I hope I’m not becoming a curmudgeon, but I really have to wonder what the devil has happened to the concept of businesses delivering on their side of the contract with their customers. Within the space of a month I’ve had to fire Qwest & a Citi affinity card; & Comcast is going to be the next to go when I move to a permanent abode. I did this because they can’t tell a straight story two reps in a row, they go out of their way to surprise you with unexpected charges & they seem to be under the impression that their customers have no options but to take whatever they choose to dish out.
Dunno when the last time you had to sign up for telecommunications or cable service, but I hadn’t had to do it for about seven years when I moved to Seattle. Trying to suss out what your options are on a Qwest or Comcast website obviously takes more perspicacity than I possess. So you end up turning to a phone center rep who rattles through a litany of packages/features/costs.
In the case of Qwest, I signed up for unlimited local/long distance with a bunch of “features” (caller ID, voice mail, caller blocking, etc.) at a promised price of around $40/month. (That’s about what I’d paid for similar services from Verizon in Virginia so it didn’t seem outrageous.)
Imagine my surprise, then, to find that this month they’d jacked up the price by $20, because the rate I’d been promised was an “introductory” offer. Trust me, José from Qwest had not stipulated that this would only be in place for three months.
When I called last week to cancel the service, they transferred me to Cheryl, an “account rep”, whose job was clearly to try to reel me back in to the basket. “We really want to keep you as a valued customer. I could take away some of the features, & that would save you $5 per month—would you like that?”
“No—what I’d like is the service level I was promised at the price I was quoted.”
After about five attempts she finally agreed to terminate the service. However, she wasn’t done—she asked me if I’d like to get DirecTV through Qwest, or open a Verizon Mobile account through Qwest to replace their landline.
Noooooo.
I gave Cheryl an email address so she could send confirmation of the cancellation (which she never did), & she chirped, “Would you like to receive marketing emails from us?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I have to ask these questions.”
It’s a tough job, but just cancel my account & leave me alone.
(The Comcast story is similar: the rep who set up my service promised me a rate of TV & broadband around $60/month. But my bills kept showing up around $90. When I called, what got their attention was saying I could switch to Qwest/DirecTV. The rep squirreled around & managed to find some magical combination that gets me back to the originally promised rate. But they seriously have a pissed off, resentful user.)
The AAdvantage card by Citi was another bizarre case. I’d had it since 2003, but they have a hard time applying electronic payments at the speed of, you know, electronics. There have been delays of four days between the time my bank account was debited & them crediting my Citi account. Then, of course, they charge both a late fee & interest based on all the charges you’ve made in that period, & possibly the national debt, as well.
In the past I’ve had to call & get them to remove the charges, but in December when I spoke to the “customer service” rep, she kept saying she couldn’t do that, because it didn’t get credited until the D+4 date, & there it is.
So, I paid the bill & the charges & spent about ten minutes getting a credit card from my credit union to take its place. With that in hand, I called Citi the day after the payment was applied & announced to the “customer service” rep that I wanted to close my account.
Well, she transferred me to one of those Hail-Mary-keep-the-customer account reps & she must have spent 15 minutes trying to promise anything to make me keep the card. Again, all of a sudden I was such a valued customer, they just didn’t want to lose me, so what could she do to convince me to stay. (Yes, I was a valuable customer: I probably used that card for more than $50K in charges in the five years I had it [I used it for house repairs & replacement windows]; &, unlike most Americans, I actually made my payments. I paid it off every month, which isn’t what they want, of course; but they still got their cut of all those transactions. & they didn’t have to send my account to collection.)
She could certainly reverse the last late charge & interest. She could give me a flock of air miles. She could put a credit of $500 on the card…
I said that was nice, but too late. If you have to threaten to walk in order to get them to stop screwing you over, it’s not an equitable relationship.
So I’m untethered in phone service (even though I hate using the bloody mobi) & have a new credit card company that doesn’t try to shake me down once a month for excess fees.
Well, so far.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Business plans
In the course of research into “global trends 2009” I came across the following:
I love Ex-boyfriend Jewelry—if ever there was a market need perceived & met, it’s got to be this site. It’s not just the merchandise, although some is distinctly interesting. It’s the vignettes that accompany the pieces, which give you a glimpse into the relationship(s) that spawned the sales. I mean:
“Dog Gone and now jewelry must go too!”
“Earrings were purchased by my first husband, must sell!!”
