Category: Service

I’m Feeling a Little Smug Today!

I can’t believe it is August already.  Things have been a little hectic around here lately with July being consumed with the Bix7 race and probably more disrupting is I accepted a new job opportunity within my company.  So now I have the stress of getting up to speed on my new job while spending every available minute organizing and documenting for a hand off of my previous duties.  But with all that going on, I did find some time to look into something that has been circling around the noggin for awhile.  Let’s start with a quick experiment.  Take a look at this picture from the previous post on bobcats at Wildlife Prairie Park.

Okay, now take a gander at this image:

So, what were the main differences that you noticed?  If you said the first one was larger then you are both correct and possess a passion for the obvious.  If you also noticed the crop was slightly different then again correct and your analysis skills are starting to rev up.  Lastly, if you noticed the second one has a slightly different black tone and the vibrancy was reduced slightly then you have started developing your keen photography eye… oh, and correct again.  However, none of these things were part of the experiment.  The answer is actually much more “smug” than that and can be found after the jump.

Continue reading I’m Feeling a Little Smug Today!

Out With The Trash

Two wicked storms and an 8 hour straight shot from Cleveland means we’re back from vacation.  All things considered, it was no where near the time we had in Yellowstone last year.  Some of that can be blamed on the uncooperative weather but mostly a total lack of wildlife to photograph.  Looks like I will have to work on finding good fodder for the blog in the upcoming year.  I’ll have more details on the trip coming up, but it is the 29th and guess who needs another post?  Figured a standby was in order tonight – this is mainly due to suffering from a mild case of heat exhaustion tonight and need to get some fluids and sleep, so off to the post.

If you visited previously, you may have seen a mention that I lost my Internet connection for a period of time.  Having moved to the country a few years back, one of the negatives was having to get rid of cable Internet and go with more archaic on ramps to the Information Superhighway.  Our phone coverage only guaranteed 14.4 due to old wiring and the technician even admitted that was pushing it with all the noise on the line.  Our Verizon card gets one bar if you stand on one foot and spread your arms out in the correct dimensions, but as a backup we also installed a satellite provider.  At the time, Wild Blue was about the only option and it was actually being run out of a small town about 45 minutes away from us.  Paying the extra fee to get 1.5M downloads (correction, paying the extra fee to never reach 1.5M but at least get an average slightly above crap).  Sometime on a Thursday, our access stopped working.  Being vulnerable to weather issues, we decided to wait it out – Friday – no luck, Saturday still no luck, Sunday officially frustrated.  Time to make a call to the home office.  Linda made the call which prompted a quite colorful text message to me summarizing her experience.  Turns out they could not care less whether their service was working and informed us that a service call would be ~$75/hr and that started from the moment they left their building (45 minutes away).  Minimally, we requested that they ping our satellite router to see if they could see it from their end giving us some indication where to start looking to resolve the missing bytes.  Nope, they refused and then started the argument that there was a storm showing on their radar and that was probably the cause – note, it was perfectly sunny that day and this problem had been occurring during other good days.  Pointing this out to them resulted in a very interesting comment.  Essentially, they told us to go find someone else to try and fix it.  When Linda told me this, I was literally stunned.  Here we were, a long time user of their service, a customer paying a premium for a higher transfer rate (which on average we rarely got) and basically just asking them if they can verify that our satellite connection to their uplink was working.  Any guesses what happens when a service provider tells me to go find someone else to fix their product?  Well, we did go find someone else, another service provider.  Four days later, the Wild Blue dish pole was ripped out of the ground and another company’s put in its place – that would be another service provider that actually appreciated our money.  So now Wild Blue was kicked to the curb and I am happy to say we are back online with Hughes which is significantly snappier than our former solution.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Wild Blue for such great advice, although you might want rethink that business model.

Can I Interest You in 50 More?

Well, my brother the math whiz has made another post on his blog once again putting to shame any paltry efforts I’ve put forth up to now.  This results in lots of word and image counting to assess just who has produced more (all I’ve got is quantity so that’s the hand I have to play).  So, I will state for the record and bean counters that I still hold the image count for the year and in fact actually have his post beat with just my front page.  To put a little cherry on top of this count I actually stayed up late to crank out the image and publish this post.  I also killed another mole yesterday and plan to post those on an upcoming blog entry to put the pressure on the Nomogracultist – and you better not tell MOM!

