Pet Peeve Spring Cleaning

I am declaring today as the start of spring cleaning.  Now that spring is almost here, I am unloading a pile of major and minor pet peeves for your consideration. Do you share any of these with me?

1. People who don't shovel sidewalks.  Or, for that matter, municipalities who don't shovel sidewalks.
This is far from an upstate New York problem, but it's been especially sad this year to see disabled and elderly people trying to navigate icy sidewalks blocked by piles of snow put there by someone's snowplow. Or, wading through snow that hasn't been touched by the owner of the land. Or, consider people trying to get off a city bus at a stop and finding their access blocked by said snowpiles. This is serious business for a city on the edge of what we call the Snowbelt, running about 83 inches of snow in an average year.

There are laws here regarding snow removal, but apparently the county (they don't clean a property they maintain near my house very well, or consistently) and several local businesses are exempt. So we local residents, enough of whom are old, struggle on.

I hope those officials and businessowners (and yes, homeowners who are either healthy or who can afford someone to remove their snow) grow old one day, and need to walk on city sidewalks.

2.  Potholes.  The roads in this area are in emergency condition.    I know it just isn't us, but this has to be some kind of record pothole year.  Some of our major roads are ready to turn into dirt roads with holes that could swallow a truck.  Just exaggerating slightly.  Get out of your car and walk?  See #1 above.

3.  Our flood insurance is renewing.  Envelope says "Important...please make check payable to NFIP."  Bill says "To remit by check, make check payable to:  FEMA Flood Payments."  Your guess is as good as mine.  Drag out dartboard.

4.  A letter came from Sam's Club, which is a discount "membership" warehouse place here in the States. They are increasing the number of discounts they provide each year - and, oh yes, they are also increasing my annual membership.  It was enough to make me seriously consider rethinking whether I really need to spend $45 (new price) a year for the privilege of shopping there.

5.  The "Online isn't as good as our retail location" pet peeve.  Example:  last Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving here in the United States), I ordered some items online from Office Max, an ofice supply store.  It would have been nice to visit their store but they closed their store in my area years ago.  There isn't one nearby, either. Anyway, recently, they sent me a letter beginning "Dear Valued Customer".  It continued:  "....Shop one of our more than 850 locations, online or by phone...."

Here's the peeve:  they sent me two cards.  One was a $10 off my next in-store purchase of $50. or more.  Can't use that-there's no store here.  And the other card?  $30 off my next online or phone purchase of $150. or more.   Really?  Online customers aren't valued unless they spend three times as much as in the brick and mortar store? Dear Office Max, have you stopped to think some of those online customers might be shopping online because you closed their brick and mortar store?

Not feeling too valued right now.

6. A letter from my health insurer (and yes, I'm grateful to have health insurance). "We care about your health...." So much so that it recommends I discuss having a colonoscopy with my doctor.  Now, if they had bothered to check their records before sending the letter out, they would know I've had two colonoscopies already. (Thank you for paying for them, by the way.)  Think I've already had that discussion.  Save your postage....

7.  Letters from the hospital where I get my yearly mammogram telling me it's time for my next one, recommending I make an appointment.  These letters always seem to come a couple of weeks after I've made appointment for said mammogram.  Dear Hospital, I made my appointment last Monday.  Save your postage....I expect the letter any day now.

(Yup, it came, just as I thought it would).  Do they do this with all their female patients? Just think of the savings if they correlate their appointment records with their letter writing department.  Never mind, the environmental cost of unnecessary paper use.

Do you have any particular pet peeves?

Have Americans Had Enough of Bad Customer Service?

It's interesting that a recent study reports consumers in the United States have had enough of bad customer service.

I haven't experienced any of the extreme examples quoted in the above article, but I've had my share of lesser experiences.  The worst one may have been the boombox I purchased, brand new, several years ago (well, more than several years ago now) which came complete with a homemade mix tape from the previous owner sitting in the cassette player part.  (We did get the store in question to take it back.)