“The Bastard got someone pregnant before the wedding! Here's to the 3 of you!”
“Il m'a trompé alors je l'ai laissé et je me venge en vendant tous les bijoux qu'il m'a offert.”
“My story is just about the same as all the other's. Husband cheats, gets caught, cheats again!!! Want's another chance....I don't think so....D*I*V*O*R*C*E*D”
Plus—the catch-all “Gifts that Should Have Been Jewelry”. 'Nuff said.
There’s just something so delicious about this site. I have to say I’d be concerned about possible bad karma associated with this stuff, but maybe some serious sage burning would take care of that.
On a somewhat related, “finding a niche in the market” note, I also give you Sarah’s Smash Shack. Speaking from personal experience, smashing glassware or crockery is super therapeutic. & having a “neutral” place to do the smashing obviates having to explain yourself to neighbors who want to know why you’re throwing glasses against the concrete wall.
I see franchising opportunities here.
I love Ex-boyfriend Jewelry—if ever there was a market need perceived & met, it’s got to be this site. It’s not just the merchandise, although some is distinctly interesting. It’s the vignettes that accompany the pieces, which give you a glimpse into the relationship(s) that spawned the sales. I mean:
“Dog Gone and now jewelry must go too!”
“Earrings were purchased by my first husband, must sell!!”
“The Bastard got someone pregnant before the wedding! Here's to the 3 of you!”
“Il m'a trompé alors je l'ai laissé et je me venge en vendant tous les bijoux qu'il m'a offert.”
“My story is just about the same as all the other's. Husband cheats, gets caught, cheats again!!! Want's another chance....I don't think so....D*I*V*O*R*C*E*D”
Plus—the catch-all “Gifts that Should Have Been Jewelry”. 'Nuff said.
There’s just something so delicious about this site. I have to say I’d be concerned about possible bad karma associated with this stuff, but maybe some serious sage burning would take care of that.
On a somewhat related, “finding a niche in the market” note, I also give you Sarah’s Smash Shack. Speaking from personal experience, smashing glassware or crockery is super therapeutic. & having a “neutral” place to do the smashing obviates having to explain yourself to neighbors who want to know why you’re throwing glasses against the concrete wall.
I see franchising opportunities here.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Bank robbery
Just in case your blood pressure has been falling, the AP files a report reminding us that the very same leadership of the banks that failed so miserably that the Feds showered them with $700B of your money & mine—those highly-compensated morons that had a huge hand in sending the global economy into freefall are still in their executive offices with no oversight by anyone but the boards that let them destroy assets like a demolition derby.
To put it into perspective, more than 200,000 jobs across the country have been lost since the beginning of this month. Yes, that’s in less than a month—people who were taxpaying, productive contributors to their community who haven’t really done anything to screw over their neighbors have been fired but the perpetrators of the debacle are secure in their multi-million-dollar positions.
Seems our Congress-slime handed over the billions without requiring that the banks supply a plan for making changes, starting with turning over senior management.
The banks are making sacrifices, though. Poor old Citigroup sullenly announced that it’s not, after all, going to complete purchase of a new $50M corporate jet. They didn’t do this voluntarily; the Obama administration had to draw them the pictures of how outrageous it is that they’d blow that kind of dough on such a limited-value asset when they’d just filled their begging bowl with $45B of our money.
They actually had the nerve to counter that they weren’t going to use “government money” for the purchase—as though you can separate that kind of thing from the pool.
This is precisely why it’s ludicrous that the men (& the vast preponderance of them are indeed Y-chromosome-challenged) who made these kinds of decisions over the past few years are allowed to keep their positions on our nickel(s).
Talk about foxes running the henhouse...
To put it into perspective, more than 200,000 jobs across the country have been lost since the beginning of this month. Yes, that’s in less than a month—people who were taxpaying, productive contributors to their community who haven’t really done anything to screw over their neighbors have been fired but the perpetrators of the debacle are secure in their multi-million-dollar positions.
Seems our Congress-slime handed over the billions without requiring that the banks supply a plan for making changes, starting with turning over senior management.
The banks are making sacrifices, though. Poor old Citigroup sullenly announced that it’s not, after all, going to complete purchase of a new $50M corporate jet. They didn’t do this voluntarily; the Obama administration had to draw them the pictures of how outrageous it is that they’d blow that kind of dough on such a limited-value asset when they’d just filled their begging bowl with $45B of our money.
