So we cleaned up the living room tonight, finally putting away all the Christmas boxes and whatnot, and I (re)plugged in one of those air freshener dohickeys. Well, I have to say I LOVE Febreze Noticables but there is one scent that Tom bought that I cannot stand. And it so happens that was the one I picked up and plugged in (damn, I thought I had thrown it out!) so now, my hand smells like that scent that I hate. And it’s extremely overpowering. And the smell will NOT go away. I’ve washed my hands a bunch of times, put lotion on, and even went so far as to “rinse” my hands in nail polish remover…yet the smell remains. It is so horrible and overpowering that I now have a raging headache.
Category Archives: Rants & Gripes
You don’t even have to pay me, just let me…
You don’t even have to pay me, just let me legally stop and write tickets to stupid drivers! I have been saying this for years—practically since I started driving.
I don’t want to be a cop by any stretch of the imagination, but please please PLEASE just give me the ability to pull over stupid drivers and ticket them for the things they do. I would get SUCH job satisfaction for that!!
Why does this come up this morning? Well, some idiot in my neighborhood totally blew his stop sign, causing me to slam on the brakes to miss him (god forbid he have to wait two seconds until I’m past him to pull out behind me)—then not 200 yards later, heading out of the subdivision, he blew that stop sign as well! (Now, I’m all about the rolling stop when no one is around and it’s completely dead—but he didn’t even attempt a rolling stop!)
So not a way to start my work week.>:(
Some people…and some people’s kids.
I just don’t understand crappy parenting.
We just had a family come in the office with a small child—say, four years old. She was bothering the parents/agent, so we offered to take her back into the lunchroom where we turned on the TV so she could watch cartoons…and honestly didn’t think anything of it. Then we started to hear the trash can open and close. And open and close. Upon going back there, we discovered she was opening sugar packets and dumping them on the floor!! 88| She also helped herself to the bag of chip-clipped chips that were on the table, finishing the bag! 88| Another agent went back there and STERNLY told her to STOP with the sugar packets—and I think it was after that she moved to the chips.
What the hell? I mean, obviously the parents can’t know what she’s doing, but I’d hope that my kids would have the fear of God in them should they do anything wrong when out of my sight—and heaven help them if I found out they were acting that way.
So then the issue becomes, do you say something to the parents or not? We let it slide, but I really REALLY wanted to say something like “Your daughter may have spoiled her dinner since she polished off a bag of our chips back there. Oh, and she wasted about 20 packets of sugar by dumping them on the floor.”
I’m just flabbergasted.
I hate going on vacation…
…because at work, the weeks leading up to my vacation completely suck. I am steadily working on all my to-dos through January 1, but of course that isn’t good enough. Suddenly, about 30 listings come out of the woodwork. They’ve been on our “coming soon” list for three months and I’ve been asking about them for the past month—but now that my vacation is one measly week away, it’s time to list ALL of our coming soon houses. WHAT THE HELL?
There is really no way I can get all the listing paperwork done PLUS enter all the listings in the MLS in one week. Well, maybe if I didn’t have anything else to do like answer the phone or work on my other to-dos. The stupid thing is that if I was going to be here, I’m guessing I wouldn’t have all those to do—I’d get a few here and there but nowhere near 30 in one week. And it’s not like we don’t have any inventory right now, so these would be our only listings. And it’s not like this is a busy time of year. And it’s not like this vacation was a surprise—they’ve known about it for two months now…
So, in addition to having to complete three week’s worth of activities over the next week, I will also have a month’s worth of listings to do in the same week. Someone shoot me.
Oh! And on top of all that, a 20-minute what-should-have-been-a-painless project turned into a FOUR-HOUR project. 88|
You know, I wonder what they would do if I ever had to be gone spur-of-the-moment for that long? I think they would survive just fine…so why the rush with all this work?
Should I get paid more for the IT work I do?
So as you all know, I just LOVE my job ( 😈 ). There are so many little issues that make me crazy, I won’t even begin to go into them all. That said, I just have a question.
I was hired as a real estate assistant/secretary. To me, that means things specifically associated with real estate like paperwork and phone calls, etc. To me, the pay I was told I’d get is for the work I was told about.
Well, as it happens, I also know a little bit about computers (such things as web design and email, etc.)…so of course, I quickly got sucked into doing those things, as well.
Now, I know that all jobs come with duties that weren’t explicitly stated … and new things pop up that need to be taken care of … and stuff along those lines. But it seems as time goes on, I’m becoming more and more responsible for anything computer- and IT-related. Just because I’m the one that knows the most—even if I have no clue, it becomes my job to figure it out/solve it.