There's the dreaded letter you get that begins "to enhance our customer service" or "we are giving you more" and you know, halfway down the letter, that they will also disclose your costs have been increased.

There are the customer service phone menus, which are specially designed, I suspect, to make you give up.  My spouse gets so frustrated with them that I really do think they are designed like that on purpose.  I am a bit more patient.   The best part is when you reach your destination, have to give all your account info to an automated system, then, when you get someone live, you must - give it all to the rep again.

I won't even blog about the call centers that are obviously not in this country, featuring reps whose English is barely understandable.  That's my major frustration. Having said that, I also know people who work in call centers, and I never, ever give phone reps a hard time, even when I'm shredding the phone (or gritting my teeth) on the other end.  You never should be nasty, either. (Just saying...)

Finally, there is the experience I had with a famous department store whose name begins with M. I promised my Facebook friends I would blog about it - I'm still thinking that one through. But I'm pleased to say that I have not bought anything from said store since August and I've bought a number of new clothes due to my weight loss.  That billing problem experience, which stretched over three months, included several calls to their billing number.  Said number was out of town, in a different area code, was not toll free, and had about the worst designed menu system I've experienced in a long time.

But we are expected to buy, and buy, and buy, and buy, to keep our economy going.  And it's hard to vote with your pocketbook, when so many of their competitors feature the same nightmarish service.

It would be nice if we really had enough of shoddy experience.  I doubt it, though.  (Or, we can all start buying from Amazon.  It's not local, and it's not a brick and mortar but know what? I have never, ever, had a bad customer service experience with them.  Even on Black Friday, and I had to contact them this past Black Friday.  Their service was perfection.)

What was your worst customer service nightmare?

The Six Month Anniversary-A Disaster in the Electronic Age

Tonight, I went out to the Facebook Binghamton Flood 2011 page.  I had not been to that page in months.  But not that long ago, it had been a lifeline of sorts, along with various other electronic resources.

I had promised, months ago, to talk about electronic resources I used when this disaster hit our area, and I was some 10 hours away in Southern Maine. It's about time I keep that promise.

Let me explain....

 
Today is the six month anniversary of flooding that started six months ago yesterday here in upstate NY with flash flooding and continued today as streams and rivers overflowed, giving up after our soggiest weather year in history, under the strain of 10 plus inches of rain from Tropical Storm Lee.  I've written these words so many times now that my fingers type the word without effort, without thought.

Ironically, the 6 month date was a Thursday, too:  Thursday, September 8. The same day the Binghamton Flood 2011 site was set up.



 I followed the progress  flood several ways:
1.  through Twitter, which I think was the most immediate.  One link twittered under a hashtag set up for flood news provided a mashup of an area Google map and road closures.  If only we had listened:  it was more accurate than 511, which led us astray when we tried to return home.  A reporter from a local paper also posted Twitter updates.  Actually I would have depended on it more but I didn't think about using Twitter until the very last.  Shame on me.

2.  through Facebook:  the posts and photo updates from my son, stranded in our house after his neighborhood suffered a flash flood (he barely got out).  Hours after he got to our house, our neighborhood started to flood.  When the firemen came to announce an evacuation at 2:30 am on Thursday morning, my son refused to leave and spent the next couple of days stranded, with a couple of neighbors (one disabled) to keep him company.

I also communicated with one of those neighbors through Facebook chat.  (as he reads my blog, I want to tell him, once again, "thank you.")

3.  Through a reporter who lived over the river in downtown Binghamton,NY and set up a video camera, giving live updates through the night.

4. Through phone.  You might say "that isn't electronic" but our phone service is carried over the Internet.  It was fortunate we never lost power.

I was very lucky that the motel I was staying in (not a chain) had a good Internet connection because my lifeline was electronic. 

Email?  Not so much, except to update some relatives who were not on Facebook. 

