Dude . . . someone thinks I'm funny

I was checking out the comments to my recent post and I noticed someone from the Blog Patrol had checked out my dog. "Hmmmm . . .", I said. What is the Blog Patrol? I did a search and found this.

In honor of this momentous occasion, I'm bringing out the hard core stuff. Stay tuned for even more special pictures. Cuz you know I'll find something. (tee hee)

Twisted!

Having been told of my blog, the future family pet has begun stretching exercises, in order to insure a permanent home with the family.

These Fox Terriers are REALLY smart!!

Who's ready for Halloween?

And who's ready for a nice, scary contortion photo?

This girl is good!!!

Overstock.com . . .The answer to phone trees

BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE.

I did this as a job once, where I was the entire department for a publishing company. Yeah we were on the small side, but we had tens of thousands of customers, and I did all the customer service. It's not an easy job, and you really need to think on your feet. You also need the ability ( and authority) to do whatever it takes to resolve a customer's problem. Being polite helps too, and many of you may be surprised to hear that I was good at that job. Seriously. And our customers were all lawyers!

Anyway, the other day I ordered something from Overstock.com, and used my Paypal account to pay for the item. It was like 20 bucks, nothing major.

2 days later I get a notice that my order was cancelled because Overstock had not received my payment. "Hmmmm", I thought. "I kinda remember getting an email from Paypal confirming the transfer." So I checked. Sure enough, payment had been made and confirmed within seconds of my order. So I emailed Overstock (my first) back with the confirmation number, and got an auto-reply saying,

"Thank you for contacting Overstock.com Customer Service. We are in receipt of your e-mail and will respond to your inquiry within 24 hours. Thank you for shopping Overstock.com."

Two days go by with no contact, so I email them again (my second), getting the same auto-reply. This gets a little confusing.

Shortly after the second to Overstock, I get a response to my first, saying they have to escalate the issue to another department that has access to the information, and I will receive a resolution to the issue in 4 days. Three days later, I get a response to my second, stating that they see that my issue had been escalated on the 24th, and that I should wait until the 28th for a resolution before taken alternative action.

Now, this whole time, they are talking about refunding my money, not sending me my item, which I thought was strange. But I also see that, up to this point, the customer service messages coming from people with names that might be more commonly heard on the streets of Dehli, and they may not have understood my undertone of wanting them to ship my order.

Anyway, this morning, the 29th, I decide to get on the site and look for a phone number. Now for me to actually search out a phone number to talk to someone (I dislike talking on the phone) means that my frustration level has escalated to a different department, one with access to all the loud words I know. Low and behold, I find that Overstock has a Live Chat with customer service. You can log on and "chat" with a customer service type. Great, I try that. What follows is the transcript (edited only slightly for the order of comments, no language changes.)

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Please wait for an Overstock Chat Agent to respond.
Chat Information Welcome to Overstock.com Customer Service, you are now chatting with Angelo.

Angelo: Thank you for visiting Overstock.com's secure live chat. How may I help you today?

Jim: My order was cancelled last week, because of an Overstock.com error and I am still waiting for a resolution.

Angelo: I would be happy to help you with that.
Angelo: May I have your order number please?

Jim: My order # was XXXXXXXX, is that different than the account number?

Angelo: Yes the order number is different from the account number. Please allow me to check this for you.
Angelo: I apologize for the cancellation of your order.
Angelo: Jim, it was cancelled because we never received confirmation of your payment from PayPal.
Angelo: In order to use PayPal for your Overstock.com order, you must complete the PayPal "Payment Details" section of the checkout process.
Angelo: You may have inadvertently missed this step, which would cause the cancellation of the order.

Jim: I wrote on the 22nd and gave the confirmation number. Paypal indicates that Overstock received payment at 18:01:29 PDT on October 20
Jim: This payment is verified by Paypal

Angelo: I am extremely sorry to know that your Pay Pal account has been charged.

Jim: My records with Paypal indicate that that payment to Overstock was completed at 18:01:29 PDT and that receipt of the payment was verified. The ID is: # 2PG4xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Angelo: I am sorry for the inconvenience caused and I apologize for the miscommunication.
Angelo: After reviewing your account, I see that this issue has already been escalated on 10/24/2005.
Angelo: Please be assured this matter will be resolved within 2-4 business days to your satisfaction.

