Rants and Raves - Freeze-Frame Radio

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

Rants and Raves

Jeremy Riggs · 2011 Super Bowl Champions!

I'm fed up with Amazon.com.

I ordered a hard drive with 3 additional parts (one of which is mandatory for the drive to work at all) and it turns out the four parts will ship from three different locations.

Two of the locations shipped within 48 hours, the other two pieces were coming from Amazon directly.

Well, I realized that I didn't need one of the pieces because the drive already comes with it (yet on the sales page they showed the item right next to it as if it was a needed EXTRA part).

I go to their website to cancel the order and it says it's estimated ship date is October 12'th. That's SHIP date, not delivery date. None the less it says it can't be cancelled because the order is being processed.

I send them an email telling them I want the order cancelled, they never get back to me. 24 hours later I get an email the items have shipped today.

Now I have to deal with sending the item back. AAAAAAAAAARGH

POSITIVE POINT:

My super-honest mechanics did it again. Dropped the car off this morning for an oil change, tires and to have them check the brakes.

They did the oil change, got me a great price on some 60,000 mile tires because he knew I don't drive much and they should be good enough for me, and he told me my brakes look excellent and don't need anything done. (I've known SO many mechanics that would just replace the pads once I asked them to look at them).

On top of that when I paid in cash he knocked a few bucks off since they won't have to pay credit card fees. That's not their standard policy, he was just being nice.

I love those guys!

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

Can you guess that I started this thread because I needed to vent?

2 weeks ago, Customer Q calls me about tape measures. I send him an email with a bunch of tape measures asking him to tell me what ones he likes.

At the end of the week, he calls my boss about tape measures. He never mentions to her that he asked me about them. I just happened to overhear the call and told her that I already sent him some.

Then last week he calls about reordering some die cut ornaments they did last year. I email him a quote.

Today he calls my boss about reordering some die cut ornaments. Again, he didn't mention he'd already talked to me. She comes into my office and says, "Have you ordered die cut ornaments before?" At which point I imploded.

What is this guy's problem?

In good news, I can still get Dr. Pepper with real sugar from the coolers in the front of the grocery store. Last time they have the Throwback drinks, it was like winning the lottery to find one in the coolers. So I had a Dr. Pepper with lunch today.

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

Uh, I hate that there's no such thing as customer service anymore.

That's an awesome mechanic though! I wish I had a nice reliable mechanic like that around here.

Mad Mema · Bad Biker Granny

So many rants, so little time.

WebGuy · Doesn't Do Windows

I better not start or I might not be able to stop.

confuzzed · Permanent State of Confusion

I don't have anything nice to say. I kind of wish I did though.

Jeremy Riggs · 2011 Super Bowl Champions!

So last week I decided it was time to decorate my apartment.

I've been here over a year and the only thing I had put on any of the walls was a couple clocks and a picture of Miller Park.

I wanted to go with a more mature look this time, so I took some money I won at the casino and went on a shopping spree.

Today I went to Target to put the finishing touches on things. Target was my last resort when K-Mart, Wal-Mart and a few others didn't have quite what I was looking for, because I know Target will charge me about 40% more than anything they have is actually worth.

But sure enough, they did have stuff that had the look I was going for.

They've got this two picture set that is on sale for $50.00 each, down from $60. Nothing special. A wood frame with a canvas-like material inside and then centered on it is a photo of a bridge and some water.

Maybe I'm crazy, but to me I would hope for some quality when dumping $100 - $120 on a couple of pictures.

When I'm trying to put them up I notice the hangers on the back are just slapped on. They're not evenly spaced and they're not lined up. So hanging these things and getting them to be level was a pain.

When I'm done I stand back and notice one of the pictures is glued onto the matting crooked! They couldn't take the time to GLUE IT PROPERLY for only $50. Unbelievable.

Now I have to run around to every Target with this picture in the car, hope I find a matching one, BUY IT, then go to the car to get the bad one and bring it in to return it.

PAIN IN THE A**!!!

THIS IS WHY I HATE SHOPPING

(Yeah, I know, I probably should have noticed it was off when I was in the store, but it didn't stand out to me like it does on the wall)

I attached the photos, the first one shows how it's misaligned.

-- Edited by Jeremy Riggs on Wednesday 13th of October 2010 03:15:44 PM

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

They're pretty pictures.

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

Oh, and have you ever looked in Hobby Lobby for pictures? They're on sale for 50% off a lot of the time. If you go in and they're not on sale, go back the next week and they will be.

