Who’s to blame?

Mark Mentz, Gardens

My wife returned on the afternoon of my reading of your article (“Shopper left angry after bloody bump”, December 11, Off my Trolley), unscathed after having spent half the day at Tyger Valley Shopping Centre, remarking that it far outflanks the other shopping centres that she’d frequented.

This while I read your column regarding the misfortunes of Zelda Robert at the self-same centre.

Regarding your article, I pose the following questions to you:

1 Did the sign fall on her head due to poor maintenance or did she collide with it on her own accord?

2 Why did you take up the cudgel on her behalf under the circumstances?

3 Would you do the same for me against the City council if I hit my head against a lamp pole?

I grow tired of people making a mountain out of a molehill and (in this case, among many others) blaming some corporate for their own incompetence.

The latter are subsequently held to ransom by some “Twitter storm” and invariably cave. The thousands of satisfied customers such as my wife are the “silent majority” that you and Twitter are never informed of.

I suggest that you be more discerning as to whom you “represent”.

* Brian Joss, Off my Trolley, writes: The report states clearly that Zelda Robert banged her head on the trolley bay sign and until now Tyger Valley management has not said what they plan to do with it to prevent future incidents.

I took up the cudgels on Ms Robert’s behalf as she was badly treated by the centre management, who incidentally acknowledged only one of the five or six emails that I sent them and that was from general manager, Tanya Heimann to say, “that the matter had been resolved”.

If you hit your head on a lamp pole I would also fight for your right to be compensated if the pole was in the wrong place. In fact several years ago I managed to get compensation from the City of Cape Town after a woman fell in a hole in a pavement and broke her spectacles.

I don’t regard a medical bill of almost
R1 000 as a molehill.

As far as I am aware there was no “Twitter storm”. I will decide who to represent and if the battle is worth fighting. In this case, it was, even though it took months for it to be resolved.