Jim: It may have been escalated, but Overstock has now had my money since the 20th. On the 24th I was promised that the issue would be resolved within 4 days, That was yesterday.

Angelo: I understand your concern and I would have been in your place I would have felt the same.

Jim: I do not want to hear that it will take another 2-4 days. This is inexcusable

Angelo: I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused and the miscommunication.
Angelo: Please stay online while I forward this issue to the specialized department once again so that the matter will be resolved as soon as possible.
Angelo: Thank you for staying online.
Angelo: Jim, to provide you with the correct information required to answer your email regarding the payment made by PayPal towards the cancelled order, I have forwarded your message to a specialized representative who has access to the information needed to answer your request.
Angelo: I am sorry for the inconvenience caused to you.
Angelo: Please be advised some questions can take several days to answer as we need to contact third parties. However, we guarantee you will be contacted via email or phone within four business days.

Jim: What is your guarantee? I have already received that promise. What happens if it is not resolved again?

Angelo: I apologize for the additional time this will take, and look forward to a positive resolution.
Angelo: Please be assured this matter will be taken care as I have made a note on your account that you were not contacted within the promised time frame.
Angelo: I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you.

Jim: Maybe you are a nice guy, Angelo, but the company you are working for kinda sucks in the customer service area. The truth is that this problem all resides with Overstock.com. I didn't make a mistake and neither did Paypal.
Jim: And promises have already been broken here

Angelo: I understand your concern and such occurrences are rare I hope that you will give us another chance to demonstrate our services.

Jim: After already being promised to be contacted in a specific time frame and having that not happen three times, would you?

Angelo: I apologize for the inconvenience caused due to not being contacted within the promised time.
Angelo: Customer satisfaction is our prime goal. Please be informed that this is not our usual way of doing business. Once again, I apologize for the inconvenience caused.

Jim: Yeah, thanks . . .

Angelo: Due to our system upgrading such instances are happening on our site at present, I really hope that you will give us the second chance to prove our services.

Jim: Your system upgrades aren't my concern, I'm sorry to say. You have my money, and you won't send me what I paid for, and keep telling me to wait for a resolution.

Angelo: I understand your concern and request you to wait for 4 business days. I assure you that your money will be issued back to your account within 2-4 business days.

Angelo: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?

Jim: no, not really. Just make a comment on my account that I am REALLY upset by this service

Angelo: I have noted your account and please be assured that the matter will be taken care as soon as possible.

Angelo: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?

Jim: You don't seem to be able to help me any today, thank you.

Angelo: I do understand your concern the only way I can resolve this issue is by escalating to a concerned department so that this issue will be resolves as soon as possible. Please give us another chance to provide you the better service.

Jim: Whatever! AS you said, That was done on the 24th, and I am still waiting.

----------------------------------------------

I am still at a loss as to why it would take 10-12 days to resolve an issue, when the entire transaction (order, ship, receipt) would only take 4. But Overstock still wants me to give them a second chance to prove themselves. I'm thinking about it, but I guarantee I'll have an answer for them in 4 days. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience my delaying that opportunity might cause them.

In Defense of the Wicked Queen

One of the benefits of age (yes, there are some) is that as you gain more experience, and you have an open mind, you might look back on events, stories or whatever with new eyes from a new perspective.

Last year the musically expansive Reid family added to my CD collection by giving me the "Ghosts That Haunt Me" CD from Crash Test Dummies. I actually started listening to them because I just loved how Brad Roberts voice had such an affect (duh), especially on "Superman's Song" and "Androgynous".

As I was reading the liner notes (do they still call them that) I noticed the name Ellen Reid. Hey, interesting coincidence, the Reids gave me the CD, Ellen has the same last name. Cool.

So like any good child of the internet age, I googled Ellen Reid and found her website.

So why am I telling you this? Well besides a couple of goofey/cute pictures of her kissing puppets, blowing kisses (see above), she has MP3s available for download for FREE. Gotta love free. Especially when the stuff is good stuff. This brings me to the title of this entry, In Defense of the Wicked Queen.

Download this song. It has become one of my favorites, because it takes an alternative look at the Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a woman who chose to take care of herself rather than take the traditional path. And, how she is villanized for it by a society that sees women only as good when they are happy homemakers with no more ambition than to cook and clean and sew.

