I just love it when I'm checking my email inbox and, *SURPRISE!* A new email arrives yesterday.
I check my email just about every day, and anything I don't delete is either read or marked as read. I dutifully checked my email yesterday and marked everything appropriately. So how is it that, while my inbox is open on November 18 and in the midst of perusing my email, a brand new email appears received on November 17? Not showed up when I first opened the inbox, as in it was sent yesterday after I last checked, but showed up after my inbox had been open for a while on the 18th.
Magic.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
R.I.P. Tree
::NOTE:: The furry menace has been vanquished. The full containment traps garnered nothing, but the snap traps caught the culprit on the very first night. This was nearly a month ago, and there has been no mousey trouble since. So far, so good; and we have spare snap traps at the ready in case the situation changes again.
My parents separated 15 years ago this Christmas. The following year, my father bought a 3' tall tabletop tree for his apartment. He soon bought a townhome and furnished it for the holidays with a normal-sized tree, and bequeathed the 3' tree to me for use in my apartment and thenceforth.
In 2003, I moved in with Husband. The arrangement of our furniture in the living room pretty much prevented getting a real (or real-sized) tree, so we put my tabletop tree on top of the L-shaped entertainment center. It wasn't elegant, but it sufficed, and there was some rednecky charm to my stumpy fake tree balanced precariously on top of the DVD player.
Last year, even as I put it back up, I acknowledged that my little tree was not long for this world. The needles were falling out, one of the feet wouldn't slide properly into the base, and the branches were getting a bit wonky from the years of folding and unfolding.
This year, the sales were too good to ignore. I bit the bullet and bought a 6' pre-lighted tree. We'll have to rearrange the couches, but it'll only be for a month, which I think we can handle. Besides, with the advent of the new TV and thus the new entertainment center, there was no place to put Stump but on the floor, which I'm sure Pocket would love, but it would not bode well for our ornaments and such.
My tabletop tree gave 14 holidays of good service, but as all things must come to an end, so did the little tree go to the curb this morning.
Rest in peace, little tree. Deep in my heart, I'll probably miss you.
My parents separated 15 years ago this Christmas. The following year, my father bought a 3' tall tabletop tree for his apartment. He soon bought a townhome and furnished it for the holidays with a normal-sized tree, and bequeathed the 3' tree to me for use in my apartment and thenceforth.In 2003, I moved in with Husband. The arrangement of our furniture in the living room pretty much prevented getting a real (or real-sized) tree, so we put my tabletop tree on top of the L-shaped entertainment center. It wasn't elegant, but it sufficed, and there was some rednecky charm to my stumpy fake tree balanced precariously on top of the DVD player.
Last year, even as I put it back up, I acknowledged that my little tree was not long for this world. The needles were falling out, one of the feet wouldn't slide properly into the base, and the branches were getting a bit wonky from the years of folding and unfolding.
This year, the sales were too good to ignore. I bit the bullet and bought a 6' pre-lighted tree. We'll have to rearrange the couches, but it'll only be for a month, which I think we can handle. Besides, with the advent of the new TV and thus the new entertainment center, there was no place to put Stump but on the floor, which I'm sure Pocket would love, but it would not bode well for our ornaments and such.
My tabletop tree gave 14 holidays of good service, but as all things must come to an end, so did the little tree go to the curb this morning.
Rest in peace, little tree. Deep in my heart, I'll probably miss you.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Mouse in My House
Last Tuesday, I was quietly working from home under a metric ton of pressure, when I discovered we had an unwelcome new resident. In my peripheral vision, I saw a flash of black, and then it was gone. Another flash, and it was gone again. I leaned forward, staring at the edge of the stairs where the flash had come from. THERE IT WAS AGAIN - and it stopped in front of the riser... in the form of a rodent. There was a mouse in my house.
Our neighbors just discovered they had mice, so there was precedent; we're reasonably sure they're coming from the vacant house two down. And, having spent a fair part of my after-school hours working in food service, I can recognize a mouse when I see it. But since we saw neither hide nor hair of the vermin for the rest of the week, I was sincerely beginning to think I had hallucinated. I was wearing my glasses at the time, which leave peripheral vision almost entirely uncorrected, so it wasn't a far leap to think that maybe I'd only imagined it.
On Saturday morning, however, we found incontestible proof of its presence: mouse poop on the stack of cutting boards, which precipitated a frenzy of cutting board and counter washing and disinfecting. The boards are now stored vertically in the drip rack, thereby taking up most of the useable drip rack space, but at least I won't find those little presents on my food preparation materials again. We'll be going through the house this week to seal up all possible openings in the drywall, which is how we think they got in.
I remember several years ago when DC101 DJ Elliot talked about discovering his house had mice. He said his house felt dirty and that he was obsessed with getting rid of them. I remember thinking that he was a wuss, that it was just mice for goodness sake. But now, I know. Now my house feels dirty. Now I'm obsessed with getting rid of them. It's not just their nasty little mouse poops, but they could bring in fleas, and they multiply quickly, and I do not need an infestation nor can I afford the Orkin man.
When Pocket was very small, she singlehandedly rid our basement of the camel cricket menace, for which I am forever grateful. She has never since been so thorough, perhaps because she thinks she's done her part and that our job going forward is to lavish praise and attention upon her for it. So we have no hope of Pocket actually earning her keep by cleansing the house of the rodents as well. But she was behaving distinctly like a cat again last night, staring fixedly at the space under the stove and occasionally chancing a paw under it to see if she could draw out the strange new toy.
We set a couple of full containment mouse traps under the sink where they have clearly been, and next to the stove. Snap traps would most likely catch my toes, or Pocket's tongue if she went for the peanut butter, plus I'd have to make Husband deal with the corpse on the offchance the trap caught its intended target; and glue boards are inhumane as far as I'm concerned (see above re: food service). Full containment traps are ridiculously sensitive to vibration and are therefore a disaster to set (I think I've got the hang of it now), but they promise an instant kill, no body to handle, and no danger to people or pets. So far also, no luck.
Our neighbors just discovered they had mice, so there was precedent; we're reasonably sure they're coming from the vacant house two down. And, having spent a fair part of my after-school hours working in food service, I can recognize a mouse when I see it. But since we saw neither hide nor hair of the vermin for the rest of the week, I was sincerely beginning to think I had hallucinated. I was wearing my glasses at the time, which leave peripheral vision almost entirely uncorrected, so it wasn't a far leap to think that maybe I'd only imagined it.
On Saturday morning, however, we found incontestible proof of its presence: mouse poop on the stack of cutting boards, which precipitated a frenzy of cutting board and counter washing and disinfecting. The boards are now stored vertically in the drip rack, thereby taking up most of the useable drip rack space, but at least I won't find those little presents on my food preparation materials again. We'll be going through the house this week to seal up all possible openings in the drywall, which is how we think they got in.
I remember several years ago when DC101 DJ Elliot talked about discovering his house had mice. He said his house felt dirty and that he was obsessed with getting rid of them. I remember thinking that he was a wuss, that it was just mice for goodness sake. But now, I know. Now my house feels dirty. Now I'm obsessed with getting rid of them. It's not just their nasty little mouse poops, but they could bring in fleas, and they multiply quickly, and I do not need an infestation nor can I afford the Orkin man.
When Pocket was very small, she singlehandedly rid our basement of the camel cricket menace, for which I am forever grateful. She has never since been so thorough, perhaps because she thinks she's done her part and that our job going forward is to lavish praise and attention upon her for it. So we have no hope of Pocket actually earning her keep by cleansing the house of the rodents as well. But she was behaving distinctly like a cat again last night, staring fixedly at the space under the stove and occasionally chancing a paw under it to see if she could draw out the strange new toy.
