Look Mom...I'm a Consumer Advocate

A few weeks ago, while I was embroiled in my huge Dell computer repair saga, I was also engaged in a battle with my bank. It's a long story about data theft and credit card replacement but the long and short of it is I became extremely frustrated with the lack of customer service during this incident. As with my Dell dilemma, I believe in going straight to the top so I wrote a letter to the bank's Chairman of the Board. On Tuesday, when I returned home from my Library meeting, there was a message on my answering machine from someone representing the bank. He called and left a second message yesterday so today, before leaving for my meeting at 6:00AM, I called him since he is located in an earlier time zone.

It turns out this person works in the office of the bank's President of Card Services...oohhh...doesn't that sound official? My letter had made its way from the Chairman of the Board's office to his and he was calling to respond to my concerns. We spent 20 minutes on the phone discussing my letter and the issues I raised about the actions taken by the bank during this incident and the lack of customer service provided by the bank's representatives. I was particularly pleased when the young man complimented me on my letter for its concise but focused list of various issues (I just love using bulleted lists...they make things seem so organized and important). Anyway, he told me that my letter had been discussed in great detail during a recent meeting and was being sent to all the departments and units involved in the incident.

Of course the question is whether any of it will make any real difference in the way in which the bank conducts business and I'm certainly not holding my breath. Let's face it...these major institutions have very little interest in individual consumer experiences....their focus is on the big picture and the big profits. Writing the letter, however, certainly made me feel better and at least I can say I tried.

I Feel Like the Scarecrow

One of my favorite movies is The Wizard of Oz. I've seen it hundreds of times and it never fails to enthrall me. My favorite character has always been the Scarecrow...he's one heck of a dancer and a really good friend to Dorothy. Today I feel very much like my favorite character only it has nothing to do with dance or friendship. No...today I want to break out in that classic song "If I Only Had A Brain."

For the past two days, I've been in all day meetings involving setting policies for the new computer system our Library is planning to install next year. For two straight days we've been subjected to PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheet examples and tomorrow it's more of the same. My brain simply cannot take any more minutiae. It's very much the "if this...then that" planning with rows and columns of scenarios based upon a slew of different factors. I know this is all very important and must be done within the next few weeks but I'm getting dizzier and dizzier at the meetings and my eyes are beginning to cross...talk about information overload. And to think that I have yet another meeting tomorrow AND two more next week. If I had my druthers, I'd much rather "while away the hours, conferring with the flowers, consultin' with the rain..."

An Automatic Kinda Girl

I've discovered one way to avoid being home during a construction project:

Hubby: "Dear, the maintenance light in my car has come on."

Me: "No problem. How about I take it in on Monday?"

Hubby: "That would be great."

Why was I the one taking his car in for service this morning? Besides the obvious avoidance issue, we have a deal. As long as Hubby drives a car with an automatic transmission, I agree to take his car in for all service and repairs. While Hubby loves driving cars with manual transmissions (it's a boy-toy thing I've decided), I'm an automatic transmission girl. He tried to teach me how to drive a stick shift 20+ years ago but, when I refused to drive out of the empty university parking lot into the street one Sunday morning, he gave up.

For the past several years I've heard him threaten that he was going to buy some type of sports car (his one last fling with his youth) but, at the moment, he's driving my old 1998 automatic sedan and enjoying my repair promise. That doesn't mean he's happy about it but, for him, it certainly is convenient.

The Fun Continues

Here I am hiding out in front of my computer with the den door closed trying to make myself scarce as our new deck construction begins (see here for the prologue). Hubby, Friend and Friend's Brother are in the backyard banging and hammering and drilling away and I just don't want to watch. The guys arrived at 12:30PM (only 2 hours later than promised) and immediately took off for the hardware store to buy additional supplies. They've now been at the actual construction for a few hours and, as always, there have been a few unexpected obstacles to overcome. One obstacle may be the weather. We've been following it all week and the forecast for the next few days was for sunny to partly cloudy days. So why are there really ominous dark clouds in the sky right now and why does it feel like rain is on the way?

Here's an update already...the guys just left to go pick up their table saw. That should take an hour. Why do I think this project is slowly morphing into an epic tale?

Tea For Two

I'm getting ready in a few minutes to meet a friend for tea at a local tea emporium. Now, I've never actually been to a formal afternoon tea so I have no idea what to expect. I even had to email her and ask what's the appropriate attire for such an event. Why haven't I ever had the pleasure? It probably has something to do with the fact that I'm not particularly fond of tea. I'm sure my distaste of tea harkens back to my childhood when my mom would serve tea and saltine crackers whenever we were suffering from a stomach upset. Now when I look into a cup of tea, I can still remember the sights, smells and feelings associated with a night of diarrhea and vomiting. OK...now I've just grossed myself out. So...why am I doing this to myself today? Because I haven't seen this friend in a while and would like to spend some time with her catching up on our lives. Tea is her passion and, since I enjoy experiencing things for the first time, I agreed to meet for tea when she suggested it. Oh well...it should be an "interesting" afternoon.

The Fun Begins

So yesterday I went off to pick up Mom and take her to the hair salon while Hubby waited for Friend and Friend's Brother to arrive to take off some of the deck boards to see the substructure, make some measurements, and go off to the lumber yard and home improvement store to buy all the supplies so they'll be ready to begin on Sunday. When I left in the morning, this is what my deck looked like:

When I got home, this is what my deck looked like:

Apparently while Hubby and Friend went off to buy everything, Friend's Brother decided to start the demolition process since he had nothing to do. Bless his heart. This means that, when they come back on Sunday, they can actually start building the deck. Maybe they'll meet their original timeline after all. We can only hope.

Now You Like It

I'm getting ready to drive to my sister's to pick up Mom so we can go get our hair cut this morning. So what does my husband do? Last night over dinner he looks across the table and tells me how nice my hair looks. Why is it he tells me this less than 24 hours before I'm getting it cut? Where has he been the last 5 weeks? Now I don't know whether to just have a trim or have it cut shorter. I'm so confused...thanks Hubby!