I find it funny because despite my best efforts to be an advocate for the women in my life, I still overlook what children's stories really say about women and how pervasive society's attitude is about a "woman's place."

I know . . . duh again! But look, I feel stupid enough, alright.

Anyway, I wanted to share this song. And maybe signpost my gradual enlightenment.

Breaking loose . . .

Okay, so it's been quite a ride for a little while . . .

It started way back in the spring with Michael Feldman. Then of course with Mom in the hospital and the car breaking down and more recently it picked up steam with Diana's health issues. Over this past weekend, as Wilma settled in for a two day stay in Cancun, Diana took up the new position of animal umpire. Then as the weather in Key West went south (or northeast, actually) we found ourselves in the unenviable postion of waiting for the shoe to drop. Would we go, would we stay, what? It's funny how so many of our plans were tied up in this one event that we had NO control, or even influence, over.

Sadly, for the residents of South Florida, Wilma turned out to be a worse storm than expected and on Wednesday, United Airlines cancelled our flight. We, of course, were disappointed not to be going on vacation, but humbled by the tragedy to people's lives in that portion of the country. Our thoughts are for their speedy recovery.

The good news is that we've rescheduled our trip for December 7 through the 14. And Key West will be Fantasy Festing for 4 days, the 7th through the 10th. Booyah!

And today, with so many decisions made for me, I feel like the log jam has broken. Things are starting to move. The car goes in for a final fix on Monday. I turned down a "waiting to be your worst nightmare" freelance job yesterday and Diana's finally on the mend. I feel a calm coming over me at last.

Maybe I should resume practicing yoga.

Sunday . . .

Really, the end of a horrid week, but an end that makes up for all the rotten stuff that life saw fit to squeeze into 5 days. I won't go into it.


Cool stuff, though . . .We got word that the dog will be transported to Delaware on Nov. 19, in time for Thanksgiving. This all seems kind of prophetic. Way back when I became part of the family ( which at the time included 3 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats, a finch and a stressed out mother) , I remember asking about the age of the dogs, as other than Diana, they were the only ones who seemed truly glad that I was sticking around. With the information at the time, I kind of settled on a date in November as a likely birthday for both Woody and Gru(e), who were about the same age. The date? November 19th.
Then, the last time the family was all together (while the dogs were alive) was Thanksgiving 2002, and it was during that visit that we first realized that Woody was ill. Now, Thanksgiving 2005 looks likely to bring us all back together again, and this time, if Rachel comes and brings Oscar, we will be 3 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 mothers, 2 grandkids, and Chris and I. We need a bird. Or two.

Mom found her way back into the hospital with a fever of 102, and the attitude of an angry hornet. Once she got there, she was happier about the food and the response time of the nurses, but not much else. Then a day or so later, her blood pressure bottomed out, and she was taken into the ICU, where they determined that she had a low blood count, which possibly indicated an internal bleed. They scoped her and found a tear in the intestine, which they repaired. She's back in Acute care now, but angry about a lot of things. Long story short. She getting better, though her PT has suffered.

Finally, our 11th anniversary was a wonderful, relaxing day that ended with a great bottle of wine we lugged back from Italy two years ago and a sumptuous dinner at Copper Fish in Cape May, NJ. Here's to the next 11.

Do you think I'm sexy?

You know, the internet is a wonderful thing. Since I logged on for the first time, back in 1996, I have found endless hours of enjoyment just seeing where things lead me. (Mostly, that has turned out to be Ebay.)

You get to see stuff that you'd never believe . . . So the other day when I found a link to a contortionist site, I had to look.

So, is she sexy?

Mondays!

First, Mom's had a setback. My father called last night to say she'd developed a fever on Sunday, and couldn't keep any food down. The nursing home sent her to the hospital for observation. They are going to keep her, I just found out. She's distraught, because she was looking forward to going home.

Second . . .

Okay, those of you that had bets that we'd get a dog after Rachel spent a day here with Oscar (her little shitz whatever) may have won your bet. Over the weekend I was looking at a puppy rescue site and found Dappler (rotten name, we'll have to change that). Right now he's being treated for a skin condition, but should be available to us in early November. Diana appears reluctantly to have agreed to the new addition.

Idn't he cute?

