Scott Oseychik: 2011

I received an e-mail today which was addressed to me (scottos@gmail.com), but obviously I was not the intended recipient:

From: <name withheld>
To: scottos@gmail.com
Subject: My order

Please let me know whether you received my order about 3 weeks ago for the 6 boxes of almond choc chip biscotti I order regularly, and if so, when you will ship. I have called several times but no one ever calls back to answer my question. I enjoy your cookies but if you no longer want online orders, I will have to find another source.

I had some time to kill, and decided rather than simply redirecting this guy to the contact information readily located on http://www.scottosbakery.com, I replied back with this response:

From: Scott Oseychik scottos@gmail.com
To: <name withheld>
Subject: RE: My order
Thank you for your inquiry. Indeed, we did successfully receive you order, and had every intention of shipping it out to you as we've done previously. You'll have to forgive the long-winded explanation for the delay, but after reading this, we're sure you'll agree the prolonged delay was warranted.

As you may already know, here at Scotto's Bakery, all of our packaged cookies sold online (and in stores) are made under Kosher Supervision; giving us the "KOF-K" Kosher Supervision designation. Part of the Kosher Supervision process involves rabbinical oversight, and our local Rabbi, Yosef Rosenbaum has been a mainstay here at Scotto's Bakery for nearly 20 years. We've long considered him part of the Scotto's Family.

While our sales have remained relatively constant, we recently began to observe our profit margins thinned increasingly over time. We analyzed our sales records, our cost of goods sold, and could not come up with an explanation as to why we were making less money while all other figures remained relatively stable. One thing that did become a "source of suspicion" for us was Rabbi Rosenbaum's growing waistline. While we initially chalked it up to some personal issues we understood he was overcoming, but over time, as Yosef grew larger, our profits grew smaller.

The last thing we wanted to believe was that our own Rabbi Rosenbaum was literally eating our profits, but this was the only logical explanation we could come up with. Out of our own pockets, all the employees here chipped in, and we subsequently had a hidden video surveillance system installed to hopefully disprove our worst fears. However, this turned out not to be case ... we literally caught Rabbi Rosenbaum with his hand in the cookie jar. Here is a video of the actual incident:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ5TajZYW6Y

We are currently interviewing replacement rabbis, and as soon as we hire one, we'll get your order fulfilled, processed, and shipped out to you as soon as possible.

Thanks.
Scott

p.s. I believe your original e-mail was meant for info@scottosbakery.com

Now at this point, I thought he'd get the joke, right? I couldn't be more wrong:

From: <name withheld>
To: scottos@gmail.com
Subject: RE: My order

Dear Mr Oseychik,

Thanks for your response: one of the most unusual ones I have ever received. I dont quite know how to respond, but since I do not keep kosher, I can do without a rabbi and wonder if you can set aside part of your bakery for traife customers. If not, and I know that wouldnt be easy, any idea when you will be back in the cookie business.

And who's Scotto. I tell people I get my cookies from a kosher Italian bakery and they look at me strangely.

PS. I did email the info address the other day but it bounced back.

I'm gonig to see how long I can drag this one out; stay tuned for Episode #2 of Kosher Cookies.

--Scott