So, where does it become the end of my initial job duties/being a peon and having to do everything the boss says…to getting paid more for doing stuff that really shouldn’t be my job or wasn’t in the original job description? Meaning that I was hired as a secretary, not a computer or IT person; I was hired with a secretary’s pay, not a computer or IT person’s pay. (I know I don’t deserve like $30k for computer/IT work, because that’s not my entire job—but some type of additional pay would be nice.)
I just think that she is lucky I know how to do this stuff, and I should see some sort of compensation for it. If I didn’t know how to do it (i.e. had my boss hired some yahoo who didn’t know how to do ANYTHING), she would have to hire someone else (at a much higher rate) to come do this stuff (as it is, she pays Tom $20/hour for networking stuff that I know nothing about).
So, do you think I should I get paid more for the IT work I do? Or should I just suck it up? Of course, I’m thinking about this now because I just had my two-year anniversary a week ago and haven’t heard ONE WORD about a raise. 😡
Wah! It’s too cold here!
I know I have a post like this whenever it gets cold, but man, I don’t think I could survive in Michigan anymore. This morning we had a deep frost and today I think it only got to 50, but it was COLD! Too damn cold if you ask me. Yes, I looked at Michigan’s temps today, and they were in the 20s…which is why I don’t think I could survive a winter there. This upcoming two weeks for Christmas is going to be a trial, that’s for sure—I’ve already dug out my parka and I have new gloves and I’m digging out the turtlenecks and sweatshirts! Last week it was in the 70s—I want that back!!
Not a good weekend for food.
We invited our friends, Tom and Karen, out for dinner Saturday night. We were going to Freddy’s, a local sports bar that has prime rib TO DIE FOR—Saturdays after 5pm only. Tom had previously had it there and said it was the best he’d ever eaten—plus the boys REALLY REALLY love steak—so they were really looking forward to it.
So we get there around 6:15 and when the guys ordered their steak, the waitress said “We’re actually out at the moment. It’s going to be about a half hour.” We asked how they could be out of the special barely an hour after it started, and she said they had had a run on it earlier. Okay… well, we had ordered an appetizer anyway, so we didn’t think a half hour was TOO long to wait—especially since it was going to be SOOOOO good. Both guys ordered it medium rare (this is important for the rest of the story). I then tried to order a sandwich and asked for texas toast instead of the regular bread. She said they were out. Oooookay—half their sandwiches are on texas toast, but whatever. So I said “Just give it to me on the regular bread then.” Oh, no, she says, they were ENTIRELY out of bread! After the issues with the steak, we just had to laugh at them being out of bread as well.
Fast forward AN HOUR, and we finally get our meals—the guy’s steaks were finally (apparently) done. Except that they were too done—meaning both of the steaks were medium to medium well, almost bordering on well done! Tom said it tasted horrible, probably the worst he’s had. Our friend Tom agreed that it was horrible. When the waitress came over to see how everything was, they both complained, said the steak was completely overdone and ruined, and they wanted two more. She said they had gotten the last ones! WHAT? 88| They were out when we got there at 6:15, and then an hour later they were out again? The waitress did say that a bunch of steaks had been sent back earlier because they were cooked wrong…which we’re guessing is why they ran out! The boys ate them anyway, since by that time we were all very hungry.
We just kept talking about it and sorta laughing about it, but the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got—so I went to get a manager. And guess what? He wasn’t there! Ironically, he had gone to their sister restaurant/bar to get…bread! And no one on the premisis had any authority to take care of us—we had to wait until the manager got back! Thankfully, it was only a matter of minutes before he was back and over to our table. I told him how horrible the steaks were—aside from having to wait an hour, they were completely overcooked and a complete waste. And it was even worse because we had had the prime rib there before and it was absolutely fabulous. He apologized and basically said he would talk to the kitchen so it wouldn’t happen again—and that he hoped we’d give them another chance. He didn’t appear to be saying anything else, so I said “You WILL be taking care of the bill, right?” Oh, yes, of course he was. And of he went.
About five minutes later, the waitress brought our checks and said that the manager had taken….30% off our bills. Wait, excuse me, WHAT? For the steaks to be completely horrible, he only took 30% off our bill? I wasn’t too happy, but figured I just wanted to be done with it and get out of there. Until we saw that he didn’t take 30% off the entire bill, but rather just took 30% off the price of the steak! OH NO NO NO, that was NOT going to fly. And by that point, I was so pissed off that I was not going to accept anything less than a full comp for the two steaks.
