Third classic blunder (Guest post by Toby)

We've all seen the movie The Princess Bride, so we all know two of the world's classic blunders: "Never get involved in a land war in Asia," and "never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line." But what not many people know is the third classic blunder that was cut from the script during shooting. This third classic blunder is, of course, "never cross a Burwinkle woman."

They cut it from the movie, I'm sure, because they were afraid they might be committing said blunder by implying Burwinkle women could be a bit touchy. Smart move on their part. I've seen first hand what can happen when you tell a Burwinkle woman she acts a certain way. (Not me, of course.) Once I even saw a poor fool try to play amateur psychoanalyst and tell a Burwinkle woman how she felt and why. (Of course this was someone else as well. Not me.) In both cases, I...I mean the idiot who committed this blunder, left the resulting calm and rational conversation feeling much wiser now that he'd been made aware of exactly when, how, and to what degree his brain and mouth had failed him. It was quite a thing to see.

For those of you who (like me) have never committed this blunder, or who've never gotten to witness someone else committing it, I have a rare treat. Many times this blunder occurs in person, often through a bungled customer service attempt, or maybe in the form of a completely understandable slip of the tongue brought on by low blood sugar and physical exhaustion during a particularly long "activity"(or so I've heard). My point being, there's not always a record of the event to share. Today, there is.

A financial investment company committed this classic blunder this week when they sent a certain Burwinkle woman an e-mail about a webcast they were putting on to educate women about handling money. I captured response. Enjoy.

Dear Vanguard, 

Let me try to express to you the depth of my disappointment and [REDACTED] moment I had this morning when I saw the subject line "Women and money: What you need to know" in an email from you. 

I understand that as a college educated, 29-year-old woman working in high tech, who also happens to be the higher wage earner in the household, that I might not be your target demographic for this webcast. However, I would urge you to take a moment to reconsider how you're targeting your female customers, as this subject line smacks of condescending sexism. Perhaps it's a poorly worded subject, but the impression it leaves me with is that Vanguard as a company feels its female customers need extra help in dealing with really hard things - like money and numbers. 

I'm sure that someone in Vanguard knows this, but here are a few things that are true in 2013: 

- More women than men are completing college educations (where we learn about things like math and economics)
- Women are better investors than men, on a factor of 4-6% (Forbes, the Economist)
- Gen Y women, on average, tend to have a much better grasp of financial principles than their male counterparts (there's a great article on this by the Davidson Institute)

These are your future customers (and they are me).

Back to my original point, I admit that I'm dealing with a very limited view of your strategy. Perhaps next month I'll receive an email that says "Men and money: What you need to know." If that's the case, accept my apologies for the long email. But please do keep in mind how these gender-specific emails can come across (no matter what gender you are). And perhaps revisit how you promote your resources and make sure that you're offering to help people for the right reasons. For example, maybe what you should be promoting is planning for the loss of a spouse or financial planning for single parents. 

My grandmother (who is herself a pretty savvy woman) makes cupcakes for the customer service people in her life who treat her right. You, Vanguard, do not get a cupcake today. 

Please feel free to contact me via email if you have any questions or would like to chat further.

Thanks,
[REDACTED]

One of my favorite parts is what's hidden in that last paragraph, the implied warning, so to speak. What this particular Burwinkle woman doesn't say is what can happen to those customer service people who don't treat her grandmother right. Let's just say some of them have...sought other employment opportunities.

Justice dispensed.