We set a couple of full containment mouse traps under the sink where they have clearly been, and next to the stove. Snap traps would most likely catch my toes, or Pocket's tongue if she went for the peanut butter, plus I'd have to make Husband deal with the corpse on the offchance the trap caught its intended target; and glue boards are inhumane as far as I'm concerned (see above re: food service). Full containment traps are ridiculously sensitive to vibration and are therefore a disaster to set (I think I've got the hang of it now), but they promise an instant kill, no body to handle, and no danger to people or pets. So far also, no luck.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Open Letter to My Colleague
Dear Colleague:
Do not send me QC requests full of excuses as to your late submittal. I don't care when you were TRYING to get it to me. When you were TRYING to get it to me is completely immaterial to the fact that you DIDN'T get it to me until today. Your failed efforts do nothing to soften the point that you've given me exactly one business day to turn 79 pages of hot mess into something we might not be embarrassed to hand to the people who are indirectly paying our salaries.
I can only work so many miracles in a week. How about you build time into your schedule so that your drop-dead due date allows me a sufficient time to actually review the document? I would further recommend allowing enough time following my review for you to go through my changes to ensure that they were contextually appropriate and to ask any questions you may have, rather than clamping your eyes shut, crossing your fingers, and accepting all changes. Just a thought in the name of client service.
Furthermore, don't wave something off, saying it "shouldn't require substantial attention" because maybe it does! (In fact, it did. If I hadn't refreshed the table of contents and noticed the hell that rained down, you would have been completely hosed when you did it.) If you were in a position to determine whether a segment of a document required substantial QC attention, then I would not be employed here. Clearly, Company has determined that you are incapable of appropriately gauging the extent of the havoc you have wreaked upon this document, so maybe you should trust me to do my job.
Also, when drawing conclusions and making recommendations, I might suggest something with a little more punch than: "It is recommended that [client] focus on decreasing the loss of [personal data] and the number of significant incidents." Way to go out on a limb there, guys. With that kind of derring-do, you could conjecture that the police want the number of murders and thefts to go down this year.
Lastly, please be sure you get the client's name correct in the documents you are writing FOR them. They're a little tetchy about that.
Frustratedly yours,
Rosie
Do not send me QC requests full of excuses as to your late submittal. I don't care when you were TRYING to get it to me. When you were TRYING to get it to me is completely immaterial to the fact that you DIDN'T get it to me until today. Your failed efforts do nothing to soften the point that you've given me exactly one business day to turn 79 pages of hot mess into something we might not be embarrassed to hand to the people who are indirectly paying our salaries.
I can only work so many miracles in a week. How about you build time into your schedule so that your drop-dead due date allows me a sufficient time to actually review the document? I would further recommend allowing enough time following my review for you to go through my changes to ensure that they were contextually appropriate and to ask any questions you may have, rather than clamping your eyes shut, crossing your fingers, and accepting all changes. Just a thought in the name of client service.
Furthermore, don't wave something off, saying it "shouldn't require substantial attention" because maybe it does! (In fact, it did. If I hadn't refreshed the table of contents and noticed the hell that rained down, you would have been completely hosed when you did it.) If you were in a position to determine whether a segment of a document required substantial QC attention, then I would not be employed here. Clearly, Company has determined that you are incapable of appropriately gauging the extent of the havoc you have wreaked upon this document, so maybe you should trust me to do my job.
Also, when drawing conclusions and making recommendations, I might suggest something with a little more punch than: "It is recommended that [client] focus on decreasing the loss of [personal data] and the number of significant incidents." Way to go out on a limb there, guys. With that kind of derring-do, you could conjecture that the police want the number of murders and thefts to go down this year.
Lastly, please be sure you get the client's name correct in the documents you are writing FOR them. They're a little tetchy about that.
Frustratedly yours,
Rosie
Monday, September 28, 2009
Vanity Plates
I am unfailingly pleased to have been born and raised in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia, where we have endless sources of interest and amusement. There are the Shenandoah mountains to the west, the coastline and the Chesapeake to the east, the best wine country this side of the Mississippi (this side of the Atlantic as far as I'm concerned, but let's not ruffle too many feathers), and the greatest quantity of vanity plates in the entire nation. We may have rotten traffic, we may have questionable logic in our road system, but we will entertain you on your way as you try to make sense of our license plates.
I've been playing license plate games since my childhood on my family's frequent trips down I-95. There have been some clever ones (I once knew someone whose plate read "SDRWKCB;" another local, "SEDAGIV," never fails to make me and every other true Mel Brooks fan smile). There have been some groaners (former co-worker Troy and I agreed that initials were the worst because you spent all your time trying to decipher the garble only to realize that these people just took the term "vanity" plate to heart).
And then there are the stunners: the ones that leave you dumbstruck all the way to your destination because you have trouble making sense of a world in which someone would care so deeply about this message that they would shell out another $20 or so just to shout it to the general populace.
I recall my first stunner as one witnessed in 2001 during my drive home on Route 7: "ISCRAPBK." This person clearly felt that scrapbooking was an enormous part of their identity and that everyone must know it.
The second stunner outdid ISCRPBK in terms of pathetic identity bases, and was observed on I-95 just outside of Richmond on my way to visit my grandmother in 2005: "ISTENCL." Really? You needed me to know that? You needed me to know that you apply paint to walls or canvases in pre-determined layers and spacing based on someone else's artistic talent?
But today, ladies and germs, we have a new champion. Today, one plate stood out to me as I wormed my way through rush hour traffic. Today, this specimen wrested the title of Lamest Vanity Plate away from ISTENCL, which as I'm sure you'll all agree was quite a feat.
This morning, on I-66 East, just past the merge ramp from Route 28, was "SENSUAL." No interpretation necessary. Sensual. Wow.
I've been playing license plate games since my childhood on my family's frequent trips down I-95. There have been some clever ones (I once knew someone whose plate read "SDRWKCB;" another local, "SEDAGIV," never fails to make me and every other true Mel Brooks fan smile). There have been some groaners (former co-worker Troy and I agreed that initials were the worst because you spent all your time trying to decipher the garble only to realize that these people just took the term "vanity" plate to heart).
And then there are the stunners: the ones that leave you dumbstruck all the way to your destination because you have trouble making sense of a world in which someone would care so deeply about this message that they would shell out another $20 or so just to shout it to the general populace.
I recall my first stunner as one witnessed in 2001 during my drive home on Route 7: "ISCRAPBK." This person clearly felt that scrapbooking was an enormous part of their identity and that everyone must know it.
The second stunner outdid ISCRPBK in terms of pathetic identity bases, and was observed on I-95 just outside of Richmond on my way to visit my grandmother in 2005: "ISTENCL." Really? You needed me to know that? You needed me to know that you apply paint to walls or canvases in pre-determined layers and spacing based on someone else's artistic talent?
But today, ladies and germs, we have a new champion. Today, one plate stood out to me as I wormed my way through rush hour traffic. Today, this specimen wrested the title of Lamest Vanity Plate away from ISTENCL, which as I'm sure you'll all agree was quite a feat.
This morning, on I-66 East, just past the merge ramp from Route 28, was "SENSUAL." No interpretation necessary. Sensual. Wow.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Customer Service
"We have a good client, who trusts us, who likes our work, who pays their bills on time. They don't deserve to be thrown out the door for a wink from American [Airlines]." -- Don Draper, Mad Men, Episode 202
About 8 years ago, Riggs Bank held a mandatory seminar on customer service. All employees in the DC metro area were required to attend a session. In that seminar, I learned that there are two categories of dissatisfied customers. There are the scary ones who will yell in your face and make a scene, but will let you know what they're upset about and what you should do to fix the problem, and will usually walk away from the encounter steamed, but more or less satisfied with the solution. And then there are the quiet ones who may not make a complaint at all. Companies fear these customers, because these are the ones who will simply take their business elsewhere and will tell everyone else in the world why they did so; thus the company loses business and suffers a negative reputation. Unfortunately for merchants the world over, I am of the latter type.
Husband and I have been Verizon Wireless customers for about 7 years. We have faithfully paid our bill in full, on time, every time. We have brought them business over the years in the form of family members and friends. Husband and I have one of the most expensive calling plans. We stayed with them when our very expensive calling plan failed to include a text quota on Husband's phone, meaning we're charged every time he sends or receives a text. We even stayed with them when our house developed dead patches and the idiot support guy (read that any way you choose) tried to tell me that it was because a mobile phone is meant to be mobile when it is used, and that my calls were dropping because a building isn't mobile. Don't ever pitch that excuse to a telecommunications major.