At some point, I discovered the Binghamton Flood 2011 Facebook site and after I was home it became a lifeline, advising of stores closed, or where you could do laundry (maybe), updates on lifting of boil water orders,  advising when roads reopened, communicating stories, and  enabling readers to upload photos.  


We've come a long way, baby (as the old advertising slogan once said.)

We have a long way to go.  Our ups and down will continue.  I still don't know if my neighborhood of Westover has a future.

But whatever that future is, I know this:  social media allowed us of the flood to tell our stories to the world.  And, I thank my readers for all of their support these past six months.

Grand Opening of the new Giant/Weis

This is a big deal in our area, the sale of a 75 year old family owned chain to Pennsylvania chain Weis.  Today was the grand reopening although Weis took over the stores as of several days ago.

It's an interesting changeover.  The old Giant (not to be confused with Giant Eagle) was noted for low prices, no gimmicks, not for its selection, the freshness of its food, or its cleanliness. My observations at the Rano Boulevard store (which at one time was a ShopRite until it closed in January of 1987 and Giant took the building over):

1.  The store was a LOT cleaner.  The first thing I noticed upon entering was a fresh clean smell.
2.  Better lighting
3.  A lot of takeover bugs still have to be worked out.  The deli, in particular, had troubles operating.
4.  Customer Service?  There is a full service deli now (Giant wasn't noted for that either) but with 6 people at the deli, and us the only customers at the counter, no one seemed to want to interrupt their conversations to help us.  We finally got someone's attention and we did get our order filled.
5.  At checkout we had a very good experience but I had a strong feeling that the crispily dressed cashier, and the young man bagging (also very well dressed), were not from this area.  Just an impression from body language.   I do know that many times in this type of situation (i.e. a new store) a chain will import experienced employees to help the process along.  I think this is what happened here.  This same gentleman had greeted us as we entered the store-I had almost thought he was the store manager just in his carriage - again, body language.
6.  Some prices (although there were a number of very good opening sales) were up.  As I had mentioned in a prevous entry, this is going to be an important concern - a number of the stores are located in low income areas (the one we went to was not).  However, breakfast cereal seemed to be very reasonable.  They also had a good price on rotisserie chickens.

The changeover in some ways isn't complete: there were a lot of gaps in shelves with little signs announcing more stock was to follow.

Because of Giant's reputation with meat and poultry, I am not buying the grand opening meat specials until friends or co-workers report good experiences.

So, this takeover seems to be a mixed bag:  this chain will be taken (or, maybe, dragged) into the modern age but the price to pay may well be much higher prices for some staples people depend on.

Again, I hope Weis is sensitive to pricing of staples.

Incidentally, I am told that the Akels (the family that owned the Giant) still, apparently, own some of the buildings - so they still aren't completely out of the business.

Doubleplusungood, dudes

This is not new news. For all that I love buying from amazon.com, this gives me a bit of that Big Brother feeling.

For all of you lucky enough to study the book "1984" in high school back in the 1960's, there are certain things in this book that stuck with you forever. The present generation would not be impressed but this book was absolutely chilling in its depiction of a world where a dictatorship totally controlled all sources of information, complete with a Ministry of Truth whose bureaucrats labored to continuously revise all written records to reflect the current Party line. To control thought, a new language called Newspeak was introduced. Words and thought were so short in Newspeak that one could spit sentences out without giving a thought to what one was actually saying.

Of course, nowadays we manipulate photos with ease via programs such as Photoshop and can manipulate electronic records with just as much ease.

And, apparently, we can buy an electronic book and download into our Kindle, and Bi...I mean, Amazon.com, can take it back for whatever reason.

When's the last time your local bookstore knocked down your door to grab back a book you legally paid for?

How ironic (not that this is exactly not my original thought) that the book they "vanished" was....1984. (Along with another Orwell classic, "Animal Farm".)

OK, for the record
1. This was due to a copyright infringement issue, not censorship and
2. Amazon.com duly refunded monies paid to the customers affected.