Now, let me just say a quick word about our waitress… She was a cute little thing, and she felt HORRIBLE when she had to tell us the steaks would be late, then when we told her they were overcooked, then when we complained about the bill. One time, she looked like she was about to cry. She felt so bad about everything—but as a waitress, what can you do when the kitchen screws up? We made sure to tell her it was not her fault and we knew that—and that she was doing just fine. We also made sure to tell her that we’d be letting the owner know about the whole thing (she’s a fellow realtor and we used to work in the same office) and that she [the waitress] was great!
So when the poor waitress came back over and asked if we were ready with our bills, I said, “Unfortunately, no. I don’t mean to be a bitch about this, but he only took 30% off the steak. That is ridiculous! For two meals that were late in arriving, not cooked as ordered, and not able to be reordered…” She said she’d talk to the manager again. She was back in a few minutes with new bills, with the prime rib completely comped. Thank goodness.
So then we decided to go out for dessert, and we went to our little ice cream place up the street. Our friend, poor guy, ordered his favorite ice cream—and they were out! We had a good laugh about that.
So today Tom and I went out for lunch because we had a coupon for a “buy one get one free” sub at another sports bar. After taking probably 10 minutes to decide what we wanted (they have a huge sandwich menu), we ordered. And within a few minutes, the waitress was back to tell Tom that they didn’t even make his sandwich anymore and she wasn’t even sure why it was still on the menu! 88|
So, overall, not a good weekend for food!
Stymied at every turn!
So I had THE BEST idea for Christmas gifts for the parents this year…
EXCEPT I didn’t make my mind up until too late that I was going to get it for everyone, so I only had one.
And of course, I wanted the same exact thing…
EXCEPT I couldn’t find it anywhere locally for the same price [I got for the first one] so looked at other similar things (to make life easier)…
EXCEPT the things just weren’t what I wanted so they got returned.
So then I decided to just order what I wanted online…
EXCEPT I found that three stores had it and had to make a decision: Do I shop at the store where I get the absolute cheapest price (but comes with a mail-in rebate)? Or do I shop at the store with a bit higher price, but where I earn almost enough points for a $25 gift certificate? Or do I shop at the store with a middle-of-the-road price that makes for easy returns (just in case)?
So I decided to go with the $25 gift certificate offer…
EXCEPT shipping was 5-10 business days at that store…which, if it happens to be more than 10 days…we’re screwed (since we’ll be on our way to Michigan) and then no one gets presents.
EXCEPT I decided to have it shipped to my office, on the off chance it doesn’t make it in time, they can reship it to me.
I never thought buying two additional presents would be so hard! :>>
It’s going to be a loooooong day.
Sorry, I have to bitch about my job/office again today. 😡
I am so sick of the arguments about the air/heat. Yesterday it was a gorgeous 70° outside but they had to turn the A/C on “because it was so stuffy in here.” Okay, neither of you had been in the office all day and everyone who WAS in the office had NO problem with the temp, so what the hell? Again, we got told “THE A/C ALWAYS STAYS ON! We can’t have our clients walking into a furnace.” Okay, what-ever. I personally don’t think 74° is a furnace, but what do I know—I’m only a peon who HAS to sit in the office all day. So I guess we can all freeze all day ON THE OFF CHANCE we have clients come in the office (and if we DID have clients that were not just running in and out, we’d turn it down!). And they complain when we prop the door open because all we have is a cement block and they don’t like how that looks. They’ve said a few times we can get something pretty to prop it open, but it never happens.
And this morning? There was a smell in the office, so their solution was to turn the A/C on to get rid of it. Huh? How about opening both doors and getting a cross breeze? GRRRRRRRRRR. (Did I mention it’s only 60° out?) So my boss asks if I’m cold and I say it’s a little chilly now that the air is on…thinking she might say “Oh, well then let’s turn it off” — HA! HAHA! — no, she tells me to open my blinds and let the sun in so I warm up!! OH MY GOD SHE DID NOT JUST SAY THAT!! 😯 I’ve only told them about five times that I cannot open the blinds in the morning because the bright sun shines right in my eyes and gives me a headache.