I have generally been pleased with their New Every Two system: I get a free phone, and their customers appear to be using the latest technology. You could even deposit your old phone in a little box in their stores, and Verizon would refurbish the phones and donate them to battered women's shelters. As time progressed and phones became more and more advanced, they changed the offer to a discount of a set amount off of any phone when you re-upped your contract. Because I'm a cheapskate and neither know how nor care to use most of the new tricks on modern phones, I continued to get my phone for free because any phone I chose was so basic that its price was less than my discount.
My most recent upgrade came up in December 2008. I went online to pick out my new phone, but there was exactly one new phone that was less than the discount; all others cost money above and beyond the discount or were - get this - "certified pre-owned." Why would Verizon try to sell me a used phone? And where were they getting these used phones? The shelter donation boxes, perhaps? Regardless, the sole free new/un-used phone, while ugly, had all the features I wanted (namely, speed dial, vibrate or silent setting, color graphics, and flip open/close), so I went ahead and got it. I activated my new phone in January.
No later than June, I noticed my phone was acting a little funny. Sometimes I would pick it up and it would be completely off, even though I could have sworn I charged it full only a day or two ago. Sometimes it would drop the signal and shut off, mid-call, from the middle of Fairfax County. And sometimes when I would plug it into the charger, it told me that I was using a non-supported battery. Odd... that's the battery that came with the phone, plugged into the charger that came with the phone.
The frequency of this annoyance reached a fever pitch in August over the course of Julie's wedding, when a reliable connection became crucial for coordinating with Husband, who was driving a separate car. Finding that it had shut off on me yet again for no reason, only my respect for the hotel's interior decorating and Julie's father's bill kept me from beating my phone against the table until it shattered into the same number of pieces as my sanity. I vowed to march into the nearest Verizon Wireless store, post-wedding, and insist - nay, demand! - that they replace my phone with a new one, and I wanted it to have all the bells and whistles possible, especially ones I wouldn't even use, just on principle, else I would remove my business from their clutches.
My righteous indignation, however, only goes so far, especially when tempered with my general laziness. I, in fact, did not go marching into the nearest Verizon Wireless store until Sept 9, and only then because it happened to be next door to the restaurant at which I met a friend for dinner. I only wish I had been prepared and worn sneakers that day instead of pumps.
The front kiosk of the spotlight-lit store was overrun with customers who appeared to need intense technological help, so I positioned myself around the cell phones. After a few minutes of looking helplessly about - usually a cattle call for salespeople - and finding myself yet alone, I went over and dithered with one of the fancy pants touchscreens that they scatter around the shop under the guise of helping you find the best item for you, but really only giving you something to play with while you stand around like a fool and convincing you that the proprieters of such an advanced store must know what they're doing. I was merely convinced that my obvious distress or the potential for a sale (and therefore commission) would attract a salesperson.
A few minutes later, having discovered that their touch screen materials are as useless as their website and that their staff remained as oblivious as ever, I located a salesman who was talking to a customer. I stood patiently to the side, waiting for him to finish helping her so that he'd be free to help me. He finished talking with her, and she walked off. He smiled at me, asked what he could help me with, and graciously guided me through the process of exchanging my demonically possessed phone for something shiny and new, and I went away pleased, my continued patronage of Verizon Wireless reinforced.
Oh wait. That's not what happened at all.
He finished talking with her, and she walked off. He glanced at me and the plaintive and tired expression on my face, and TURNED HIS BACK ON ME. Was he helping another customer who had been there longer than I and whom I had merely failed to notice before? Nope. He was just standing there, looking around, thinking of all the better things he had to do than to address a lost customer.
I suppose I could have tapped him on the shoulder and asked for his help, but I could not be sure exactly what would have come out of my mouth in the face of such rudeness. Instead, every fiber of my being tensed to bursting, I walked over to another kiosk under the FiOS area of the store where a young woman stood, nametag on display, and tightly asked, "Do you work here?" Perhaps a hint of red-hot fury glinted in my eyes, perhaps a note of barely repressed homicidal rage escaped my voice, but she took one look at me and - I swear - gulped. Good girl that she was, she put on a pretty smile, affirmed that she did, patiently listened to my complaint, and gently led me over to the front kiosk to get my name on the list.
Verizon Wireless stores are painstakingly designed by condescending twerps to be deliberately confusing so as to make their customers feel like blithering idiots. Ostensibly, the goal is so that you will be groomed to do idiotic things, like dropping $400 on a portable telephone that will be obsolete in two months. The existing, intuitive model of salesmanship and customer service, in which salespeople reach out to customers and customers feel free to ask any available salesperson for help, seems insufficient to Verizon's business plan. Rather, you are expected to know to walk up to the front kiosk and have them type your name into a service queue, resulting in a unique customer care hydra of the sign-in sheet at a doctor's office, the take-a-number dispenser of a delicatessan, and the round-the-block lines for toilet paper in Soviet Russia. If you don't know to do this, no one is obliged to tell you, not even to determine whether your name is on the various screens displaying the queue. Instead, they are entitled to ignore your pea-brained self because it's your own fault that you didn't know, Stupid. You are then expected to mill about the store until the salesperson finds you, whenever that may be. After that, God help you.
After about 15 minutes of attempting to feign interest in the various phones and finally resorting to pacing figure-8s near the laptop section (need I point out again that I'm in work clothes and heels, and chairs are scarce), SalesGuy finally manages to find me. I tell him I'm not going to yell at him because I know he has to deal with people yelling at him all day long and that has to suck, but this phone is a piece of crap (actual words) and I've only had it since January and I want to know what they're going to do about it. We go over to the Service desk and he dinks around with the phone for a while and finally has his eureka moment: "It's the battery!" Way to go, genius. Einstein proceeds to check their online inventory, tells me that they have a replacement battery, and disappears into the back. He reappears to check the online inventory again because he "swear[s] it was just there!" And back he goes. He returns toting a new incarnation of my old crappy phone. Apparently Inventory lied to him, and he's going to replace my phone. Oh happy day.
While Righteous Indignation Rosie would have told him just what he could do with the same-model replacement, Real Life Rosie is far more dormouse than Domina. However, when I did manage to get the nerve to say something about how I had no reason to believe this one wouldn't also crash and burn and that I'd prefer a different phone altogether, Einstein was happy to oblige. He told me that they could get me the 1-year replacement price on a different phone, whatever that means. For even the low-end-but-not-POS phones, that was about $80. So, I took my replacement POS phone, left the store, and am now shopping new carriers.
That quote at the top sums up everything that is wrong with customer service these days. Companies will go into contortions to attract new customers, offering them the world if only they'll favor Company with their business. But once they've got you, you might as well be last season's pashmina cast into a corner of the closet because it's too much of a hassle to go to the dry cleaners. While gifts and benefits rain down to get new business, nothing but the minimum is done to retain old business. And that is just not right.
If you need me, I'll be comparing plans from AT&T and T-Mobile. Maybe if Husband and I change over to one of them, Verizon will fall over itself to win us back.
About 8 years ago, Riggs Bank held a mandatory seminar on customer service. All employees in the DC metro area were required to attend a session. In that seminar, I learned that there are two categories of dissatisfied customers. There are the scary ones who will yell in your face and make a scene, but will let you know what they're upset about and what you should do to fix the problem, and will usually walk away from the encounter steamed, but more or less satisfied with the solution. And then there are the quiet ones who may not make a complaint at all. Companies fear these customers, because these are the ones who will simply take their business elsewhere and will tell everyone else in the world why they did so; thus the company loses business and suffers a negative reputation. Unfortunately for merchants the world over, I am of the latter type.
Husband and I have been Verizon Wireless customers for about 7 years. We have faithfully paid our bill in full, on time, every time. We have brought them business over the years in the form of family members and friends. Husband and I have one of the most expensive calling plans. We stayed with them when our very expensive calling plan failed to include a text quota on Husband's phone, meaning we're charged every time he sends or receives a text. We even stayed with them when our house developed dead patches and the idiot support guy (read that any way you choose) tried to tell me that it was because a mobile phone is meant to be mobile when it is used, and that my calls were dropping because a building isn't mobile. Don't ever pitch that excuse to a telecommunications major.