You can go the route to buy the picture, matte, and frame separately and put them together yourself. It doesn't take any special skills (just don't glue the picture to the matte), and will cost you around $50 a picture, if not less.

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

I have some customers who give me 10 brochures to create on September 30th and ask to have them by the end of October. These are the customers that I want to turn something around in a week for.

Then I have some customers who call about getting their newsletter printed and mailed and I tell them I can turn it around in a week. Then they give me the file on Thursday, tell me the mailing list will come on Friday, and ask if we can have it in the mail on Monday.

Then I have some customers who give me changes to make to 3 menus, and tell me they need them as soon as possible. I give them a proof the next day, and they have just a couple more changes, they're out of menus, and need it as soon as possible. I give them another proof the next day, and they call back 3 days later and have just a couple more changes, they're out of menus, and need it as soon as possible. I give them another proof the next day, and they call back 5 days later and have just a couple more changes, they're out of menus, and need it as soon as possible.

Then I have some customers who give me changes to 8 magnets, and ask me when I can get them a proof. I tell them a week, they say okay.

So I struggle to meet the first and last customer's reasonable deadlines because of the inconsiderate customers in the middle. And, one of the customers in the middle gives me gift certificates to their restaurant that they know I can't eat at (I don't just think they know, they always say, "I know you can't eat anything there, but here's a gift certificate.") thinking that they are making up for being jerks. Jerkwads, I'm not the only person that you're being a jerk too here, what about all the other customers that did things right but had to wait on you?

Mad Mema · Bad Biker Granny

Perhaps you need the sign I have posted outside my cubicle by my name plate: "Lack of planning on your part does NOT constitute an emergency on my part."

Mad Mema · Bad Biker Granny

Here is my rant of the day: If it is your job to convey information about how to build IP connections within a multi-million dollar major telecommunications network, then SWEET MOTHER OF PEARL PLEASE BE SPECIFIC AND DETAIL ORIENTED. The accuracy and specificity are actually important!

From one planner I got 3 e-mails in a row with the same subject line... one is a message recall request, one would then be the e-mail being recalled, and the third would then theoretically be the intended message. Observing this, I allowed the message recall so that took care of 2 of them which left me with the one I was apparently supposed to read and respond to. When I read it, the e-mail basically contained a partial name of a company I built an interconnection to, a list of IP addresses, and a request for why these IPs are in the network because they aren't on the interconnection plan. It lacks the critical details of which plan is being referred to (there are multiple for this company) and which switch(es)... could be any combination of 26 different switches... she is referring to.

So I reply to the e-mail requesting these details.

I know that I don't make this stuff up, so I got orders for it at some point in the last few weeks... my guess is she is looking at the wrong plan. Instead of the details I get a response "I recalled this e-mail because it wasn't useful." I replied to that another e-mail was recalled which left me this one to look at. She replies, "Oh. I meant to recall this one. I thought you knew that."

Since when am I Karnac?

Okay... disregard that e-mail and move on to the other 3 she also sent me around the same time. They each refer to different companies (one is the same company as the previous mess was about). They all start out "I asked you to build too much in my original e-mail on this." In other words, she sent me IP addresses in each of those orders that go to wrong equipment. If we actually send traffic there, very bad things will happen. The point of the e-mail is that I should remove those IPs from those connections. 2 of these companies it is not a problem as we have not started sending traffic to them yet.

#3, however... is a problem because in some cases we are sending them traffic and those are mixed in with the cases where we are not sending traffic. The e-mail goes on to state that I should make sure that all of this is right when the traffic moves occur. Great... some have already occurred, others are not even scheduled yet. WTF DO YOU WANT ME TO DO HERE???? You guessed it... it is the company involved in the previous e-mail mess. So, I call her to my desk and explain that I can only honor part of her request today because anything dealing with live traffic would have to be coordinated with the company in question and handled during the maintenance window. She says, "Yeah, I know that. And after I sent that e-mail I told (coworker) that I thought I was being vague. We decided that you were just going to ask me a bunch of questions anyway because you always do so it didn't really matter. It was clear in my head." I replied, "I ask a bunch of questions because if I can't comprehend your intent I might make a mistake which could cause me to get fired. I like living in my house. I can only live there if I can pay for it. If I don't have a job, I can't pay for it. Better to ask a bunch of annoying questions than to end up homeless, don't you think?"

