Out of Pocket, Still Out of My Mind

Warning: BITCHING AHEAD.

So. After trying to get someone from the plumbing office to call us back and come fix our toilet, I finally made an appointment with our Handyman Service. They were supposed to come Saturday and fix the toilet. So we made sure there was someone home ALL DAY, and we waited and waited.

Along about 3:00 p.m., I called them, wanting to know when they would get here. "Oh," the owner said. "My guy called when he was ready, no one answered, so he knocked off for the day after leaving a message."

You know, I'm not sure who received his message, but our home phone did not ring on Saturday. The handyman did leave a message on my cell (which I had instructed them only to call if no one answered the home number), but that didn't help me much - the toilet was still broken, and anyone who's ever tried to get in touch with me knows that my cell should be your last choice.

I kind of felt sorry for the owner. After being a shit-magnet for crappy customer service for basically a month, I'm afraid I'd had it, and I was a bit...abrupt. Bless his heart, he didn't tell me to get bent, but instead said he'd come Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. to rebuild the toilet himself. Which he did, so now we have a toilet that actually works on the main floor. I'm happy about that, of course, but I have to say - I'm really, really tired of dealing with service (or "non-service," as the case may be) people. Really, really tired. And I'm tired of being mad about it, too. Because I work from home (and the Smart Man doesn't), such chores naturally fall to me, and while I have a full intellectual understanding about why the situation is the way it is, emotionally I still sometimes feel like I'm being taken advantage of.

Yes, I know it's ridiculous. No, that doesn't have any bearing on the way I feel, especially after having people trot in and out of my house like it's Grand Central Station Terminal* for the last several weeks.

So this week, instead of dealing with service people, I get to drive from Parker to Westminster every day to take part in a special project for my company. Another completely reasonable request, but the fact of the matter is that driving in traffic gives me almost as much stress as dealing with non-service people. So I'm afraid my week isn't going to get any better.

Have you had enough of my bitching, yet? I know I have.

The bright side? The Smart Man got me a gift certificate for a massage to help me get my stress under control. Because that's just the way he rolls.

:-)

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*Modified to keep Nathan and his Zombie Pancreas from going Postal on my non-service receiving ass.

2010 Flower Pr0n, Edition the Eighth

I've been redecorating the guest bathroom for the last week or so. In purple and white. So in celebration of a new color scheme, here's some purple flower pr0n:

Have a nice Sunday, Hot Chicks and Smart Men.

Adventures in Customer Service - Crown Plumbing

You know, I thought I was turning a corner on this whole "poor customer service" thing. The fabulous Abba Floors and Junz were restoring my faith, and I was prepared to go about the business of keeping my house in good repair with a smile on my face and song in my heart.

Yeah. Silly rabbit.

We have a plumber that we use - Crown Plumbing. We've used them several times over the last several years, and been satisfied with the results. In fact, I've spent over $1,300.00 with them just in the last month, thanks to the water heater giving up the ghost and a leaky toilet. So when I called them to come and look at the downstairs toilet, which is apparently running a marathon, I expected to have the issue resolved by today at the latest.

Yeah. Silly rabbit.

Do you think I could get them to actually CALL ME BACK? No. No, I couldn't. In fact, I called them a SECOND TIME and left a message expressing my disappointment with their lack of responsiveness. I explained that after spending so much money with Crown Plumbing in the last month, it kind of sucked that their behavior indicated a level of unresponsiveness that implied they really didn’t care much about establishing relationships with repeat customers.

They STILL didn't call me back.

It must be nice to have a business that's so all-fired successful that you can afford to blow off repeat customers when they call to engage your services and are willing to pay you for the same. I know a number of small business owners*, and none of them feel that way about their business.

I've written my normal consumer complaint letter, but considering they can't even be bothered to return a call for a revenue generating opportunity, I doubt they'll give a shit about a letter explaining why we'll no longer patronize their company. Instead I'll be giving my money to our Handyman Service, Incepector Handyman. Because not only do they do good work, they actually RETURN MY CALLS.

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*One such business, The Underground Sprinkler Corps, has been maintaining our sprinkler system for the entire time we've lived here. In fact, the owner just left after replacing a defective sprinkler head. He and his family have always been professional, responsive, fair, and done good work. Which is why they get our business, year after year, in addition to my permission to dig up some of my yellow irises.

Boogie Blogging Friday - Boogie Finds a Ball

The other morning the Boogie-Dog and I were on our normal morning walk. I took my camera, as the wildflowers are starting to bloom in the field where we walk, and I wanted to take some pictures.

That extended our walk a bit, and while I was dinking around, Boogie found a ball. Which he carried around for the next 20 minutes.

After I was done with my camera, I looked around for Boogie so we could go home and have some breakfast, and found him relaxing in the tall grass. All I could see were his little pointed ears, peeping above the grass-line, and as I approached, he dropped his new found toy in the hopes that I would pick it up and throw it for him. Which, of course, I did.

The end.

Tribalism, Barbarians and the Body Politic

I consider myself an "American." Not an Irish-American, or a European-American, or a White-American. I'm American (but not in an "America - Fuck, Yeah!" kind of way). There is no doubt where my first loyalty lies, and I trust that while my behavior reflects that loyalty, I'm not a nationalistic nutbag with no sense of proportion or clarity about my own government.

As an American citizen, I feel that I have a obligation to make decisions and form opinions about political issues based on two factors: First, what is right, in an ethical sense. Secondarily, what is best, for the majority of people who live in this country. That seems simple, but we all know it's not - it's very easy to give in to fear, or regionalism, or split loyalties. Which brings me to a topic that I've been thinking about a lot lately, but I've been somewhat loathe to write about - tribalism.