I have generally been pleased with their New Every Two system: I get a free phone, and their customers appear to be using the latest technology. You could even deposit your old phone in a little box in their stores, and Verizon would refurbish the phones and donate them to battered women's shelters. As time progressed and phones became more and more advanced, they changed the offer to a discount of a set amount off of any phone when you re-upped your contract. Because I'm a cheapskate and neither know how nor care to use most of the new tricks on modern phones, I continued to get my phone for free because any phone I chose was so basic that its price was less than my discount.
My most recent upgrade came up in December 2008. I went online to pick out my new phone, but there was exactly one new phone that was less than the discount; all others cost money above and beyond the discount or were - get this - "certified pre-owned." Why would Verizon try to sell me a used phone? And where were they getting these used phones? The shelter donation boxes, perhaps? Regardless, the sole free new/un-used phone, while ugly, had all the features I wanted (namely, speed dial, vibrate or silent setting, color graphics, and flip open/close), so I went ahead and got it. I activated my new phone in January.
No later than June, I noticed my phone was acting a little funny. Sometimes I would pick it up and it would be completely off, even though I could have sworn I charged it full only a day or two ago. Sometimes it would drop the signal and shut off, mid-call, from the middle of Fairfax County. And sometimes when I would plug it into the charger, it told me that I was using a non-supported battery. Odd... that's the battery that came with the phone, plugged into the charger that came with the phone.
The frequency of this annoyance reached a fever pitch in August over the course of Julie's wedding, when a reliable connection became crucial for coordinating with Husband, who was driving a separate car. Finding that it had shut off on me yet again for no reason, only my respect for the hotel's interior decorating and Julie's father's bill kept me from beating my phone against the table until it shattered into the same number of pieces as my sanity. I vowed to march into the nearest Verizon Wireless store, post-wedding, and insist - nay, demand! - that they replace my phone with a new one, and I wanted it to have all the bells and whistles possible, especially ones I wouldn't even use, just on principle, else I would remove my business from their clutches.
My righteous indignation, however, only goes so far, especially when tempered with my general laziness. I, in fact, did not go marching into the nearest Verizon Wireless store until Sept 9, and only then because it happened to be next door to the restaurant at which I met a friend for dinner. I only wish I had been prepared and worn sneakers that day instead of pumps.
The front kiosk of the spotlight-lit store was overrun with customers who appeared to need intense technological help, so I positioned myself around the cell phones. After a few minutes of looking helplessly about - usually a cattle call for salespeople - and finding myself yet alone, I went over and dithered with one of the fancy pants touchscreens that they scatter around the shop under the guise of helping you find the best item for you, but really only giving you something to play with while you stand around like a fool and convincing you that the proprieters of such an advanced store must know what they're doing. I was merely convinced that my obvious distress or the potential for a sale (and therefore commission) would attract a salesperson.
A few minutes later, having discovered that their touch screen materials are as useless as their website and that their staff remained as oblivious as ever, I located a salesman who was talking to a customer. I stood patiently to the side, waiting for him to finish helping her so that he'd be free to help me. He finished talking with her, and she walked off. He smiled at me, asked what he could help me with, and graciously guided me through the process of exchanging my demonically possessed phone for something shiny and new, and I went away pleased, my continued patronage of Verizon Wireless reinforced.
Oh wait. That's not what happened at all.
He finished talking with her, and she walked off. He glanced at me and the plaintive and tired expression on my face, and TURNED HIS BACK ON ME. Was he helping another customer who had been there longer than I and whom I had merely failed to notice before? Nope. He was just standing there, looking around, thinking of all the better things he had to do than to address a lost customer.
I suppose I could have tapped him on the shoulder and asked for his help, but I could not be sure exactly what would have come out of my mouth in the face of such rudeness. Instead, every fiber of my being tensed to bursting, I walked over to another kiosk under the FiOS area of the store where a young woman stood, nametag on display, and tightly asked, "Do you work here?" Perhaps a hint of red-hot fury glinted in my eyes, perhaps a note of barely repressed homicidal rage escaped my voice, but she took one look at me and - I swear - gulped. Good girl that she was, she put on a pretty smile, affirmed that she did, patiently listened to my complaint, and gently led me over to the front kiosk to get my name on the list.
Verizon Wireless stores are painstakingly designed by condescending twerps to be deliberately confusing so as to make their customers feel like blithering idiots. Ostensibly, the goal is so that you will be groomed to do idiotic things, like dropping $400 on a portable telephone that will be obsolete in two months. The existing, intuitive model of salesmanship and customer service, in which salespeople reach out to customers and customers feel free to ask any available salesperson for help, seems insufficient to Verizon's business plan. Rather, you are expected to know to walk up to the front kiosk and have them type your name into a service queue, resulting in a unique customer care hydra of the sign-in sheet at a doctor's office, the take-a-number dispenser of a delicatessan, and the round-the-block lines for toilet paper in Soviet Russia. If you don't know to do this, no one is obliged to tell you, not even to determine whether your name is on the various screens displaying the queue. Instead, they are entitled to ignore your pea-brained self because it's your own fault that you didn't know, Stupid. You are then expected to mill about the store until the salesperson finds you, whenever that may be. After that, God help you.
After about 15 minutes of attempting to feign interest in the various phones and finally resorting to pacing figure-8s near the laptop section (need I point out again that I'm in work clothes and heels, and chairs are scarce), SalesGuy finally manages to find me. I tell him I'm not going to yell at him because I know he has to deal with people yelling at him all day long and that has to suck, but this phone is a piece of crap (actual words) and I've only had it since January and I want to know what they're going to do about it. We go over to the Service desk and he dinks around with the phone for a while and finally has his eureka moment: "It's the battery!" Way to go, genius. Einstein proceeds to check their online inventory, tells me that they have a replacement battery, and disappears into the back. He reappears to check the online inventory again because he "swear[s] it was just there!" And back he goes. He returns toting a new incarnation of my old crappy phone. Apparently Inventory lied to him, and he's going to replace my phone. Oh happy day.
While Righteous Indignation Rosie would have told him just what he could do with the same-model replacement, Real Life Rosie is far more dormouse than Domina. However, when I did manage to get the nerve to say something about how I had no reason to believe this one wouldn't also crash and burn and that I'd prefer a different phone altogether, Einstein was happy to oblige. He told me that they could get me the 1-year replacement price on a different phone, whatever that means. For even the low-end-but-not-POS phones, that was about $80. So, I took my replacement POS phone, left the store, and am now shopping new carriers.
That quote at the top sums up everything that is wrong with customer service these days. Companies will go into contortions to attract new customers, offering them the world if only they'll favor Company with their business. But once they've got you, you might as well be last season's pashmina cast into a corner of the closet because it's too much of a hassle to go to the dry cleaners. While gifts and benefits rain down to get new business, nothing but the minimum is done to retain old business. And that is just not right.
If you need me, I'll be comparing plans from AT&T and T-Mobile. Maybe if Husband and I change over to one of them, Verizon will fall over itself to win us back.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
New TV!
Our new TV was delivered this morning! Fifty inches of LG plasma-screen bliss!
Husband has been hunting for one for more than a year now, and he finally found a quality one with a price tag under our budgeted limit of $1000.
But of course, a new TV is never just a new TV: our new entertainment console to support said TV and hold all the associated boxes will be delivered next week. Until then, the TV is propped on Husband's ugly old coffee table, which I will not be sorry to see go to the curb when its replacement arrives. (Love you honey!)
We are all set for when hockey preseason starts on the 21st!
Husband has been hunting for one for more than a year now, and he finally found a quality one with a price tag under our budgeted limit of $1000.
But of course, a new TV is never just a new TV: our new entertainment console to support said TV and hold all the associated boxes will be delivered next week. Until then, the TV is propped on Husband's ugly old coffee table, which I will not be sorry to see go to the curb when its replacement arrives. (Love you honey!)
We are all set for when hockey preseason starts on the 21st!
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Birthday Bash 2009
Ask any random married couple whose side of the family brings The Crazy, and chances are good that each will point to the other. Ask me and Husband, however, and it’s unanimous: I win.