With that little bit of housekeeping taken care of, I guess I should get to the meat.  So if you recall from a previous post, I tend to sweat the pennies when it comes to bad service or worse yet when someone is trying to screw me.  Admittedly, this is a serious character flaw and it would probably be for the best to spend some time on a couch getting it resolved.  It is definitely not the monetary aspect, but probably due to all the years working at Jewel getting my butt chewed by angry shoppers because the computer was off a penny on a price.  Off on the overage side, of course, since they kept their mouth shut when they got a deal.  So there I had to stand 1.5 feet away from the snapping teeth thinking to myself some day I’m going to look back on this and write a blog (of course  Gore hadn’t made the Internet yet, but my register announced every price that was scanned (a total hell while checking by the way) so it wasn’t hard to see the future of technology.  Hard to knock it too much, it got me through school.

Ugh, two paragraphs and you are probably still wondering why there is a glass with dollar signs in it.  The reason for this is due to a recent lunching at a division leadership lunching we had.  Once a month we go out to lunch at different places to get some relief from the grind.  This particular month we headed to Jonah’s Oyster Bar in East Peoria.  Pretty much disliking all food from the water other than shrimp, I was taking one for the team.  We ordered our drinks and proceeded to wait and wait and wait and wait and wait a little more for our dishes to arrive.  The guy next to me was enjoying ice teas and the efficient waitress would bring him one every time his glass got near the bottom.  I was nursing my Sprite so my first glass was only half empty by the time the food arrived.  Surprisingly, when the dish arrived, the waitress brought another glass of Sprite out and put it next to my half full one.  Note, she also brought out another iced tea and put it next to his half full glass.  I didn’t think much of it until the bill arrived.  On closer inspection I noticed there was an extra 25 cents tacked on to my bill for my one REFILL.  This was quickly verified with my colleague who sure enough had multiple 25 cents tacked onto his bill for REFILLS.  Mind you, nowhere did I see that refills cost extra and hardly expected it since Jonah’s is a pretty popular restaurant.   That was not the troubling part since rarely do I need a refill on the very rare occasions I opt for something other than water and rarer still when the non diet drink path is not taken (not drinking caffeine really limits your choices).  No, the irksome part of all this was the fact neither of us even asked for refills.  They just kept showing up at the waitresses discretion or should I say profit.  After a good chuckle we paid our bill and left a little wiser than we entered.

I can see it now, the next thing they’ll be charging you for is every straw you use… of course the waitress would probably just keep walking by and tossing straws on the table… CHA-CHING.

Precious Metals

Fresh off a four comment post (WOOT!), I figured it was time to get a service/product post out of the way.  That and it was a great opportunity to get the Macro glass back out.  Needless to say, this Macro realm is going to take some time to get adjusted too.  Thinking at this point, it is all about the tripod/monopod and possibly the wireless shutter or at worst case the old stand by shutter timer.  Honestly, easy hobbies bore me and this one looks like it will give me a lifetime of enjoyment.

You are probably wondering why there appears to be metal shavings hanging out on the left.  Could it be some colossal metal sculpture depicting the evolution of life from the moment of conception to the point they put you back in the ground (stare at awhile from bottom up, you’ll get what I mean and it will forever haunt you every time you see this picture)?  Maybe it is some civil war relics dug up during our trip out east a couple of years ago or perhaps simply some metal shavings that ended up costing me some green bills?  I’ll let you ponder that for a couple of minutes if nothing else to let you shake out some bad imagery.  If you picked ‘A’, I have some things I’d like to sell you.  If instead you immediately deduced this was a post about service and therefore selected option ‘C’ then pat yourself on the back.  These shavings are actually fingertip small and cost me about $100.  A number of weeks back, my wife decided to enjoy the whirlpool after a long agility show day.  Once filled, she tried to turn off the water but a small stream of cold water remained.  For the most part I’ve gain some proficiency in the carpentry thing, the brick/cement thing, basic mechanics and even wiring when the need arises.  There are two things I am definitely not good at – one being natural gas and the other being plumbing.  When I originally built my house, everything was electric because I could likely fix anything that went wrong and it didn’t have the threat of blowing up my house (note, since then the genset has been installed crushing my no gas plan).