They actually had the nerve to counter that they weren’t going to use “government money” for the purchase—as though you can separate that kind of thing from the pool.
This is precisely why it’s ludicrous that the men (& the vast preponderance of them are indeed Y-chromosome-challenged) who made these kinds of decisions over the past few years are allowed to keep their positions on our nickel(s).
Talk about foxes running the henhouse...
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Wired & unemployed
Well, Seattle has made the big time. If you count being named Forbes’s “America’s Most Wired” city the big time.
Seems it’s not high-tech employers so much as it’s Wi-Fi hot spots that gave us the leg up. Well, I guess so. Aside from Starbuck’s, which of course charges for connectivity, most coffee shops give it to you for free. I happen to like Tully’s, because it’s not the monolith that ’Buck’s is, & because their coffee actually tastes, you know, better.
& they tell me that Microsoft’s commuter buses are equipped with Wi-Fi, so that you shouldn’t lose a moment of work time while going to & from your actual job.
But what gets me is that pretty much any hair salon with pretensions of up-marketdom also has Wi-Fi. Why would you want to be answering emails or creating presentations when you could be parked in a high-tech chair, espresso to hand & reading all those magazines you wouldn’t ever think of buying?
There’s something decidedly whacked about this insidious always-on concept. I can see why Forbes would honor it, though—another way for corporations to suck extra hours of servitude out of their staff.
Interesting, though; at the bottom of that Forbes page there’s a link to the weekly report on layoffs. I guess they don’t see the irony in that juxtaposition.
Seems it’s not high-tech employers so much as it’s Wi-Fi hot spots that gave us the leg up. Well, I guess so. Aside from Starbuck’s, which of course charges for connectivity, most coffee shops give it to you for free. I happen to like Tully’s, because it’s not the monolith that ’Buck’s is, & because their coffee actually tastes, you know, better.
& they tell me that Microsoft’s commuter buses are equipped with Wi-Fi, so that you shouldn’t lose a moment of work time while going to & from your actual job.
But what gets me is that pretty much any hair salon with pretensions of up-marketdom also has Wi-Fi. Why would you want to be answering emails or creating presentations when you could be parked in a high-tech chair, espresso to hand & reading all those magazines you wouldn’t ever think of buying?
There’s something decidedly whacked about this insidious always-on concept. I can see why Forbes would honor it, though—another way for corporations to suck extra hours of servitude out of their staff.
Interesting, though; at the bottom of that Forbes page there’s a link to the weekly report on layoffs. I guess they don’t see the irony in that juxtaposition.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The truth is out there
Monday, January 26, 2009
Year of the Ox
Happy New Year!
Again!
Yes, the Year of the Rat is over, and we are entering into the Year of the Ox.
I’m not much of a believer in the characteristics allegedly conferred upon those born in the Chinese zodiacal years—after all, millions and millions of Chinese are born in a single year; they can’t all be common personalities. And I certainly don’t see me fitting into the list assigned to my year.
But last year really was infested with rats, wasn’t it? AIG, GM, WaMu, people who took out loans they had no hope of repaying—oh, the list is way too long to set down again. You know who they are anyhow.
This Year of the Ox is predicted to be a hunkered-down one, where we reap what’s been sown in the Year of the Rat. So no surprises there.
I know westerners welcomed the new year on the 1st; but 2008 was such a ratty 366 days, it wouldn’t hurt to have a good scrub down again, just to be sure.
Appease the Kitchen God, clean out all those dust bunnies, hang the red banners and light a few sparklers. Make sure you stomp that ratty old year out of existence.
Kung hei fat choi!
Again!
Yes, the Year of the Rat is over, and we are entering into the Year of the Ox.
I’m not much of a believer in the characteristics allegedly conferred upon those born in the Chinese zodiacal years—after all, millions and millions of Chinese are born in a single year; they can’t all be common personalities. And I certainly don’t see me fitting into the list assigned to my year.
But last year really was infested with rats, wasn’t it? AIG, GM, WaMu, people who took out loans they had no hope of repaying—oh, the list is way too long to set down again. You know who they are anyhow.
This Year of the Ox is predicted to be a hunkered-down one, where we reap what’s been sown in the Year of the Rat. So no surprises there.
I know westerners welcomed the new year on the 1st; but 2008 was such a ratty 366 days, it wouldn’t hurt to have a good scrub down again, just to be sure.
Appease the Kitchen God, clean out all those dust bunnies, hang the red banners and light a few sparklers. Make sure you stomp that ratty old year out of existence.