Dad has been throwing an August Birthday Bash every year since 2003ish to commemorate our four August birthdays: mine, Grandad's, Dad's, and Husband's. It's a way to acknowledge everyone's birthday at once without the hassle of having to see each other more than we must.
Birthday Bash 2007 set the bar pretty high for what counts as classic Family Crazy, but I must say that 2009 put in a good showing. No glassware was shattered, no tables were crushed, but sticks were thrown and names were called. This year, the Bash was set for Sunday the 16th, and the whole family turned out. Sister and Niece flew in on the 12th, AuntZ and CousinZ drove up on the 14th, and Dad, Grandad, UncleR, AuntG, and CousinM were already there.
PROLOGUE
The Seattles are no longer in Seattle. (If you have no idea who I'm talking about, read this post for a recap of Who's Who in the Fam.) In March or April, I was informed that UncleR and AuntG, after 16 years of West Coast residence, had decided to retire, move back east with CousinM as soon as they could sell their house, and set up housekeeping with Dad here in Virginia. UncleR would take care of the exterior property and general handyman things, AuntG would take care of the cooking and cleaning, and CousinM would go to the local community college. AuntZ and I made a bet as to how long the arrangement would last: she said a year; I said 3 months. Feeling generous, I revised my assessment and gave them till Christmas. Considering the current real estate market, particularly in the Seattle area, I figured it would take a while for them to dump the house; but, much to my surprise, on July 8, the Seattles arrived at Dad's house and settled in.
STICKS AND STONES
Sister and I made plans to go out to dinner on the 14th with Husband and Niece. The family can be a bit… overwhelming… and we wanted some time for just us to talk. As soon as Husband and I arrived at Dad’s to pick her up, the family descended and we were engulfed in hellos and age jokes. It seems it will just be me, Husband, and Sister for dinner; Niece is staying at the house because she “wants to play with [her] cousins” and with her new pet, an inchworm named Rachel. Sister tells me that the whole Fam went hiking earlier in the day at Great Falls, so Niece is probably a little tired too.
We went around the deck to say hi/bye to Grandad, who was sitting at the umbrella table over the back yard. With our usual fabulous timing, we'd managed to arrive just as they were sitting down to dinner, which means that they all had to wait until we left to begin eating. However, as often happens when you haven’t seen family in a while, we got roped into conversation with Dad, thereby further delaying everyone's meal.
That’s when it happened.
The food was out and ready to go, and Dad and I would be chatting for another minute or two. Cousins M and Z and Niece were sitting at the kids' table, and Aunts G and Z were bringing dishes out of the kitchen. Seeing that his father was hungry and not wanting to let the hot food get ice cold, UncleR started dishing up one of the sides onto Grandad’s plate.
A word here about Family protocol. In Dad’s family, formal meals have ever had an air of patriarchal ceremony to them. At dinner, all dishes are placed around Father, who magnanimously carves and serves the food his little wife has prepared to those for whom he provides. The symbolism cannot be lost on you. Service begins with Mother, then proceeds in gender and age order (ladies first, in ascending maturity), and you can’t eat until everyone is served. At their hands, I endured countless meals involving cold gravy and mushy sides. It's a condescending, inefficient, and silly practice that I take every opportunity of helping into the great beyond, but some people insist on bringing out the paddles to resuscitate it.
In his peripheral vision, Dad saw that UncleR was serving food to Grandad and, in what I’m sure he thought was a jocular fashion but came across as authoritarian, shouted, “Now wait a minute, Bro, you have to serve the girls first!”
(The word “Bro” would never actually pass the lips of anyone in The Fam, except in a sense of irony. But since I don't use the actual names of those related to me [that whole protect the innocent/protect me from the guilty thing again!], "Bro" will have to suffice.)
Well it seems he’d had just about enough from Dad because UncleR lost his proverbial shit. He threw down the spoon, grabbed a leftover hiking stick, uttered a primal roar, and winged the stick off the deck towards the woods before turning on Dad again. “It’s always what you want, isn’t it Bro? It’s McDonald’s every day with you: Have it your way! You are one arrogant, imperious son-of-a-gun!” (Apparently my uncle is Ned Flanders.) As everyone sat dumbstruck in disbelief, he flung his glasses into the chair and marched away from the table. Sister, Husband, and I took this as our cue to exit, but not before watching Dad shadow UncleR into the house, parroting after him, “Shake my hand! Come on, shake my hand Bro!” I decided it would be imprudent to point out that it’s actually Burger King where you can supposedly have it your way, and away we slunk.
ANCIENT HISTORY
We were instructed to arrive on the 16th at 11 a.m., bearing egg-free cake. The house was its usual chaotic self, due to the infusion of three new residents and two new dogs, the five new houseguests notwithstanding. Apparently everything had calmed down and blown over between the brothers on Friday night, because Dad and UncleR were right as rain on Sunday morning.
We put the cake in the fridge, then sat down and went through my library of photo albums and photobooks with the Cousins. Ever since the ill-fated Bash '07, I haven’t invited any of The Fam back to my house, so Cousins M and Z had never really seen any of my pictures. I got to show CousinM pictures of me holding her as a baby, and CousinZ pictures of her parents' wedding, which was fun.
UncleR volunteered to take us on a tour of the property improvements he had made in the one month that they had been living there: expanding the basement bathroom, building a walk-in closet for the basement guest room, cleaning up the landscaping, and building a woodshop in the outbuilding so he could work on his mandolins. Husband and I were mightily impressed, though I must admit disappointment that the rainbow-colored stenciled cat border on upper floor of the outbuilding will have to go away (fare thee well, Fran!) We did, however, score another leftover: a free iron silhouette of a cat chasing a mouse. Just what we always wanted.
Sometime in the early afternoon, UncleR remembered that he had found a crate full of old genealogical materials, some dating back 150 years. That was an interesting point and aroused some conversation, and the suggestion was made that we should go through the box sometime and scan things into the computer for posterity and future genealogical purposes.
All of a sudden, UncleR and AuntZ get it in their heads that we should do it NOW, since Grandad’s here and he’ll be able to put some of the material in perspective. Without another word, UncleR dashes downstairs to get the box, and before we know it, the family Bible and dozens of newspaper clippings and old photographs are scattered across the dining table. AuntG was instructed to get her scrapbooking kit with her special pens and pencils so that we could mark the backs of the photos, and a very confused Grandad is being led to a seat in the middle of the table to tell us stories about the things we find in the box.
Now, UncleR lived in Virginia as long as I could remember until I was… I guess 13 or 14, and I adored him then. He was boisterous, and zany, and goofy, and probably inspired a fair amount of my affection for the wacky and weird in life. However, with the exception of a road trip to the family hometown in Wisconsin when I was 8, I’d never spent any real extended time with him. Something I’d never realized about UncleR: his relentless enthusiasm. It's borderline manic. Any idea that gets in his head is a GREAT idea, it must be done RIGHT NOW, and EVERYONE must join him, and they will LOVE IT!
Unfortunately, Dad didn’t really want to do this right now, and even if he did, there was no room at the table. UncleR and AuntZ took this as a personal challenge and explained to him that no, it was a great idea to go through these artifacts and learn about all this, and this was the perfect time. Dad held his ground, so it of course became a squabblefest between the three siblings, and then UncleR went juvenile on us and actually pouted for a little while and tried to put away his toys because “this is Bro’s house and he doesn’t want to do this.” It seems that passive-aggressive guilt-tripping is a family trait. Dad ended it by telling UncleR and AuntZ that they were welcome to do this if they pleased, got a beer, and went outside on the porch. It was quite a scene.
Another characteristic I had never noticed before: AuntZ is an instigator. You’ve read about the annual sparring between her and Dad in previous Family posts; without having the larger dynamic to compare, I thought it was just ordinary arguing. But I watched her egg UncleR on against Dad in every parry and thrust. I know Dad can be an ogre, but the encouragement she gave UncleR on that score was wholly unnecessary, and it kind of soured me on her.