So now it is late on a Sunday and we are staring at a stream of water destined to drain the well if left unresolved too long.  After some brain things inside my head, it occurred to me that it was not a crisis since I could simply close the shut-offs to the whirlpool and get it addressed before her next use.  This plan was relevant for about 5 minutes until a quick run downstairs brought awareness to the fact there were NO shutoffs on the whirlpool.  Couple that discovery with the fact there is a fully tiled elevated skirting along the two open sides of the whirlpool and you have some major suckage happening.  Last chance was to take off the Delta faucets and see if there was a washer I could temporarily tighten down to at least stop the flow.  Any guesses how that idea panned out…you’re right.  With no other options, I killed the main well shutoff and planned to open it up just long enough for our morning showers while we hunted down someone to fix it.  Lucking out, when we turned the water back on, the faucet was no longer leaking so we left the water on, got a hold of someone recommended by one of the builders we still talk to and tested our patience until that Friday when he could make it over to correct the situation.  I should point out, the job included fixing the leaks and putting in the missing shut off valves in case it ever happened again.  Long story short, the plumber successfully put the shut offs in and then started working on the faucet leaks.  Adding to my limited knowledge of plumbing, Delta now uses a cartridge concept which simply pulls out for easy replacement.  There is a spring that sits on top to engage the cartridge which allows the water to flow or more importantly shuts it off when the handles are turned.  The plumber pulls out the cartridge puts a new one in and has me turn the water back on.  Ack!  water still does not shut off.  Intrigued, the plumber turned the water back off, removed the cartridge and started probing into the faucet base.  Pretty soon he pulls out a few of the metal pieces above.  The odd thing he notices is that they appeared galvanized and thus was unsure of where they would have originated from.  Problem solved, faucet replaced and the water turned back on… not so fast… still leaks… water back off.  The faucet was removed again and sure enough more metal shavings and now the rest of them are in the tube having navigated their way through the rest of the innards.  This second attempt did the trick and the faucet officially works now.

I am still left wondering why those shavings ended up there.  I highly doubt it was luck of the draw from debris that made it in to the piping during the build phase over 3 years ago.  What is more believable is faulty faucet workmanship.  The assumption being the metal shavings were part of the faucet manufacturing process and they simply broke off over time.  I do not have the time to verify if there are galvanized components inside the faucet, but in any case, these little shavings cost me over $100.  That amount of money for the weight of those shavings put it in company with some pretty precious metals, however, it was putting at jeopardy the most precious commodity there is out in the country… WATER 8^)

Now, We’re On MY TIME … Here is YOUR Bill

I’m definitely getting some mileage out of that clock frame (recognize it?).  Anyway, this particular post deals with a situation that occurred a couple of days ago.  It isn’t often I have so many post possibilities just dropping in my lap – probably have material for next month’s quota already.  Unfortunately, this topic was not actually a good experience.  Some of you already know this observation per a lunchtime conversation, but I’ll go ahead and set the stage for the teeming millions out there who haven’t heard it yet.

My wife is cursed with cysts that grow from time to time on her scalp.  This appears to be a hereditary thing and very thankful my family side is normal.. I mean… don’t have to experience these lumpy annoyances.  Finally deciding it was time to remove the one on the top of her forehead (just into the hairline), Linda made an appointment with our doctor to get it removed.  The “our” part of that is fairly loose since I am constantly trying to convince myself to find someone else, but Linda has been with him for a long time and wants to stay with him.  One of the main reasons I have about had it with him is his inability to keep a schedule.  It is not uncommon to run an hour or so behind schedule (uncommon should probably be more like every time).  One of the reasons for this is the amount of time he spends with his patients.  He’ll actually take the time to hear all your concerns, symptoms, make sure you understand the prescriptions etc.  This is the part Linda likes and the honestly the part I can do without.  Me: Throat hurts, look down it, tell me if strep, if so give meds, goodbye.   Since this can take hours to get through, I tend to just go to a close prompt care and get it over with.  Over the years, I have a pretty good idea of when something isn’t right and when it is important enough to seek professional attention (which is rare beyond the muscular/tendon injuries from athletics in which case I have the local ortho-surgeons on speed dial).  I also strongly believe that spending any time in a waiting room puts you at about 500% more likely to catch something WORSE that what you came in to have looked at.  Thus the irksome schedule problem complaint and when you are fine but taking your wife it… I think you get the picture.  Let me get back on track.  Linda’s appointment was at 4:30pm.  Do to myself having an MRI on a knee the day before, I wanted to get a few things done to get caught back up at work.  This took me until 3:32, so I literally ran to my car and made the 30 minute trek home to pick her up.  I raced into the driveway, spent a minute dropping myself off and was back on the road for the 30 minute trek to the doctor’s office – oh, the country life!  For the record, we walked into the waiting room at 4:37pm (yes, I made sure I checked).  There were about 5 or 6 other patients in the room waiting to see the same doctor.