And on top of all this, my desk/chair situation is still bad and I am in pain. I am supposed to be getting a new/different desk but of course that hasn’t happened yet. (Long story, one of our agents is bringing in her own desk, which means I can get hers, but it has to be trimmed first to fit in my space and no one is making any moves to make that happen even though they were GUNG HO about telling me it was going to happen.) For the past few days, I’ve had my chair up higher so that my knees weren’t bent awkwardly and didn’t hurt, but then my wrist hurts because it’s too high for the mouse. So today I finally moved my seat down so my wrist didn’t hurt [as much]…but my knees are now scrunched and it feels like my ass is dragging on the ground. AND MY WRIST STILL HURTS!
And I have a headache, even with the blinds shut.
It’s going to be a looooooooong day.
I hate DST, how about you?
I really hate Daylight Savings Time. HATE IT. Just now, I was sitting here thinking it must be time to go to bed because it’s dark (and has been dark for some time) and I feel tired (because it’s dark).
So I look at the clock…and it’s 6:57pm. What!?! And if I want to walk after work, I have to rush home, quick change my clothes, and be out the door by 5:30 otherwise I’ll be walking in the dark. 🙁
I think I need to live somewhere that doesn’t follow DST. 🙂
I cannot wait until…
…I get a job where I am not the “go to” computer person. I AM HATING IT. I am always the one that has to set up people’s computers, install software, run updates, create email signatures, fix any problems, etc. And I’m tired of it. I don’t mind helping out, but when I am tasked to do just about everything, it gets old. Fast. 😐
I HATE STUPID DRIVERS!
I really hate it when I get pissed off on the way in to work—it’s just not the best way to start the day.
This morning, some idiot pulled out (basically) in front of me. Since I was on a 55mph road, he really should have waited, but god forbid someone wait for a proper break in traffic. So, I pretty much had to slow from 55 to 25 in three seconds. Then, about 1/4 mile up the road, he slams on his brakes—which means I have to slam on my brakes, engaging the ABS and sending all the stuff in my car flying to the floor. Asshat wasn’t paying attention and missed some activity on the side of the road that he had to avoid at the last second.
Oh, and did I mention this idiot was on the phone? GRRRRRRR. >:XX I don’t mind people talking and driving if they can handle it, but some people obviously can’t.
Not as fun as it used to be?
I think I might be getting over my love of Halloween, or I might be getting crochety in my old age, or something else, but…. I think I could live without the handing out of the candy anymore.
To start with, people started showing up WHEN OUR LIGHTS WERE STILL OFF AND THE PUMPKIN WASN’T LIT. What gives? When we’re ready, we’ll look ready. (It was actually a neighbor and she said “Well I saw lights on inside.” Grrrr.) So as we were turning on the lights and lighting the pumpkin, a whole slew of people showed up so it was pure chaos.
Then, half the kids didn’t even say Trick or Treat, just rang the bell and stood there when I opened the door (all ages, not just young ones who might be clueless). Quite a few didn’t even ring the bell and just stood outside (we heard them approach because we were in the dining room listening with the window open). Then, of course there are the little ones who don’t know the drill and don’t move once you give them the candy—I had like three of these who just stood there looking at me like they wanted more candy and I said “I already gave you your candy, let the other kids get in here.”
And it’s not like we were really bombarded, but it was hard to take the time to look at all the costumes, which is the best part.
Maybe I would be more into the whole thing if Tom was, but he’s usually off doing his own thing. At least this year he sat with me in the dining room working on the laptop while I handed out treats!
Anyway, I was handing out 2-3 small pieces to everyone and only had a handful left when we turned the lights out at 7…we couldn’t have had more than 30 kids.
I HATE COMPUTERS. OR THE INTERNET. OR MYSELF.
I just now spent the past hour (HOUR!) composing a post about mom and David’s visit…probably 1000 words or so. But of course there was an error in some of the code when I went to post it so I clicked the link that said “go back and fix your post” (instead of simply the back arrow) and what do you know? The whole damn thing was gone. GONE! What really grinds me is that all along, as the post kept growing, I kept thinking “I should just post what I have then go back and edit it” but of course I didn’t. XX(
GOD I HATE IT WHEN THIS HAPPENS! IT JUST MAKES ME WANT TO CRY. AND SCREAM. AND THROW THE DAMN COMPUTER OUT THE WINDOW. >:(
GRRRRRRRRRRRR.
So yesterday I bought some clothes from an online store that I love because they had a rare 50% off anything and everything coupon. So what comes out today, the day after the 50% coupon expired?? A 60% off coupon!!! >:(
Who comes up with these sizes?