However, when they sent emails with the refund notices, some customers claim Amazon never bothered to explain what was going on. (Disclosure: I do not own a Kindle and was not affected by this.).

But still. This gives me a very big sense of unease especially as I've been thinking about getting a Kindle. Not any more. Who would have thought of a Kindle as a two-way device quite like this? If you buy anything via Kindle, is it really yours? Can amazon.com take stuff back whenever they want? Maybe we should just stick to the old fashioned books that clutter up the house?

If not Big-Brotherish, it is certainly creepy.

Your Own Authentic Japanese Golden Poo

I was alerted to this by a blog site associated with Consumer Reports.

Apparently, the Japanese word for "luck" is very similar to their word for...well, poo. So the Japanese, playing on the word, have tiny "golden poo" charms that they attach to their cell phones, etc. to bring them luck. You can buy them here. Except right now, they are out of stock, maybe because of this blog talking about them. These aren't just for luck, at least in the U.S. Hate your cell phone carrier? What about your cable company? Wouldn't a "golden poo" charm be just the thing?

I would have loved to attach one to our glitchy cable box, the one that Time Warner insisted didn't have anything wrong with it....but this is Ramblin' with AM, not Rantin' with AM. Maybe another time.

Blue Farming-The Blue Slate Turkey and Heritage Breeds

Yesterday we went to the Farmers Market in Otsiningo Park (this is the same park where our community garden plots are) and visited two meat vendors. One was McRey Farm of Glen Aubrey. We wanted some brisket, but they were out. So we splurged on a pound of cruelty free veal cutlet. Cooked it last night. It was thin and was cut the way it should be, and of high quality.

The other vendor we visited was Twin Oaks Farm in Port Crane, where we bought a small, whole Blue Slate turkey. This is a heritage breed of turkey. We are cooking it now, and will report on the results.

I realize some readers of this blog are vegetarian, so ask their patience while I continue with this entry.

What are "heritage breeds"? These are breeds of farm animal that have been "left behind" in our transition to agribusiness to feed our ever growing population. The fact remains that some of the older breeds of animals are better suited to the small farm setting, or may have characteristics that should be preserved. Some of these characteristics include tolerance to heat and cold, leanness of meat, ability to forage. Have you heard the story of turkeys bred so that they don't have enough sense to get out of the rain-and drown? This lack of survival sense is not a trait you will find in heritage breeds.

For birds, this may also include broodiness (the tendency to "get in the mood", so to speak, to sit on and hatch eggs, and rear the resulting young.)

Years ago, before I even knew what "heritage breeds" were, my spouse and I lived out in rural Arkansas and raised various old fashioned breeds of chickens. I won't bore you (in this post, anyway) with the list of chickens we raised at one time or another, but we also raised several other breeds of chickens, ducks and geese that are on a watch list (or even considered critical now) during our 4 year stay in the countryside.

So why should I ask that you care about heritage breeds, and the small producers who are keeping them alive?

Simple. At your local farmers market you will find small farmers who care about their animals, and care about the people who will be eating their animals-because they meet them weekly and talk to them. If you talk to these farmers they welcome your questions They will answer all of your questions patiently and knowledgeably. They know the slaughterhouse their animals go to and can speak knowledgeably about its practices. As a result of these practices, I firmly believe that your chances of getting E. Coli or worse from these animals is greatly reduced. You can also be sure these animals are not being fed anything that would ever result in Mad Cow Disease.

If you must eat meat (and I have been a vegetarian at times of my life, so I am sympathetic to those who do not eat meat) locally grown is ideally the way to go. To put it even more bluntly, if there is no financial incentive to keep these breeds alive, they will become extinct.

I do admit that not all the meat in our house is locally grown. There are reasons-convenience, cost - so I am not always "walking the walk". We will be working on walking this walk more as this year progresses.

ISP Customer Service from the Inside

This is a must read article "Confessions of a ISP Customer Service Rep"

If you ever wanted to know why ISPs do what they do, here's the view from the inside. An educated consumer is a wise consumer.