Quiz Time!  Take a guess as to what time Linda’s name was called to go through the waiting room door to begin the second wait cycle in the room?  longer… nope, longer…  guess again… give up?  Answer: at 7:30pm they called her name.

I am guessing for the record, I will be dead in about a week from the number of germs that permeated my defenses over that long of a period.  Thank god for the iTouch and endless games of Bejeweled and the latest Ann Coulter audio book.  the wait wasn’t without its interesting observations.  I had the opportunity to listen to two old ladies critic every article in the latest People magazine – they were visibly appalled by a nose ring being worn by one of the article subjects.  Then something strange started happening that I have yet to figure out a reasonable explanation – your comments are welcome.  The order of the events is a little sketchy because of fading in and out of wait hell, but near as can be strung together between Linda and I:

  • Two older ladies (they were together) finally get called to go to the exam room
  • Apparently something had happened earlier and a 20-something woman enters the waiting room, goes up to the check in desk and says “Another nurse told me to come back here”
  • Not sure when, but she ends up on the exam room side of the waiting room doors
  • All of a sudden I hear a commotion, the 20-something woman flies out of the exam room area, traverses through the waiting room area and slams open the entry door and storms out.  (note, it seemed to me she was dressed like a nurse, but Linda is unable to confirm)
  • A couple of minutes later, the head nurse comes out and proceeds to start hurriedly walking after her
  • Then the two old ladies come back out and apparently the older one is being sent directly to the emergency room.  (oops forgot, they were commenting on the fact this lady looked a little pale before she headed back to the room)
  • As they were making their way out of the waiting room, the doctor comes out and helps them get on their way and informs them he already has a room waiting for them at the hospital and to simply go to the emergency room to get checked in.
  • Then all hell starts breaking loose
  • A security guard ends up coming into the waiting room and proceeds back to the exam room area
  • About 10 minutes later he leaves, but as he passes through the exit door, I hear the doctor call out his name and a somewhere down the hall another door opens and the next thing I see is the doctor pass the doorway heading towards the security guard.
  • By this time, our stomachs were growling in pain so I (as the male) went off to kill us something for food.  Let me tell you, I kicked and kicked that vending machine until it coughed up something for us to eat.
  • As I was walking back past the catwalk I look out and there is our doctor, the security guard and the upset lady arguing in the middle of the parking lot.
  • By this time it was a quest to see when this lump was going to be set free and no way was I going to reschedule and start the wait cycle over.

Eventually, they called Linda’s name (as previously noted, at 7:30pm), about 8:05, the doctor comes out and informs me that it was successfully removed, but had difficulty working around all her hair (which he was envious of) and put three stitches in it.  He also informed me that it looked like a standard cyst and therefore wasn’t going to bother to have it tested (I was in agreement).  About 15 minutes later, Linda comes out looking like a Zombie Mole had gotten to her brains.  There was a significant amount of blood and iodine embedded in her hair from the procedure and thinking it was going to bother me to look at, had spent time trying to wash it out in the sink.  We continue to argue about this, but for the official record, it’s the NEEDLES that bother me, not so much the blood …. unless it is mine in which case I am convinced I need every single drop of my own blood and tend to get a little anxious when it happens to be pouring out of me like a leaky drain.

So that’s the story folks – a 4 hour doctor appointment, old people complaining about the stylish choices of the younger generation, a crazy woman apparently wronged in some manner and a Zombie Mole attack.  The only thing left is to write up a bill for MY time to submit to the doctor for costing me an entire night of working on the bridge.

An Entry, an Experiment and a Find All for a Penny

So, how is everyone doing out there in L.A.S.  I’m basically fed up with it and will be doing my part come election day to make sure those responsible hear me loud and clear.  Today’s post is actually the result of a single penny.  No, I am not talking about the NOPE initiative.  I actually got a lot of mileage out of this penny as I was able to a) get a blog entry, b) experiment with our new Nikon Macro glass and c) discovered something I did not know before preparing for this post.  Not a bad price if you ask me.