And the truth is, I side with Dad on this. Even if Dad had been gung-ho about the family history lesson, I would have tried to find a way to get out of it for myself. I’m not at all against looking through old pictures and articles and such – it was just the spontaneity and fervor of it: I’m very much an introvert and I require quiet and order around me as much as possible; I don’t respond well to that kind of chaos. So Husband and I made an escape to the front porch as well. If UncleR had set up a date a few weeks out on which we were going to go through the photos and articles, asked Grandad to narrate, and set up a voice recorder to make sure we got everything, that would have been a whole other issue. I would have been willing to do that. But instead, it had to be done rightthisminute!
Furthermore, Grandad, whose hearing aids never work even when he does remember to use them and who (at age 88) requires a little more preamble to understand the activity of any given moment, appeared to have no idea what was going on and what was being asked of him, so he kind of sat there, cloudily letting people whirl about him.
SANDWICHES
When your family invites you to come over at 11 a.m., what meal do you expect to eat? Lunch? Yeah, me too. Husband and I imagined we’d arrive at 11, have a drink, do lunch and cake and presents, chat for a while, be out around 5 and home by 6, so we made a point of not eating breakfast since we had eaten a metric ton on my actual birthday the day before and wanted to be ready to eat again at Dad’s.
We were told to expect burgers and hot dogs, and Dad wasn’t there when we first arrived, having gone to the store to get charcoal for the grill. Furthermore, Aunt G was cutting up veggies and grapes for what she said would be a chicken salad later. Dad returned shortly thereafter and went around to the back deck where the grill was, so we figured he’d be setting up the coals and that lunch would be coming along shortly.
But at noon, there was nothing.
And at 1, there was nothing.
At 2, when the Ancient History fight was going down and the table was being covered with photos and papers, there was nothing. Husband and I realized that lunch wasn’t just going to be late, but very late.
At about 2:30, Dad got up from the porch, saying he was going to make himself a sandwich. Stolid in our belief that it was just going to be a late lunch (okay, and not wanting to go back into the hornet’s nest), Husband and I stayed where we were, trying to trick our stomachs into believing that Red Stripe and Diet Coke were fine replacements for actual food.
Right now you all are thinking, “Well you big dummies, why didn’t you go fish up something from the fridge yourselves?” To which I say back that once you move out of your parents’ house, I don’t feel it’s right to consider their refrigerator or cabinets public domain. Plus, think about Thanksgiving and Christmas: when you skip lunch at a family gathering, it usually means that a feast will be taking place in the late afternoon to substitute for both lunch and dinner at once.
It wasn’t until 4 that The Fam decided they were hungry, and AuntG heated up some queso dip while UncleR brought out the cold cuts. Since lunch was not coming and the coals were not even lit for dinner yet, Husband and I gave up and fell upon the snacks like locusts in the Dust Bowl.
FAMILY PORTRAIT
Since the entire family was together, UncleR decided that we must have a family portrait done. And, much like the Ancient History thing, it had to be done RIGHT NOW! No planning, no warning, no foresight. NOW. So I have him to thank for the fact that I was wearing an unflattering tank top and had not brought my makeup and hairbrush for touch-ups.
At this point, we’ve been surrounded by my very loud and energetic family for five and a half hours. It’s wearing on me. But I assigned the day to The Fam, so we’ll go with their flow.
Of course it can’t be as easy as snap-snap-snap and done. No, no, there must be tripods and timers and posing and eleventy-five arrangements of subjects. Now the light’s not right and now the background is wrong. On top of that, there’s corralling a squirrelly 5-year old and convincing an octogenarian to do just one more picture. And of course everyone has to see the digital playback, and no one likes how they looked, so we have to do another one, and another one. I think this experience went down in Husband’s books on par with our wedding day, when he grew so sick of smiling that he was threatening to do all manner of things if someone pointed another camera at him.
STUPID HUMAN TRICKS
It’s about 6 now. The photos have been satisfactorily taken and martinis have been concocted and served, and I’m finally having a glass of wine. At long (LONG!!!) last, Dad has gone outside to start up the grill. AuntZ, Sister, Niece, Husband, the Cousins, and I are sitting in the loft, having just concluded a viewing of Niece’s dance recital DVDs. I don’t even know how the topic came up but we started talking about strange things people do, like whistling noses and talking in our sleep. Then AuntZ got it in her head that we should put on a Stupid Human Tricks talent show after dinner as evening entertainment. Sister would show off her shoulder blade wings, AuntZ would exhibit Whistle Nose, Dad would present his double-jointed thumbs… Husband and I looked at each other in panic. I tried to play it off that she was joking, but she was serious enough about it that she ran downstairs to tell the rest of The Fam and to get them to think of a weird talent to show off. Husband and I went through the rest of the evening in a state of frozen fear, hoping that it would blow over, and cringing every time she brought it back up.
PEPPER BURGERS
I spend a lot of time here poking fun at other people and the foibles of my family. Now, I’ve got to get as well as I give. This last Vignette of Fools from the day is my own fault.
CousinM was taking stock of dinner requests on Dad’s behalf to get a tally of how many hot dogs vs hamburgers to grill up. AuntG had been talking up Dad’s hamburgers that day, explaining how he grinds up several different kinds of peppers and puts them in the burgers, and they’re so fantastically good. Well with that kind of sell, of course I’ll have one! I love spicy things, and we grow peppers in our backyard – jalapeno, habanero, Thai, Tabasco, cayenne… I can’t wait to find out what this amazing pepper burger tastes like, and I haven’t had a burger in a good long while.
It’s almost 8 and food is finally on the table. My pepper burger is appropriately dressed with mustard, ketchup, and pickles. I take a nice big bite…
Oh.
It’s the other kind of pepper. It’s peppercorns. I hate peppercorns.
DENOUEMENT
In the end, we didn't get out of there until 9 p.m. That's 10 hours. Because I grew up with my family and am therefore used to their antics, whereas Husband grew up in a much more calm and peaceful environment, I have a standing deal with him that he is permitted to drink as much as he likes while at these kinds of gatherings and I will drive us home. The Fam is generally a much more entertaining experience when you're a few sheets to the wind. But because I was driving and have a reasonably low tolerance for alcohol, I did not partake of the wine past the glass and a half I had around dinner, so I did all 10 hours SOBER.
On the bright side, we did manage to avoid the Stupid Human Tricks talent show, though I cannot say what Sister and the rest of them were subjected to after Husband and I made our escape.
Dad has been throwing an August Birthday Bash every year since 2003ish to commemorate our four August birthdays: mine, Grandad's, Dad's, and Husband's. It's a way to acknowledge everyone's birthday at once without the hassle of having to see each other more than we must.
Birthday Bash 2007 set the bar pretty high for what counts as classic Family Crazy, but I must say that 2009 put in a good showing. No glassware was shattered, no tables were crushed, but sticks were thrown and names were called. This year, the Bash was set for Sunday the 16th, and the whole family turned out. Sister and Niece flew in on the 12th, AuntZ and CousinZ drove up on the 14th, and Dad, Grandad, UncleR, AuntG, and CousinM were already there.
PROLOGUE
The Seattles are no longer in Seattle. (If you have no idea who I'm talking about, read this post for a recap of Who's Who in the Fam.) In March or April, I was informed that UncleR and AuntG, after 16 years of West Coast residence, had decided to retire, move back east with CousinM as soon as they could sell their house, and set up housekeeping with Dad here in Virginia. UncleR would take care of the exterior property and general handyman things, AuntG would take care of the cooking and cleaning, and CousinM would go to the local community college. AuntZ and I made a bet as to how long the arrangement would last: she said a year; I said 3 months. Feeling generous, I revised my assessment and gave them till Christmas. Considering the current real estate market, particularly in the Seattle area, I figured it would take a while for them to dump the house; but, much to my surprise, on July 8, the Seattles arrived at Dad's house and settled in.
STICKS AND STONES
Sister and I made plans to go out to dinner on the 14th with Husband and Niece. The family can be a bit… overwhelming… and we wanted some time for just us to talk. As soon as Husband and I arrived at Dad’s to pick her up, the family descended and we were engulfed in hellos and age jokes. It seems it will just be me, Husband, and Sister for dinner; Niece is staying at the house because she “wants to play with [her] cousins” and with her new pet, an inchworm named Rachel. Sister tells me that the whole Fam went hiking earlier in the day at Great Falls, so Niece is probably a little tired too.