Kung hei fat choi!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Hell on earth
Yesterday was a bad day for my desire to believe in the idea of human decency.
First, I heard an NPR interview with Eve Ensler & Dr. Denis Mukwege about the policy of the strategic rapes of hundreds of thousands of women in the continuing civil war in Congo. The rebels under recently arrested Laurent Nkunda have systematically raped between 300,000 & 400,000 women—well, from babies of a few months to octogenarians—over the past ten years.
It seems that raping women effectively destroys the infrastructure of villages—whether you send in HIV-carrying troops to spread the disease throughout the populace or just gang rape little girls or shoot women in their reproductive organs. The beauty of this strategy is its cost effectiveness: no need to spend money on RPGs or automatic weapons; no worries about supply lines; & yet the devastation is complete.
Once a village is destroyed the rebels inherit the assets, which is the whole point.
But it’s not just the actions of people half-way around the world that has me in a tail-spin. A sickening story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about a woman who starved a puppy to death had me in tears at the headline.
I’ll confess that I couldn’t actually read the story, just kind of skipped through a couple of the paragraphs. I went back to it because I thought I should get the facts, but I just am not up to that sort of thing.
If ever there was an argument to support the benefit to society of capital punishment, this incident is it.
A starved puppy, little girls raped as a policy of war. If you try to tell me that humans are the highest form of life on this planet I just won’t believe you. We're instruments of hell.
First, I heard an NPR interview with Eve Ensler & Dr. Denis Mukwege about the policy of the strategic rapes of hundreds of thousands of women in the continuing civil war in Congo. The rebels under recently arrested Laurent Nkunda have systematically raped between 300,000 & 400,000 women—well, from babies of a few months to octogenarians—over the past ten years.
It seems that raping women effectively destroys the infrastructure of villages—whether you send in HIV-carrying troops to spread the disease throughout the populace or just gang rape little girls or shoot women in their reproductive organs. The beauty of this strategy is its cost effectiveness: no need to spend money on RPGs or automatic weapons; no worries about supply lines; & yet the devastation is complete.
Once a village is destroyed the rebels inherit the assets, which is the whole point.
But it’s not just the actions of people half-way around the world that has me in a tail-spin. A sickening story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about a woman who starved a puppy to death had me in tears at the headline.
I’ll confess that I couldn’t actually read the story, just kind of skipped through a couple of the paragraphs. I went back to it because I thought I should get the facts, but I just am not up to that sort of thing.
If ever there was an argument to support the benefit to society of capital punishment, this incident is it.
A starved puppy, little girls raped as a policy of war. If you try to tell me that humans are the highest form of life on this planet I just won’t believe you. We're instruments of hell.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
In hardship, opportunity
It seems that hard times in the world of commerce aren’t distributed evenly across the spectrum: the NY Times reports that business is booming for companies providing “layoff services” to corporations cutting jobs.
Yes, those executive teams that decided a decade ago to ship your job to Bangalore or Manila are also outsourcing the dirty business of managing the process of mass terminations that flow in the wake of the economic collapse. One source estimated that more than a million Americans joined the ranks of the unemployed last year; I guess their erstwhile employers could no more handle that than they could other basic business processes.
These firms provide everything from management training (“Laying off your staff 101”) to “outplacement counseling”. According to the Times, a “basic package of services for a departing employee, including a one-day seminar, can cost about $1000.”
Last month’s canning of 1000 Yahoo! employees resulted in an interesting leak to a San José blog of the script to be used by managers in handling the terminations. All geared at protecting the company’s legal butt, of course.
I suppose it’s emblematic of American entrepreneurship that, no matter what the economic situation, there’ll always be companies popping up to see an opportunity & step in to fill it.
Yes, those executive teams that decided a decade ago to ship your job to Bangalore or Manila are also outsourcing the dirty business of managing the process of mass terminations that flow in the wake of the economic collapse. One source estimated that more than a million Americans joined the ranks of the unemployed last year; I guess their erstwhile employers could no more handle that than they could other basic business processes.
These firms provide everything from management training (“Laying off your staff 101”) to “outplacement counseling”. According to the Times, a “basic package of services for a departing employee, including a one-day seminar, can cost about $1000.”
Last month’s canning of 1000 Yahoo! employees resulted in an interesting leak to a San José blog of the script to be used by managers in handling the terminations. All geared at protecting the company’s legal butt, of course.