As a related side note... this is one of the same people that tends to complain to others that I'm always in a bad mood.

Gee... could we have stumbled upon a reason for the bad mood?

End of rant.

Start of rave:

My boss still ROCKS! He doesn't even feel well but he is trying to do nice stuff for me and Little Man for all the hours we have been working. A lot of bosses would just take the attitude that it is all part of the job. I'm pretty lucky.

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

I hate telephones. Here are some of the calls I get at work (names changed to protect the... well, names are changed.):

Me answering phone: Hello. Baugh Enterprises.
Customer: Etch?
Me: I'm sorry, she's at lunch right now. Would you like her voicemail?
Customer: No, I'm looking for CoOwner.
Apparently the way I say, "Hello. Baugh Enterprises" sounds just like the Etch, because I get this a lot. But when people just say, "Etch?" I don't know if they are asking if I am her, or if they are asking to speak to her. Why can't they say, "Is this Etch?" or "May I speak to Etch?"

Me answering phone: Hello. Baugh Enterprises.
Customer: May I speak to CoOwner?
Me: I'm sorry, he's at lunch right now. Would you like his voicemail?
Customer: Sure
Just as I'm ready to hit the transfer button, Customer: Louise?
Me: Pardon me, did you just ask 'did he leave?'
Customer: No, Louise?
At this point, I'm wondering if he's actually saying the name Louise, or if he's asking something else and I'm just not hearing correctly.
Me: I'm sorry, we don't have anyone here named Louise.
Customer: You don't have a Louise?

Me answering phone: Hello. Baugh Enterprises.
Customer: May I speak to [any coworker except me]?
Me: I'm sorry, [coworker] is out of the office. Would you like voicemail?
There are only two answers here. They could say yes, or they could say that they'll call back. Instead, I often get people who...
Customer: I'm just calling about [this really complicated job that they explain in great detail that's more mystifying than the creation of the universe]. Can you let them know?
I really want to say: No, that's what voicemail is for.

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

The good part of all of that is that none of the calls were for me.

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

My boss has a large customer that refurbishes and resells TVs. They're doing a whole bunch for Sam's Club, so they need manuals to go with them. But since these are refurbished, there's no warranty or support for them, so those things need taken out of the manual, then new manuals need printed.

We get huge orders for these manuals, which means a lot of money comes in from them, which is good. But these people don't know how to plan. They call at the last minute needing manuals right away, and they aren't quick to do. We simply can't print and put together 1000 manuals in 24 hours.

So when they call, everything in the shop stops so these manuals can be done. Today a small order for one of my customers got pushed aside to do the manuals instead. This isn't the first time it's happened. So I complained.

My boss's answer was, "I didn't know you had promised that order to your customer today."

My response was that isn't the problem I have with the manuals. I can understand if in a special case, some not so urgent orders need pushed aside to accommodate a rush. But that isn't the case here, this customer's order is always a rush. Our other customers shouldn't have to suffer because they don't spend as much money with us, we should stop pushing other orders aside to do the manuals. She doesn't get it, and thinks that I'm complaining about the one order.

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

But in good news, I'm loved. I sent out a survey about the write ins and such that I organized for NaNoWriMo this year. (I volunteered to be the leader for the Bloomington area this year.) One of the questions was:

In your opinion, did your Municipal Liaison (that would be me) do a good job?

No 0.0%

Could use some improvement 0.0%

Yes50.0%

Exceeded my expectations50.0%

And some of the comments were:

"Michelle is awesome and supportive and fun to talk to. I thought she did an awesome job. I would put "exceeded expectations" except that I didn't have any since I didn't know what to expect about any of it. :)"

"You did great in my opinion. Wish I could have been around more!"

"She was terrific! I didn't have much in the way of expectations, but I'll bet she exceeded them! "

"You did an awesome job and you should be proud!"

I also asked:

Did you have fun participating in NaNoWriMo in Bloomington in 2010?

And instead of putting yes or no buttons, I left a comment field. Everyone said yes enthusiastically.

-- Edited by MzHartz on Thursday 2nd of December 2010 01:48:41 PM

confuzzed · Permanent State of Confusion

We love you too Mz!

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

confuzzed wrote:

We love you too Mz!

Aw, shucks.

WebGuy · Doesn't Do Windows

I have a new customer that has a mailing list reflector. That is all they are using, just the email list. They have about 150 members on this list and a due to their outreach location (Ethiopia), many of the members are on Yahoo email addresses.