We went around the deck to say hi/bye to Grandad, who was sitting at the umbrella table over the back yard. With our usual fabulous timing, we'd managed to arrive just as they were sitting down to dinner, which means that they all had to wait until we left to begin eating. However, as often happens when you haven’t seen family in a while, we got roped into conversation with Dad, thereby further delaying everyone's meal.
That’s when it happened.
The food was out and ready to go, and Dad and I would be chatting for another minute or two. Cousins M and Z and Niece were sitting at the kids' table, and Aunts G and Z were bringing dishes out of the kitchen. Seeing that his father was hungry and not wanting to let the hot food get ice cold, UncleR started dishing up one of the sides onto Grandad’s plate.
A word here about Family protocol. In Dad’s family, formal meals have ever had an air of patriarchal ceremony to them. At dinner, all dishes are placed around Father, who magnanimously carves and serves the food his little wife has prepared to those for whom he provides. The symbolism cannot be lost on you. Service begins with Mother, then proceeds in gender and age order (ladies first, in ascending maturity), and you can’t eat until everyone is served. At their hands, I endured countless meals involving cold gravy and mushy sides. It's a condescending, inefficient, and silly practice that I take every opportunity of helping into the great beyond, but some people insist on bringing out the paddles to resuscitate it.
In his peripheral vision, Dad saw that UncleR was serving food to Grandad and, in what I’m sure he thought was a jocular fashion but came across as authoritarian, shouted, “Now wait a minute, Bro, you have to serve the girls first!”
(The word “Bro” would never actually pass the lips of anyone in The Fam, except in a sense of irony. But since I don't use the actual names of those related to me [that whole protect the innocent/protect me from the guilty thing again!], "Bro" will have to suffice.)
Well it seems he’d had just about enough from Dad because UncleR lost his proverbial shit. He threw down the spoon, grabbed a leftover hiking stick, uttered a primal roar, and winged the stick off the deck towards the woods before turning on Dad again. “It’s always what you want, isn’t it Bro? It’s McDonald’s every day with you: Have it your way! You are one arrogant, imperious son-of-a-gun!” (Apparently my uncle is Ned Flanders.) As everyone sat dumbstruck in disbelief, he flung his glasses into the chair and marched away from the table. Sister, Husband, and I took this as our cue to exit, but not before watching Dad shadow UncleR into the house, parroting after him, “Shake my hand! Come on, shake my hand Bro!” I decided it would be imprudent to point out that it’s actually Burger King where you can supposedly have it your way, and away we slunk.
ANCIENT HISTORY
We were instructed to arrive on the 16th at 11 a.m., bearing egg-free cake. The house was its usual chaotic self, due to the infusion of three new residents and two new dogs, the five new houseguests notwithstanding. Apparently everything had calmed down and blown over between the brothers on Friday night, because Dad and UncleR were right as rain on Sunday morning.
We put the cake in the fridge, then sat down and went through my library of photo albums and photobooks with the Cousins. Ever since the ill-fated Bash '07, I haven’t invited any of The Fam back to my house, so Cousins M and Z had never really seen any of my pictures. I got to show CousinM pictures of me holding her as a baby, and CousinZ pictures of her parents' wedding, which was fun.
UncleR volunteered to take us on a tour of the property improvements he had made in the one month that they had been living there: expanding the basement bathroom, building a walk-in closet for the basement guest room, cleaning up the landscaping, and building a woodshop in the outbuilding so he could work on his mandolins. Husband and I were mightily impressed, though I must admit disappointment that the rainbow-colored stenciled cat border on upper floor of the outbuilding will have to go away (fare thee well, Fran!) We did, however, score another leftover: a free iron silhouette of a cat chasing a mouse. Just what we always wanted.
Sometime in the early afternoon, UncleR remembered that he had found a crate full of old genealogical materials, some dating back 150 years. That was an interesting point and aroused some conversation, and the suggestion was made that we should go through the box sometime and scan things into the computer for posterity and future genealogical purposes.
All of a sudden, UncleR and AuntZ get it in their heads that we should do it NOW, since Grandad’s here and he’ll be able to put some of the material in perspective. Without another word, UncleR dashes downstairs to get the box, and before we know it, the family Bible and dozens of newspaper clippings and old photographs are scattered across the dining table. AuntG was instructed to get her scrapbooking kit with her special pens and pencils so that we could mark the backs of the photos, and a very confused Grandad is being led to a seat in the middle of the table to tell us stories about the things we find in the box.
Now, UncleR lived in Virginia as long as I could remember until I was… I guess 13 or 14, and I adored him then. He was boisterous, and zany, and goofy, and probably inspired a fair amount of my affection for the wacky and weird in life. However, with the exception of a road trip to the family hometown in Wisconsin when I was 8, I’d never spent any real extended time with him. Something I’d never realized about UncleR: his relentless enthusiasm. It's borderline manic. Any idea that gets in his head is a GREAT idea, it must be done RIGHT NOW, and EVERYONE must join him, and they will LOVE IT!
Unfortunately, Dad didn’t really want to do this right now, and even if he did, there was no room at the table. UncleR and AuntZ took this as a personal challenge and explained to him that no, it was a great idea to go through these artifacts and learn about all this, and this was the perfect time. Dad held his ground, so it of course became a squabblefest between the three siblings, and then UncleR went juvenile on us and actually pouted for a little while and tried to put away his toys because “this is Bro’s house and he doesn’t want to do this.” It seems that passive-aggressive guilt-tripping is a family trait. Dad ended it by telling UncleR and AuntZ that they were welcome to do this if they pleased, got a beer, and went outside on the porch. It was quite a scene.
Another characteristic I had never noticed before: AuntZ is an instigator. You’ve read about the annual sparring between her and Dad in previous Family posts; without having the larger dynamic to compare, I thought it was just ordinary arguing. But I watched her egg UncleR on against Dad in every parry and thrust. I know Dad can be an ogre, but the encouragement she gave UncleR on that score was wholly unnecessary, and it kind of soured me on her.
And the truth is, I side with Dad on this. Even if Dad had been gung-ho about the family history lesson, I would have tried to find a way to get out of it for myself. I’m not at all against looking through old pictures and articles and such – it was just the spontaneity and fervor of it: I’m very much an introvert and I require quiet and order around me as much as possible; I don’t respond well to that kind of chaos. So Husband and I made an escape to the front porch as well. If UncleR had set up a date a few weeks out on which we were going to go through the photos and articles, asked Grandad to narrate, and set up a voice recorder to make sure we got everything, that would have been a whole other issue. I would have been willing to do that. But instead, it had to be done rightthisminute!
Furthermore, Grandad, whose hearing aids never work even when he does remember to use them and who (at age 88) requires a little more preamble to understand the activity of any given moment, appeared to have no idea what was going on and what was being asked of him, so he kind of sat there, cloudily letting people whirl about him.
SANDWICHES
When your family invites you to come over at 11 a.m., what meal do you expect to eat? Lunch? Yeah, me too. Husband and I imagined we’d arrive at 11, have a drink, do lunch and cake and presents, chat for a while, be out around 5 and home by 6, so we made a point of not eating breakfast since we had eaten a metric ton on my actual birthday the day before and wanted to be ready to eat again at Dad’s.
We were told to expect burgers and hot dogs, and Dad wasn’t there when we first arrived, having gone to the store to get charcoal for the grill. Furthermore, Aunt G was cutting up veggies and grapes for what she said would be a chicken salad later. Dad returned shortly thereafter and went around to the back deck where the grill was, so we figured he’d be setting up the coals and that lunch would be coming along shortly.
But at noon, there was nothing.
And at 1, there was nothing.
At 2, when the Ancient History fight was going down and the table was being covered with photos and papers, there was nothing. Husband and I realized that lunch wasn’t just going to be late, but very late.
At about 2:30, Dad got up from the porch, saying he was going to make himself a sandwich. Stolid in our belief that it was just going to be a late lunch (okay, and not wanting to go back into the hornet’s nest), Husband and I stayed where we were, trying to trick our stomachs into believing that Red Stripe and Diet Coke were fine replacements for actual food.