So our Halloween costumes arrived yesterday (here’s a preview):
Tom’s costume is fine size-wise…but mine? It will work, but I don’t know who comes up with the sizes on these things.
I ordered one size larger than I thought I would need, just in case they ran small. Well, the skirt is probably three times as big as I need, the shirt is probably twice as big as I need…but the last piece, the black corset-type vest (which is definitely a more “fitted” piece)? Almost too small. So tell me why the hell you would have two out of the three outfit pieces be entirely too large and the last piece almost too small? I mean, if someone actually needed the entire skirt or the shirt (i.e. fit into it perfectly), there is NO WAY they would fit into the vest.
So, needless to say my costume is going to require some alterations… Since the skirt is way too big and the black vest is almost too small, the two pieces don’t fit toegether as they should (as seen in the picture) and you can see the white of the shirt between the two pieces, which looks just horrible. I’m thinking maybe I can safety pin the skirt to the vest or something? Mom will be here so maybe she will have a good idea!
I just hope we end up with some good pictures!!
Nope, my boss doesn’t care.
So, this morning, as I was being blinded by the sun yet again (see October 11 entry), I said “We really need blinds for the front door!” My boss, who was standing behind me at the copier, asked why. I sat right in the line of fire (per se) and said “Because I get blinded every morning for about an hour. I cannot sit in front of my computer!”
She turned to see the sun in my eyes, laughed like “Oh, isn’t that funny” and suggested that I “move my desk so I’m facing the corner.”
Gee, thanks for your concern and your valid suggestion. 🙄
I hate sunshine in the morning.
At work, that is, when I’m at my desk.
You see, the sun shines DIRECTLY in through the glass front door DIRECTLY into my eyes when I’m sitting where I normally should be. So, to avoid the BLINDING sun, I have to scrunch/lean to the left and throw my back out of whack.
Of course, my bosses don’t care about this at all since they don’t have to sit here and be thoroughly annoyed (or blinded) by it. Similarly, they also don’t seem to care that I have to have the blinds shut otherwise I have a headache after about an hour—I have a huge window right at my desk…which sounds nice, but it’s extremely bright and annoying. I’ve mentioned it time and again and have actually been told yes, something needs to be done (since they don’t like the blinds closed) but has anything happened?
I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Stupid shoes that need nylons.
So I bought a new pair of shoes to go with a new pair of pants…and I didn’t think about needing nylons until this morning, after I was already dressed and ready to put my shoes on and walk out the door. I’ve always had a stash of nylons, but do you think I could find a pair this morning? I needed brown/nude, but only had black or a single nude stocking. So I figured I would just go to Target. Simple, right?
WRONG.
They had an entire section of legwarmers (when did legwarmers come back in style?!?) and about three sections of socks, an aisle (two sides) of full-length nylons, but NO knee-highs that I could see. I was sure I had to be missing them, so I started at one end and looked at each pair…and nothing. An entire aisle of nylons and NO knee-highs. I was sure I was going crazy, so I took another pass—and I finally found one peg with knee-highs, and they were for tiny people. I thought about getting them and just wearing them around my ankles (my pants are long enough to cover them) but I just couldn’t bring myself to spend $5 on something that was the wrong size.
They did have a section of footies, which might have worked—except they only had black and white! There were like 15 empty pegs! What the hell? >:(
So on my way to work, still fuming, I decided to stop at Food Lion (grocery store) and take whatever they had, assuming they would have a few pair in their sundries aisle. And of course, they had nothing, either.
So I’m wearing the shoes (heels) without nylons and I know my feet are going to really hurt by the end of the day.
Birthday Coldstone
So if you sign up at Coldstone Creamery, you can get a free Original Creations Love It ice cream concoction on your birthday. Tom and I went tonight to redeem my coupon.
To start, let me just say that I am not overly thrilled with Coldstone. I’ve been there a handful of times over the years, and no matter what I order, it never knocks my socks off. I know people LOVE it (Tom is one—he will kill for a Founders Favorite) so I keep thinking I must be missing something…so I keep trying it. I mean, what’s not to like? Great toppings mixed in with yummy ice cream…how bad can it be?
Of course, there are so many yummy-looking options on the menu that I always have a hard time deciding. While we were in line, I changed my mind back and forth probably 10 times, trying to decide between four or five different mixes. So I had FINALLY decided on Oreo Overload with one small modification (dark chocolate mint ice cream instead of sweet cream)…and the stupid lady in front of me took the last of the dark chocolate mint ice cream—and the next batch wasn’t ready yet! GRRRR! >:( So I just ordered it as is. And it was…less than thrilling. Again.
