Today, we did something many people won't find cool: we deleted two tweets because the recipient asked very nicely.
What was it about?
The other day, a friend showed up at the house in some distress. The friend is one of those millions of Germans receiving what is the basic social benefits regime here, the strange Hartz-IV benefits.
The issue was an invoice by the utility company for the past 5 or so months. A glitch on the part of the company meant that they failed to debit the bank account, this despite the friend calling them several times to remind them to please take the money.
The utility just now "remembered" and wanted to take all of the arrears plus the regular monthly payment for the ongoing year in one fell swoop.
Customer service tried to help by breaking down the amount into three payments, which still left the friend with a food budget of about 120 Euros a month for four people.
So, we sent out a tweet.
As it turns out in so many cases, if you don't know who to talk to in an organization, you may be going hungry.
But if you find the person who can make decisions, something can be worked out.
It took all of 24 hours for them to work out a manageable installment plan. A plan that means some belt tightening - which is kind of what Hartz-IV is about anyway it seems - but does not mean going hungry.
When all was said and done, they asked if I would mind deleting the tweets.
What would you have done?
I took a screenshot, you never know, and then deleted the tweets.
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