I suppose it’s emblematic of American entrepreneurship that, no matter what the economic situation, there’ll always be companies popping up to see an opportunity & step in to fill it.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Microsoft's employee weight loss program
A sign of hard times indeed: Microsoft, that monolith of enterprise software, joined the ranks of Google, Intel & others, & announced yesterday that the recession has necessitated cost-cutting measures, to include getting rid of 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months. Fourteen hundred employees were notified that they’re on The List.
The staff layoffs are in addition to cutting back on the use of contractors & putting construction projects on hold, measures that were announced earlier in the week.
For more than a month, rumors of job cuts have been swirling in the Puget Sound area, where Microsoft is one of the region’s largest & most generous employer. Salaries, benefits, perks—all outclass everything else in the area. The free sodas & juices alone run to $20M per year.
I can tell you that this week productivity has faltered & whispered conversations have increased, as folks speculated, repeated stories overheard & reconsidered whether they should redo the bathroom or just hang tight. The conversation-opening gambit yesterday was, “Well, my badge worked, so…”
There’s no telling what lies ahead—if you survived this round, there are more to come. & this in a company that actually turned a profit this past quarter.
Of course, it’s also the company that has been in a hiring frenzy that only slowed down recently. October’s new hires totaled 1,000; November’s were 380; & last month finally came down to 164.
Working in a place with the Sword of Damocles hanging over you is never good. It’ll be interesting to see how the Microsofties respond to the exhortations to innovate…or else.
The staff layoffs are in addition to cutting back on the use of contractors & putting construction projects on hold, measures that were announced earlier in the week.
For more than a month, rumors of job cuts have been swirling in the Puget Sound area, where Microsoft is one of the region’s largest & most generous employer. Salaries, benefits, perks—all outclass everything else in the area. The free sodas & juices alone run to $20M per year.
I can tell you that this week productivity has faltered & whispered conversations have increased, as folks speculated, repeated stories overheard & reconsidered whether they should redo the bathroom or just hang tight. The conversation-opening gambit yesterday was, “Well, my badge worked, so…”
There’s no telling what lies ahead—if you survived this round, there are more to come. & this in a company that actually turned a profit this past quarter.
Of course, it’s also the company that has been in a hiring frenzy that only slowed down recently. October’s new hires totaled 1,000; November’s were 380; & last month finally came down to 164.
Working in a place with the Sword of Damocles hanging over you is never good. It’ll be interesting to see how the Microsofties respond to the exhortations to innovate…or else.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Motor City madness
As you may or may not know, the annual North American International Auto Show is in progress. You can find their web site for yourself; I’m not helping them pump their traffic figures.
What you may have noticed is that there hasn’t been a lot of coverage of this year’s show in the media, because Detroit appears to be as bankrupt in new models as it is in its coffers. There are concept cars, apparently an attempt to see if people get excited.
However, here’s one report that really explores the whole mishegoss. If they didn’t have $25B of our money already, this would be more amusing, but I put it out here for you anyhow.
But here's a real piece of lunacy: Fiat has announced its intent to "buy" a 35% share in that sinking ship, Chrysler. My first thought was, "suckers!" but it turns out that you & I, my fellow Americans, would foot the bill for this one, too.
According to a story in Wednesday's WSJ this would be a "cashless" deal for Fiat, with the Italian company contributing only "technology & vehicles" for Chrysler to build & sell here.
Oh, & it's contingent on Chrysler getting another $3B in handouts from the Feds.
They should be distributing booze nationwide from that auto show.
What you may have noticed is that there hasn’t been a lot of coverage of this year’s show in the media, because Detroit appears to be as bankrupt in new models as it is in its coffers. There are concept cars, apparently an attempt to see if people get excited.
However, here’s one report that really explores the whole mishegoss. If they didn’t have $25B of our money already, this would be more amusing, but I put it out here for you anyhow.
But here's a real piece of lunacy: Fiat has announced its intent to "buy" a 35% share in that sinking ship, Chrysler. My first thought was, "suckers!" but it turns out that you & I, my fellow Americans, would foot the bill for this one, too.
According to a story in Wednesday's WSJ this would be a "cashless" deal for Fiat, with the Italian company contributing only "technology & vehicles" for Chrysler to build & sell here.
Oh, & it's contingent on Chrysler getting another $3B in handouts from the Feds.
They should be distributing booze nationwide from that auto show.
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