I’ll start with the heart of the blog post, that being the event that started it all.  Last Monday I was coming back from my required Prohibited Harassment training (before you jump to conclusions, it is a required course for all employees whose company gets government contracts).  This is one of those courses where it is best to simply attend and learn while keeping your mouth shut until the event is over.  Why people try to argue this stuff is beyond me, but I’ll spare you that annoying detail.  After keeping my mouth closed that long, I decided to head over to Burger King and catch a bite to eat with some coworkers.  As a general quest I try to keep my lunch  meals around 3 dollars because that is about what it would cost if I bothered to actually bring a lunch.  The success of this personal quest varies significantly from establishment to establishment, but the advent of Value Menus has made this a little easier.  This was the case on Monday, where I ordered a Whopper Jr., 4 chicken nuggets and a drink for a dollar each.  With our crappy fast food tax, that came out to $3.24.  This is a good time to point out something about Arby’s value meal menu.  I snapped a picture for a future post, but in bold letters they have $1 Menu and then about 6 food/drink items under it.  Not thinking I ordered three of those items on a previous visit.  The cashier then proceeds to say the cost which was over the expected $3.24.  Caught off guard, my eyes moved back up to the value meal sign to see what the catch was.  Sure enough, there was little “starting at” lettering before the bold $1 Menu sign.  With both Congress and Arby’s screwing me these days I won’t be able to sit for the next month.  Sorry for digressing, but that peeved me for the rest of the day and figured it would be worth taking the time to warn others.    Back to Burger King.  As the cashier was about to take my $5 bill I remembered I had a quarter in my pocket and decided to fish it out.  Another peeve of mine is change.  Unlike my brother’s friend (who has now passed away) who believed that forcing yourself to break bills will  save money, I try to use up change every chance I get in order to save bills … and keep my pants from rattling all day.  The cashier (who was actually the on duty manager) reaches in the cashier, pulls out $2 and hands me the bills and closes his drawer.  I thought to myself that something was amiss, but the class had left me a little numb.  After a few seconds the mind fogged over the fact that change had been provided causing a false realization that the clerk had given me back too much money and should have only received a dollar and some change.  Trying to be kind and remembering my days when I cashiered at Jewel and having to worry about the till balance I informed the manager that he did not give me the right change back and reached out with the two bills.  The assumption was he would take one of the bills, and replace it with 76 cents.  However, his response was “No I gave you the right change back”.  Like a window defroster, the fog cleared and the memory of digging in my pocket came through.  While waiting for the food, I went to fill my drink with a nagging feeling that something was not right about the change.  Good thing the class was not before a work budget deliverable or there would be some triple checking that day.  I figured out the nagging issue was centered around my missing penny.  Clearly a penny is of little concern to me (the value meal is just a personal quest and not a financial issue) and having cleared up the internal dilemma turned back to the counter to wait for my order.   In mid turn, the manager reaches into his drawer, takes out a penny, shows it to me and proceeds to say “You were right, I didn’t give you the correct change” and places it on my receipt.  Out of curiosity, how would this make you feel?  It felt cheap as hell and somewhat demeaning from my perspective.  Again, the only intent of mentioning it was that I thought he gave me TOO MUCH money back and wanted to pay my fair share.  The trigger for all this was not getting the penny back because that would have immediately told me a quarter was involved.  The food arrived and he called out my name to pick it up while placing the receipt and penny on my tray.  I informed him that it was not about the penny, and that I had forgotten about the extra quarter while putting the penny back on the counter (skipping the step of holding it up for everyone in the restaurant to see) and walked away.  Anybody have any comments on this?  I just hate leaving a place feeling little when the intent was to help someone – not to mention the fact that I was correct in the assessment the change was wrong.

Hit the jump to see the other benefits from the penny incident:

Continue reading An Entry, an Experiment and a Find All for a Penny

All Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others

It has been awhile since I actually had a social setting observation, so today’s topic is just that.  Admittedly, this a bit of a rant, but it still calls into question whether there is any such thing as altruism when it comes to the shopping experience.  Having just completed listening to the Super Freakonomics I am now curious to see if this “unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others” is really a human trait and more to the point, whether I can actually witness this trait in action.  By the way, I did enjoy this book (although, maybe not as much as their first one) and would recommend it for those who have similar interests in understanding how micro economics impacts our day to day lives.

