these guys, we'll see if they merit a repeat performance.