I'm beginning to think tribalism really isn't good for America. Not good at all.

Please note I'm not talking about diversity, or multiculturalism. Ensuring people have the opportunity to maintain their cultural identity is not the same as focusing exclusively on the well-being of your own group to the exclusion of everyone else in the body politic.

It seems to me that people who indulge in tribalism make decisions and form opinions about political issues not based on what is right and what is best for the majority, but exclusively on what is best for their tribe. If a program is good for their tribe but bad for the majority, in their mind, it's the right thing to do, regardless of whether or not it's right. If it's bad for their tribe, regardless of other considerations, it's simply bad.


Is tribalism a sort of a cancer on the body politic? If members of a tribe exercise their franchise for the good only of the tribe, rather than the whole, then how long will it be until the whole suffers irreparable damage? I can't answer that - I don't think anyone can, but I'm pretty sure such behavior can't be good for the whole.

It goes both ways, of course. When Arizona passed its draconian law regarding the demand for proof of legal residence, I opposed it. I opposed it because it was wrong, not because I'm Hispanic, or have Hispanic relatives. The first criteria for me was whether or not the law is ethical, not whether or not it was good for my tribe.* As a citizen, I have an obligation do what's right, and I think sometimes tribalism blurs that line in the mind of those who indulge in it.

Many years ago, I read a novel by a Jewish author. One of his primary points was that Jews were fundamentally barbarians, because as a group, their first concern has always been, "What's best for the Jews?" I think that stereotype may have a grain of truth for a variety of historical reasons, but I'd hesitate to apply it to every Jew on the planet. I will posit, however, that groups who indulge in tribalism may be accurately described as barbarians, for their failure to look outside their group and take the larger world into account.

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*It's not good for my tribe. I'm just using it as an example.

Adventures in Parenting, I'm So Proud Edition

My Smart Girl? The one who's in college? Yeah. She finished her first semester, and she got straight A's.

That's my girl.

Adventures in Customer Service - the Grim Death Experience

It seems like here lately that I've been inundated with "Adventures in Customer Service." Some have been positive, but most have been negative. Coupled with my worse-than-usual insomnia, it was really just starting to piss me the hell off.

But what I've realized, just this morning, is that there are companies out there that value customer service. There are probably more that don't, but I'm glad to have a few positive experiences to offset the negative.

Consider:

Last week, we had new floors installed in our kitchen and bathrooms. We're really pleased with the way they turned out, and our experience with the installers was so AWESOME I just have to share it.

We bought the project from Empire Today, as they had the material we were interested in. The sales person was competent, although their sales tactics made me roll my eyes a little - I'm in sales myownself, buddy. I know that your sales funnel will not be irreversibly compromised if we install this project on Wednesday instead of Tuesday when it's the middle of the month. You're not fooling anyone with your artificial metrics.

However, the installers that Empire subcontracted with - they were the cat's pajamas. They're a little company named "Abba Floors," and Andre and Lucas, the family team that came out to do our project were made of Awesome. With Awesome Sauce. They were communicative, courteous, on-time, friendly, and (most important) liked my dog. Noting that I'm a complete ignoramus when it comes to things like home improvement projects and floor installation techniques, they still treated me with respect, and explained everything about the project ahead of time. And here's the kicker: After they were done, and I had accepted and signed off on the project, the Smart Man came home and noticed a tiny piece of quarter round in the kitchen that was the wrong color. I called them the next day, explained what happened, and since they were under no obligation to come back after I accepted the job, I offered to pay them a trip charge to come back out and fix the issue. Well, they were out within four hours, and fixed the issue with no trouble - and would not accept a trip charge. They made it clear to me that customer service is vitally important to them, and it showed.

They do not have a website, so if anyone in the Denver area needs some labor for flooring, send me a note and I'll send their contact information along.

And:

When the fabulous Jeri was here a couple of weeks ago, the Smart Man, me, Stacey, JR and the Incomparable Anne™ went to our very first favorite Japanese sushi restaurant here in Parker, Junz.We've been going to Junz for years and years, and it's really our favorite restaurant in our part of town. So imagine our surprise when the service was inattentive and sloppy, and the sushi ordered by half of our party took over an hour to prepare, while other patrons who arrived after us received their sushi before us.

Well.

I realize I have no personal relationship with these people. It's not like we hang out. But we do have a professional relationship. Junz has been our "go-to" restaurant for date-night, special occasions and sushi with friends. We've never had a bad meal there, and never had poor service. So I felt a little betrayed by their behavior, and ended up feeling like I needed to apologize to my friends for the poor service they received.

Not being one to suffer in silence, I wrote a letter to the executive chef, explaining my concerns and describing our experience. And lo and behold, the manager called less than a week later, explaining that they had called a meeting immediately upon receiving my letter to determine what happened, and to come up with a plan to ensure it wouldn't happen again. He ended up expressing his hope that we would give them another chance, as they didn't want to lose a loyal customer.

I can't tell you how happy I was that they responded to my note - I really love that restaurant, and I didn't want to drop them like a hot rock for letting their customer service go to shit.

So in spite of feeling a bit put upon in regards to poor customer service in the last month, there actually are companies out there that care about how they treat their customers, and aren't afraid to share that feeling. Unfortunately, I think they may be in the minority. Which means when I do find a company that feels that way, I'll be holding on like grim death.