Friday, March 30, 2007

Maraka



Funny stuff! Thanks to Cubicle Dad for posting it up.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

I have a new arch enemy

two of them, actually. Which is kind of nice. Now I have some guys to blame all of the world's problems on.

The morons who run the soccer league that The Talker is in are going to be the death of me. It wasn't too bad last year as a parent, but now I am the coach and I have to hear from these guys several times a week.

We are now a week into the season and they just sent out all new schedules. Seems they decided to change things up at the last minute. So I spent an hour making sense of their emails and trying to get good information out to the parents. Grrrrrr.

These geniuses say they don't want anyone coaching kids without a team shirt on, but they forgot to include adult sized shirts in their order. So I am still without a uniform that they require and supply. Guess I'll be the coach in the blue Hawaiian shirt all season.

The soccer brain trust did not even get the field OK'd until last Saturday morning. We ended up playing at a High School, on their marching band's practice field. Which is where we were supposed to play all along, but they did not know if the school would allow it or not this season. Can you say "Call the damn Principal and ask if we can use the field?"

Anyways, 7 more weeks to go, unless I kill the geniuses and end up dealing with a life sentence instead.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Well, that did not last long...

I was blogging elsewhere about being nice to people. And then the cable company emailed me. And I just don't think is possible for me to be nice to them any more.

They have an underground line buried in our backyard. And I have to give them access to it when it needs repair or replacement, but they just have to go and be stupid about it all the damn time.

See, I sent this 2 weeks ago:
On Feb 7 Time Warner Service ran a new line for my neighbors service and left the wire laying on the grass. It has been laying in my grass for 19 days. I need to be contacted about when this wire will be buried, so that I can properly secure my yard and pets.

By the way, there will be no access to my yard for any work crews from March 8th - March 20th.
I got an instant email back, saying they would reply within 3 days. Who in the hell gives employees 3 days to respond to customer service emails? And now, two weeks later I get this:
Thank you for your customer service inquiry. I apologize for the delayed response and for any inconvenience this may have caused. I scheduled an appointment for the first available date in April. On Monday, April 2nd, between 8am-12pm a tech will be out to bury the line in your yard. Please give me a call or send me an email if this is not a convenient time...
Another month to wait? I fired off this:
What a crock. It has taken two weeks to get a response AND the cable has lay in my yard for 3 weeks BEFORE that! AND you can't get a crew out until April? I am glad I am no longer a customer, because this would be the end of our relationship!

Did I tell you I loves me some DirecTV?
I guess I made her laugh or made her mad, because I got another response almost instantly:

I scheduled the appointment for April because you stated you would not be available to provide access to your yard since you were going to be gone in March. I can schedule an earlier appointment if you will be available to secure your pets and make sure the technician has access. Please let me know when would be a convenient time for you.
So I decided that I had wasted enough time on this and fired off a last shot:

No thanks.

I am just highly annoyed that an email response took two weeks. This job could have, and should have, been finished for 5 weeks if the first tech had just done his job.
It would be nice if someone from the company actually took an interest in this and tried to keep it from happening again. But we are not customers, because of crap like this. I might send an email or two, but won't waste any more real time on it.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

NTB - Next Time Bye

Prepping for our road trip, I decided to take our car over to NTB, National Tire and Battery for a $24 rotate and balance of the tires.

There are two stores a few miles from here, one west a couple of exits down the freeway, and one south east less than five miles away. We have never done business with either store, so I stopped at the closer store because I am lazy. The store was closing in 95 minutes BUT if I wanted to wait, they "would get my car finished tonight".

I was a little curious why he said tonight, when it was only 4:25 in the afternoon. But being lazy I did not ask. I assumed he meant "we will get right on it, but it might take the full 95 minutes.."

He looked stunned when I said I wanted to wait while they did the rotation and balance this afternoon.

"Sir, It is going to take four or five hours to get to you...

What?

Yeah, we might not be done until 9:30 or so...

I don't think so, see you later, gator."


Then I hopped in the car and drove to the other store. I was there in 8 minutes and they were not terribly busy. Neither was the other store, but that is neither here nor there... These guys got me in and out in 35 minutes. An hour after I left the first store I was home. I guess I know which store I will be going to next time.

And I had stopped at Costco for gas on the way, which almost 20 minutes. But that is a bitch session for another day...