One thing is for sure, this trait was not evident the last time I went to WalMart to pick up some quick snacks for a ping pong party I was having that night.  I was running late at work and needed to get to the store and all the way back home before the designated start time of the party.   Figuring WalMart was close I ducked in there to pick up some needed items.  With about 5 items in my hands I made my way up to the registers.  To my surprise, all the checkouts were busy (well, at least the ones that were open, but that is a story for another time).  An internal assessment was initiated based on years of line analysis – cashier age (especially if you have alcohol to buy), clerk gabbiness (less talk, more scanning), product count (estimations based on cart quantities, container sizes etc.) along with a host of other key indicators that are continually tuned to give the best chance of getting out of there as fast as possible.  After a few seconds, the choice was made and the line position taken.  One of the attributes of this line was that it was the express line and MOST of the people seemed to be in an express frame of mind.  I say most, but about two customers from the checkout (I was 6th) was a mobile cart with a basket full of merchandise.  I quickly confirmed the express limit, which was an unusually high 20 item count, and decided to amp up the observation.  One guy was actually sitting in the mobile cart and another lady was standing in front of it.  Thinking this could work in my favor in the sense it would really make me 5th and possibly allow me to add a critical new criteria to the selection process.  When they approached, the lady began pulling the items out of the mobile cart and I spent the next 7 minutes counting items.  This was definitely hampered by having to wait for the cashier to scan items in order to make room for the new ones.  46 items later they had scanned all the items in the cart.  By my quick math this is over the stated express limit … and not by a few.  My selection process was hampered by not seeing the full size of the cart basket in front of the mobile cart.  They finally paid for their purchases and the cashier turned to attend the next in line.  Still focused on the same two customers, I was completely surprised when the guy in the mobile cart quickly rose from the seat, grabbed up all 7 of their bags and started walking to the door with no apparent hardships.  I let my impression stay at the surprised level because it did not fit my original expectations – rarely do I spend any additional time reviewing those particular situations since medical conditions can be tricky.  What did catch my eye and warrant further observation was the lady informed the guy she had forgotten something and was going back for it while he proceeded out the store.

She ended up going a few aisles away and eventually I lost sight of her.  In the meantime, the line progressed quite well to the point where I was putting my items on the counter waiting for the customer ahead of me to pay.  As the cashier reached for my first item, I noticed the lady coming back from the aisle, but not at the expected angle for the line had actually grown to about  7 people behind me.  Sure enough, she walked directly up to the individual behind me who, by the way, was also in a mobile cart but definitely under the 20 item limit.  She threw her item in his cart and said hello.  That guy was somewhat surprised and actually said “I haven’t seen you in a long time, what have you been doing”.  Meanwhile the cashier had finished my order so I drew my attention away in order to complete the transaction.  Okay, now I am officially intrigued enough to stand back out of the way and watch this come to conclusion.  The lady grabs her item out of the cart and puts it on the register and takes out her billfold.  Yes folks, she simply paid for that item said goodbye to the guy behind her and headed out towards the door.  That, in my opinion, takes some balls.  Not only did she inconvenience the line with her original order, she has the nerve to simply jump in front of everybody else.  I am pretty sure if I was standing behind the second mobile cart guy I would have had to say something.  In contrast, the guy that was in that position said nothing (but did look outwardly annoyed).

Needless to say, this was not one of those times that proved altruism is a true human trait.  In fact, it seems the aggressive are bound to dominate the meek (at least when it comes to groceries).  So the next time you see that WalMart greeter – you know, the one with the “How may I help you?” on the back of his blue vest, tell him you would like him to patrol the express lanes so you will not get screwed on your way out by inconsiderate customers… and then show your altruism when he stares at you blankly by smiling and telling him to have a nice day.

By the way, Happy Pie Day!

The Christmas Tree Service Line

So my Dodge Ram 1500 started leaking oil on my garage floor.  This I found extremely troubling because it is not even three years old yet.  The good news, if there is a silver lining, is that the car was still under 36K miles so under my manufacturer’s warranty.  Noting I also had an oil change coming up anyway I dropped it off overnight at a local Dodge dealer (name withheld for now).  My wife had an event to go to the next day so as long as I could pick the truck up by 4:30pm we were good to go.

Not hearing anything by 3:30pm the next day, I called the dealership to check on the status.  The receptionist answers the phone, I request the service department and the wait music begins.  3 to 4 minutes later I she comes back on, verifies that I am waiting for the service department, says she is going to try again and the music starts back up.  At least 9 minutes later an individual comes on and starts talking about a vehicle he was looking into for me and asks if I could be put on hold.  After agreeing to this, he eventually returned to the call a few minutes later where he starts the conversation about my truck.  “I am not entirely sure how you know what vehicle I am calling about since I have not given you my name or told you the truck I was calling about?”, was my first response.  He proceeds to tell me about a 3 year 36K bumper to bumper warranty and wanted to know how many miles my truck had.  “Roughly 33K, but I do not think you are talking to the right person, I just want the status of a truck that was dropped off for service last night.”  “Oh, you have the sales department, let me put you on hold and get right back to you.”  Cue the wait music.  A few minutes later he answers the phone, I repeat the intent of my call and he apologizes stating “The phones were lit up like a Christmas Tree.”  He then puts me back on hold with a promise to transfer me to the service department.  It is now an official quest.  All of a sudden some guy answers and says “Elmore here”.  “Is this the service department?”  “No”, and back on hold I go.