So we hate the name, and we are accepting alternatives for this Fox Terrier. Suggestions so far are; Muldar, Hobbes, Fox, and "Did Groo the Wanderer have any sidekicks?" (I’m not fond of Rufferto, but it’s a maybe.) So let us know what you think, we have time . . .

And she's off . . .

Quickly, I stopped in to see Mom yesterday. I guess she wants to go home.

She is getting out of bed, getting herself into her wheelchair, and getting herself into the bathroom. She isn't actually walking unassisted, but she is getting up and standing.

That is actually kind of huge.

And she told me the Doctor said she might get to go home on the weekend. That's pretty ambitious but she looks the best she has since this whole thing began. Obviously, it doesn't end here. She has plenty of health issues, and they both need to be in a better living situation, but she is getting better way faster than anyone expected.

Eeeeeeewwwww !

Okay, so much for volunteering in the Florida Everglades

What the f. . . . . Other Drivers! # 1

Okay, you're driving. Its a 4 (or more) lane highway and you are crusin' along when you see someone in your rear view mirror coming up on the outside. Do you . . .

A. Do nothing, allowing the other car to pass normally.

B. Take the opportunity to whip out your cell phone and call out for pizza.

C. Turn on your turn signal and pull into the lane ahead of the passing car, then promptly slow down.

D. Same as above, only without the turn signal.

E. Allow the car to come along side of you, then press down on the accelerator, refusing to allow them to pass.

Alright, I'll admit that I've felt the urge to speed up, I've even found that I subconsciously do it myself. But since I've gotten cruise control on my car, I am amazed at how few people can honestly answer anything but E to that question.
Admittedly, I do a lot of driving, nearly 50,000 miles a year, but I am still astounded by how . . . uh this isn't PC, but . . . RETARDED people get behind the wheel of a car. I mean, Hello . . . you don't think I recognize that I just passed you? And you weren't behind anyone at the time? You were doin' like 10 mph less than you are now? What is this, a freaking RACE. Tag? Dude, you're busted. You are acting like you think you've got a tiny weenie and you can make up for it with your CAR. Which needs to be washed, by the way. Your car that is . . . I'm making no judgements concerning your weenie.

You know, some days are worse than others, but the last two were astounding. My car is in the shop (wait for a What the f . . . Car Dealer Repair Shops post soon) so I've been borrowing a friend’s car. This car is a bit smaller than mine, and it seems that it bugs people even more to get passed by a SMALL car.

I'm relaxed, cruising, quite a bit slower than I usually do in my own car. Maybe 72. I pass a truck, maybe doing 5 mph less than me, and, after a small distance, return to the right lane (just like you are supposed to . . . hello PA drivers). No sooner do I pull over then the guy pulls out and re-passes me, then refuses to return to the right lane. He gets a little ahead of me, then matches my speed (remember, I'm on cruise control.) A couple miles down the road, he finally pulls back infront of me, slows down and forces me to hit MY brakes as he pulls off at an exit. (was he afraid I'd get in front of him on that exit?)

Next car, mid-size, in the right lane. I'm approaching at a speed a bit higher than hers. I pull into the right lane to pass, get just about even with her . . . and she speeds up. No gradual increase of speed, more like a "dump-the-quad, drop-into-passing-gear, you-aint-gonna-git-in-front-o-me-mutha-fuka" mashing of the accelerator into the floorboards kind of thing. She gets a few hundred feet ahead, then returns to her previous speed. This, of course means that for as long as we are on the road together, we will reenact this scene. Five times! With the finale punctuated by a digital display of her IQ. ( Okay, maybe it was my IQ, but whatever . . .)

Oh, now I know about the whole wind resistance thing, that as you are just about to pass another car, the air that they are pushing out of their way is having its greatest affect on you, but come on now. We passers are not stupid. We know you just can't help yourself from squeezing down on the pedal a little. But please, PLEASE, 5 times??? Try and hold yourself back from re-passing us just because we smoked your weenie butt, cuz if ANYTHING makes you look like a potential road rage dispenser, its speeding up by 10 mph just because someone passed you.

Oh, and don't think we don't recognize that you try to close the gap between you and the car in front of you, JUST so we don't have the audacity to merge in front of you. I mean really, how dare we . . .

Dude, we all know, you're not REALLY a weenie . . . its just your car making you act like one. So next time, get an Escalade. That way, we won't be able to see far enough around you to dare and pass you.