Right now you all are thinking, “Well you big dummies, why didn’t you go fish up something from the fridge yourselves?” To which I say back that once you move out of your parents’ house, I don’t feel it’s right to consider their refrigerator or cabinets public domain. Plus, think about Thanksgiving and Christmas: when you skip lunch at a family gathering, it usually means that a feast will be taking place in the late afternoon to substitute for both lunch and dinner at once.
It wasn’t until 4 that The Fam decided they were hungry, and AuntG heated up some queso dip while UncleR brought out the cold cuts. Since lunch was not coming and the coals were not even lit for dinner yet, Husband and I gave up and fell upon the snacks like locusts in the Dust Bowl.
FAMILY PORTRAIT
Since the entire family was together, UncleR decided that we must have a family portrait done. And, much like the Ancient History thing, it had to be done RIGHT NOW! No planning, no warning, no foresight. NOW. So I have him to thank for the fact that I was wearing an unflattering tank top and had not brought my makeup and hairbrush for touch-ups.
At this point, we’ve been surrounded by my very loud and energetic family for five and a half hours. It’s wearing on me. But I assigned the day to The Fam, so we’ll go with their flow.
Of course it can’t be as easy as snap-snap-snap and done. No, no, there must be tripods and timers and posing and eleventy-five arrangements of subjects. Now the light’s not right and now the background is wrong. On top of that, there’s corralling a squirrelly 5-year old and convincing an octogenarian to do just one more picture. And of course everyone has to see the digital playback, and no one likes how they looked, so we have to do another one, and another one. I think this experience went down in Husband’s books on par with our wedding day, when he grew so sick of smiling that he was threatening to do all manner of things if someone pointed another camera at him.
STUPID HUMAN TRICKS
It’s about 6 now. The photos have been satisfactorily taken and martinis have been concocted and served, and I’m finally having a glass of wine. At long (LONG!!!) last, Dad has gone outside to start up the grill. AuntZ, Sister, Niece, Husband, the Cousins, and I are sitting in the loft, having just concluded a viewing of Niece’s dance recital DVDs. I don’t even know how the topic came up but we started talking about strange things people do, like whistling noses and talking in our sleep. Then AuntZ got it in her head that we should put on a Stupid Human Tricks talent show after dinner as evening entertainment. Sister would show off her shoulder blade wings, AuntZ would exhibit Whistle Nose, Dad would present his double-jointed thumbs… Husband and I looked at each other in panic. I tried to play it off that she was joking, but she was serious enough about it that she ran downstairs to tell the rest of The Fam and to get them to think of a weird talent to show off. Husband and I went through the rest of the evening in a state of frozen fear, hoping that it would blow over, and cringing every time she brought it back up.
PEPPER BURGERS
I spend a lot of time here poking fun at other people and the foibles of my family. Now, I’ve got to get as well as I give. This last Vignette of Fools from the day is my own fault.
CousinM was taking stock of dinner requests on Dad’s behalf to get a tally of how many hot dogs vs hamburgers to grill up. AuntG had been talking up Dad’s hamburgers that day, explaining how he grinds up several different kinds of peppers and puts them in the burgers, and they’re so fantastically good. Well with that kind of sell, of course I’ll have one! I love spicy things, and we grow peppers in our backyard – jalapeno, habanero, Thai, Tabasco, cayenne… I can’t wait to find out what this amazing pepper burger tastes like, and I haven’t had a burger in a good long while.
It’s almost 8 and food is finally on the table. My pepper burger is appropriately dressed with mustard, ketchup, and pickles. I take a nice big bite…
Oh.
It’s the other kind of pepper. It’s peppercorns. I hate peppercorns.
DENOUEMENT
In the end, we didn't get out of there until 9 p.m. That's 10 hours. Because I grew up with my family and am therefore used to their antics, whereas Husband grew up in a much more calm and peaceful environment, I have a standing deal with him that he is permitted to drink as much as he likes while at these kinds of gatherings and I will drive us home. The Fam is generally a much more entertaining experience when you're a few sheets to the wind. But because I was driving and have a reasonably low tolerance for alcohol, I did not partake of the wine past the glass and a half I had around dinner, so I did all 10 hours SOBER.
On the bright side, we did manage to avoid the Stupid Human Tricks talent show, though I cannot say what Sister and the rest of them were subjected to after Husband and I made our escape.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Passphrases
Company has instituted a new security methodology. Effective as of the end of the month, we are no longer permitted to use passwords, but are instead required to create and use passPHRASES. Get used to the term: it's going to become ubiquitous in a fast way. The government has latched onto the idea as the latest rage in computer security.
The last time we had an evolution in passterminology was "strong" passwords - passwords which had to include at least one each of the following: capital letter, lowercase letter, number, and symbol (aka "special" characters, which always makes me giggle in a juvenile fashion.) While this was originally a burden, some of us developed a method for random strong password creation.
When I joined Company, there were so many systems, I was at a loss as to I was going to remember to change my password on all of them when it came time to change it on one (otherwise you're stuck remembering which ones use the new and which use the old). But Company has an internal website called Password Manager that allows you to change your password across all pertinent systems at once. Hooray, Company, for making your employee's lives easier!
But now we must develop passphrases. Passphrases must be between 15 and 30 characters long, to include spaces and symbols, such as "You have got to be joking!"
To own it, Company is probably only doing it as a brag point to the government. But policy is policy, so let's go online and invent our passphrase.
And now we come to the punchline. Computers that use Novell as a gateway are not permitted to use spaces or any special characters that were not already approved as part of the Strong Password movement. And, to my knowledge, we ALL use Novell. So basically, we're just supposed to create an exorbitantly long password.
But wait, there's more. This passphrase is only for systems that use our email password, which does not include our encryption system or our time entry system, possibly among others. So now we're up to three passterms to remember (because don't you dare write them down!), since our encryption system uses one set of criteria, our time entry system uses another, and neither of them accept passphrases. And let's add insult to injury: Password Manager now only let's you change your passphrase across the email-password-based systems - it won't let you change your password for the systems that won't accept more than 8 characters, so we'll have to do that manually.
Wow, that was quite a value-add. I'm so glad Company went to all that trouble to institute this policy since it will make such a difference. Really, the only difference I can note is that it is easier to mistype my fancy new password.
The last time we had an evolution in passterminology was "strong" passwords - passwords which had to include at least one each of the following: capital letter, lowercase letter, number, and symbol (aka "special" characters, which always makes me giggle in a juvenile fashion.) While this was originally a burden, some of us developed a method for random strong password creation.
When I joined Company, there were so many systems, I was at a loss as to I was going to remember to change my password on all of them when it came time to change it on one (otherwise you're stuck remembering which ones use the new and which use the old). But Company has an internal website called Password Manager that allows you to change your password across all pertinent systems at once. Hooray, Company, for making your employee's lives easier!
But now we must develop passphrases. Passphrases must be between 15 and 30 characters long, to include spaces and symbols, such as "You have got to be joking!"
To own it, Company is probably only doing it as a brag point to the government. But policy is policy, so let's go online and invent our passphrase.
And now we come to the punchline. Computers that use Novell as a gateway are not permitted to use spaces or any special characters that were not already approved as part of the Strong Password movement. And, to my knowledge, we ALL use Novell. So basically, we're just supposed to create an exorbitantly long password.
But wait, there's more. This passphrase is only for systems that use our email password, which does not include our encryption system or our time entry system, possibly among others. So now we're up to three passterms to remember (because don't you dare write them down!), since our encryption system uses one set of criteria, our time entry system uses another, and neither of them accept passphrases. And let's add insult to injury: Password Manager now only let's you change your passphrase across the email-password-based systems - it won't let you change your password for the systems that won't accept more than 8 characters, so we'll have to do that manually.
Wow, that was quite a value-add. I'm so glad Company went to all that trouble to institute this policy since it will make such a difference. Really, the only difference I can note is that it is easier to mistype my fancy new password.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
It's Baaaaack!
I picked these up on August 11.
You know what this means, don't you?
At least I can stockpile them now while they're fresh.
Usually I get them when only the stale ones are on the shelves.
You know. In October.
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