At 26 minutes into the first call, the service department finally answers and I find out my truck is just now heading onto the lift.  Well, that was a complete waste of time.  Linda comes home around 4:30 and wants to head out to get the truck at which time I give her the story and question whether it will be done on time.  A call back to the dealership confirms that it was not done yet, but we could pick it up the next day without any problems.  This will be an inconvenience, but I can work around it.

At 5:55pm that night, the service representative calls me and immediately apologizes for calling me so late.  Apparently the technician put my order in his toolbox and went home for the day and they couldn’t find the paperwork.  Turns out the oil leak was due to “The last oil technician [fancy title eh?] failed to sufficiently tighten the filter”  This made me feel a little uncomfortable since this same dealership did my last oil change.  To his credit, he read my thoughts and confirmed that the same technician did not work on it this time and that it was properly fixed.  He then informs me if I could get there by 6pm I could pick up my truck.  I live over 30 minutes away so this was not an option.  Again he apologized which I appreciated.

As it turns out, my wife came down sick the next day so getting the truck was not an option until the following day which was even more annoying, but the good news is the truck is no longer leaking any oil.  The odd thing about all this is that this is the FIRST time I have not received an email asking how my service was and that they would do anything required to get me satisfied enough to fill it out in a positive fashion.  Of course this really didn’t matter much because ironically I never received a factory survey to even fill out.  Seems kind of odd if you ask me unless, of course, this 5 star rating system is based on the dealerships having a say on who the surveys go to.  Kind of like the political polls who call one demographic (for example those who are home during the day and do not have caller ID) and then state they know who is going to win the upcoming election.

Anyway, a very merry holiday Christmas lighted phone to you and your family!

Random Acts of Kindness

There are those times that an observation brings a smile to my face.  Generally these involve some mishap or fail that provides a chuckle at another’s expense (I’m not proud.. but often they deserve it).  Every now and then one of these is a result of someone doing something nice for their fellow man.  Over the last few weeks I have encountered three such situations giving hope to the fact our society is not completely doomed (well, beyond the threat of becoming a socialist country).

The first of these episodes came at a boutique ice cream shop in Peoria Heights (can’t remember the exact name, but something like Emocks and Bollas but that is a complete guess at the moment).  Linda and I were waiting for two me-centric high school girls to complete their order.  One of the girls had already received her single dip cone and was busy chatting about how much her friends like her fashion statements when gravity reared its ugly head resulting in the scoop of ice cream leaping off the cone to the floor.  I thought she would just leave it there, but she did clean up her mess.  Although there was some poetic justice there, what brought the real smile to my face was the owner saw this event and asked for her cone back so he could replace the lost scoop.  So not only does this place have excellent ice cream, the management is truly attentive to their customers.

A few days later Linda and I were winding down from a long work week at the Par-A-Dice Casino in East Peoria.  It was unusually packed likely due to a local MMA event they were hosting at their hotel.  To my surprise, the casino had also purchased the rights to the UFC Fight Night event and were broadcasting it on all their TVs.  This was a huge bonus for me since I really wanted to watch the Tito-Griffin rematch.  I had taken a seat at a video poker machine with a good view of the TV.  At some point, three men came up and took up roots in the aisle way and proceeded to carry on a 40 minute conversation about their recent divorces and get rich quick in real estate plans.  One was even bragging how he tapped his own phone to catch his wife and for some reason learned how to make a taser gun.  That caught my attention and I was eagerly awaiting this explanation. The reason never arrived because midway through this discussion an older lady came rolling up in a wheelchair.  Rolling is probably a little more generous of a word for she was truly struggling to pull herself forward with one leg and trying to navigate the people in the aisle – of which the threesome I was mentioning was posing a significant obstacle.  One of the three noticed her and alerted the other three to make way while commenting to her how well she was navigating.  She took a differing opinion to this comment and responded on how bad she thought she was doing.  As a complete surprise to me, the guy proceeds to ask her where she was going and upon hearing the response said “Well, let’s go there, I’ll push you over there”.  He really didn’t give her a chance to respond and proceeded to get her to the desired destination.  I decided that the issue just might have been with his ex… but that taser thing still intrigued me.