Due to the sudden increase of mail to Yahoo, Yahoo has decided to delay mail from my server to their users. The users are complaining. I explained that it is Yahoo causing the delays, but I still went to Yahoo to see about getting the delay lifted.

Yahoo has a form for exactly this purpose.

I filled out the form and supplied every requested bit of info.

In the "thank you" form submission, it says "We will respond within 24 hours". I thought "Yeah, we'll see".

Well, guess what? Yahoo DID respond within 24 hours. Their response? A form letter requesting all the info that I supplied on their form. The info from my submission is even shown in their reply.

So, their policy should really be: "We will respond with a completely worthless form letter within 24 hours. We will then actually look at your request some time in the distant future."

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

Ugh. I hate auto replies like that. Even sometimes you can tell there is a human at the other end, but that human has a list of auto replies to choose from, so you get a blurb of personalized email, then the form letter that helps none.

WebGuy · Doesn't Do Windows

Yeah, this one was signed by "Chelsea". So it looked like a human was involved in the form reply, but who knows.

WebGuy · Doesn't Do Windows

Here's another one that is not a big deal, but I'm rather "facepalm" with.

Last night was the church AWANA (kids program) Christmas program.

I took a bunch of pics and uploaded them to my SmugMug account. I password protected the gallery so not everyone on the web can see the kid's pics.

This morning, I sent a message to four "church moms" that I am friends with on Facebook.

In my message to those four, I provided a link to the gallery, and the password. I explained how they can download any of the pics they want.

I listed the four "moms" that I was sending the message too and added "If you think someone else would like any of these pics, please feel free to forward this info on to them."

I thought I was done.

Soon, I got a reply saying "I think (list of about 8 other moms) would also like these too."

I replied, "Ok, that is good, but I'm not FaceBook friends with any of those other moms, I can't send messages to them. If you want them to have the info, YOU will have to share with them because I can't".

Now, another gal is also giving me names . . . "What about ______ and _____ ??"

Ugh, I shared with everyone on FB that I can. If you want these people to also have the pics of their kids YOU FORWARD it on to them. Just because YOU are FB friends with every mom in the church, does not mean I am.

Why does trying to do something nice have to be made so difficult? I think I did enough to take the pics, and share them with the moms I knew. If you think it is important that these other people have the pics, then do as I originally suggested and YOU SHARE IT with them.

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

Another Ugh. I hate it when people do things like that. I have acquaintances that do that to me. I offer to print something of theirs for free, and then it ends up turning from a simple print job to something complicated that needs rushed.

confuzzed · Permanent State of Confusion

I have friends that try to take "advantage" of my skill set. I don't mind explaining something or telling you where to find the information, but at some point it becomes too much and you should really be compensating me for my time and materials.

WebGuy · Doesn't Do Windows

And now, I got another response from Yahoo:

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Mail.

Unfortunately, your message was sent to us as an attachment or HTML 
document. 

Due to security purposes, our custom messaging system is unable to 
access attachments or webpages; and we will need you to cut and paste 
plain text information, as opposed to HTML format or sending it as an 
attachment. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Your patience during this process is greatly appreciated.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Mail. Your case number for this 
issue is #######. Please reference it in all future communication about
this particular issue. 

Regards,

Frank

Another form response because I replied to them with an HTML email. I did not add an attachment.

I wonder if they do this on purpose just to test to make sure that this issue is big enough to me that I will push through their stupidity until I can get someone to fix the problem. I suspect many people give up right away and stop trying.

confuzzed · Permanent State of Confusion

It is different because you know what the heck you are doing. Give 'em hell.

WebGuy · Doesn't Do Windows

And another reply from Yahoo:

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Mail.

We have changed our application form so that you can provide us with 
more detailed information about your emailing practices.

Please use our new form to submit your application. The new form can be 
found at:

   http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/bulkv2.html

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Mail. Your case number for this 
issue is ######. Please reference it in all future communication about
this particular issue. 

Regards,

Frank

Yahoo! Customer Care

They have not even tried to look at the problem. Its like they all just reply with a form response to make the next shift have to deal with it.

MzHartz · Permanent Vacation

I have a vision in my head of a snake eating its tail...

WebGuy · Doesn't Do Windows

I'm NOT submitting another form.

If the user contacts me about the delays I'm just going to highly suggest that they switch to Gmail.