And lastly, I had to run to WalMart on Allen Road today to pick up a peeler and baster for my wife.  She is having her family over for some juicy bird tomorrow and accidentally broke her old one.  Ever since they reset this store we have been unable to find anything we need without traversing through most of the aisles.  Yes, I realize this is the intent having spent my youth employment at Jewel where we reset the store every 6 months in order to maximize product visibility.  As a consumer, this process absolutely blows.  Well, associating the peeler with food I managed to walk up and down every single food aisle without success.  Swallowing my male pride I asked a worker if she could possibly point me in the right direction.  Expecting to get a row number and continue the quest, she startled me with “Let me just put this back and I’ll take you to them”.    At which point, she proceeds to walk me all the way to the other end of the store (away from the food).  On the walk she asked me if I was finding everything else I needed.  I figured the baster was with the peeler so the response was a definitive YES – some of my ego regained.  About 3/4ths of the way there, I noticed the Kitchenware signed and indicated I could make it the rest of the way.  Having none of that, she told me under no uncertain terms she was committed to getting me to the peelers.  And directly to the peelers we went and you guessed it, I thanked her with a smile.

Based on these events, it seems that I am now -3 on the pay it forward scale.  I better be checking the corners for old ladies needing to cross the street.

A Service Recap

I thought I would take the time to recap some recent service experiences I have had.  If you recall, I was complaining about having to load just about all of the cement bags at Menards by myself.  I am still a little torqued about that, but I ended up patronizing their store again to purchase the treated lumber for the bridge span (which will sit atop the cement purchased previously).  In this load (and there will be multiple) I purchased 25 2x12x12x10′ and 15 2x2x8′ treated boards.  Pulling into the wood shed, my heart sank noticing that the 10’s were on the end of the  SECOND floor of the shed which has one set of stairs a loooong way away.  The worst part of it, is the distance from the second to first floor which made it impossible to simply slide the boards over the edge and then move them to the truck.  A close second was the weight of these boards.  If you want to test your strength wrestle a few of these babies out of their storage location in a small aisle.  I made it through 3 and quickly decided this was going to take a few hours.  Although my history of help is less than stellar at Menards, I noticed an employee on a forklift helping someone on the other side of the shed.  A few internal pride discussion ensued before walking down and asking the guy to help me when he was done.  He agreed and promptly came over to help once his other business was completed.  Turns out the railings of the aisle come off providing a means to simply slide the boards straight out and across the raised forklifts.  He helped load the 25 boards on the lifts, assisted in moving them to my truck and then went with me to help get the 15 8 footers which are stored in another location (I have no idea why by the way).  So I need to keep some credit to Menards and their employee (ironically named Bryan) some credit for saving some sweat and allowing me to get out of there in under 30 minutes.

Contrasting this with a Burger King visit last week in East Peoria.  Hungry after a night out, Linda and I decided to catch a late quick dinner.  This place actually keeps a display in their back kitchen area that grades their service for the day.  Rarely have I ever seen it over a ‘C-‘  but that night it was at an ‘A’.  We walked up to the counter and looked for someone to take our order – everybody was back in the prep area.  Minutes passed before one of the employees said he would be there in a little bit… waiting … waiting …. waiting.  Finally he comes up and takes our order where I explicitly state I want onion rings instead of their fries.  I go to pay and he walks away and says someone else will be back to get my money.. waiting … waiting …. waiting.  A lady eventually comes up and takes my money.  The food arrives the original clerk asks me if I want sauce for the chicken fries – thankful for him asking since I always forget, I requested one ranch and one sweet sour.  He then stuns me and questions “You do not want more than that?”  I responded that I really wanted two sweet and sour (which I did) and he said sure, “We don’t charge you like some stores try to do!”  I knew exactly who he was talking about and thanked him for the free extra condiments.  Although I had to wait, this experience put a satisfied smile on my face… which lasted until I was driving back to the house and Linda informs me they gave me crappy fries instead of the requested onion rings – Sigh.

Note, as a confession I was early to Menards on Sunday so dropped by Micky D’s to get a quick breakfast sandwich.  I order a sausage and egg (no cheese) bagel.  Forgetting to check before I left, the prophecy came true about carry out and there was cheese on the sandwich.  I honestly though that the service industry was better when the unemployment rate was high but  it is cresting over double digits now (thank you current government and oh great no change orator) and the service is not improving.

Oh well, shame on me for not validating the orders I guess.