I am tired of my job.
I know you all know I don’t like working, period. 😉 But this is different. At this point, almost two years in, I am really just tired of my job.
Just. Plain. Tired.
Tired of the same paperwork, the same forms, the same phone calls, the same questions, the same emails, the same faxes, the same irritations…in short, the same routine hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month. Mondays are the worst, of course, when things that shouldn’t bother me bother me MORE than they should and every request from anyone makes me want to scream.
I feel bad because I do like my boss and the work is easy…but I am just tired of it. I would love to do something new, but unless I can make more money, what’s the point? At least here I have a co-worker I can vent to, the office is close to home, and it’s a very casual atmosphere.
Stupid credit union and their fees.
So Tom has completely worn out his debit card—as in the magnetic stripe no longer works, as in he tried to get money out of the ATM and his card REBOOTED the entire machine! So he goes in to get a new card and…they charge him $5! What the hell? >:( Im sorry, but I think that is a load of crap.
Tom’s horrible new work schedule!
Tom’s work schedule has been horrible! This past week was the beginning of his 7-day work weeks—12 hours a day during the week and six hours on Saturday and Sunday. And what makes it worse? He has to be in by 5am! Which means he gets up around 3:30—3:45am. Which means he either takes a two-hour nap when he gets home OR he stays up and goes to bed around 8:30! On the weekends it means a 3-4 hour nap once he gets home—and then the day is practically gone. It really sucks. REALLY.
Hopefully he only has to do it for a month. I say hopefully because that’s the current schedule—but you all know how the USMC likes to change plans midstream (or just plain change their minds).
One good thing is that I think Tom told me a new guy is starting so that means everyone will get one day off a week…or maybe that’s my wishful spin on things and it’s really everyone will get one day off between now and the end of the time frame (mid-October). Yeah, that’s probably it. One day off between now and then. :'(
Cell phone gripe of the day
Why is the voicemail beep louder than the actual phone when it rings?
I totally didn’t hear the phone ring, but damn if I didn’t hear the beep a few minutes later. I just don’t get it. The volume is turned all the way up for both, and I haven’t moved locations, so there’s no good reason for me to have missed the call.
So, if you call and I don’t answer, chances are the phone was not by my side and the ring wasn’t loud enough for me to hear from the other room!
%$@#*
So, my toes still hurt. They’re better when I’m bare foot, so at work I wear really loose slippers (it’s chilly to keep my feet on tile all day) and at home I wear nothing.
And sometimes it bites me in the ass.
I was closing the closet door last night and…I happened to be moving at the same time….and of course I smacked my toes with the door.
ARGH!!!!!
So I was hobbling around almost as bad as when I first injured myself.
And then this morning, I was cleaning and organizing and minding my own business…when Maggie decided to chase Charlie down the hall, and they rounded the corner IN BETWEEN MY FEET and managed to injure my toes again (it all happened so fast, I’m still not exactly sure what happened—whether Maggie stepped on my toes or whether she just threw me off balance and I half stumbled onto the bad toes). Regardless, my toes hurt again.
My toes are not having a good week.
Two gripes for the day
I know, I know, there should be no gripes on a long holiday weekend…but you know me.
One, it’s back up to 90+ degrees.
Two, it’s apparently near impossible to find any shower stall (54″ x 78″) curtains. You’d think Bed Bath & Beyond would have them, but it seems they have more Bed and Beyond than they do Bath these days. They had one (count ’em ONE) “extra long” shower curtain—that wasn’t a liner. (We don’t have a stall shower per se, but it’s more a stall than a regular, so our current curtain bunches together too much—and we only have like a 2″ lip on the bottom, so the curtain has to hang quite low.) I have a shower curtain that I love….but would give it up if I could find one I liked that fit right.
My second new phone
So last night, Tom went to grab my phone and it said No Service. Odd, since his phone was fine. So, after a call to Alltel and some basic tech support, we were told I’d need a new phone.
Hoo boy.
I had all my numbers backed up, but getting a new phone meant I would lose my protective stickers (you can only stick them on once), all the photos that were attached to each contact (so your picture comes up when you call), all my specialized ringtones, all the ringtones attached to each contact (like the photos, so a certain person calls and a certain song plays), and both games that I purchased!! Luckily, I was able to get a credit for the games I’d bought (so I can download them again) but otherwise, I had to totally reprogram my phone…
Not fun.
But, I did get a brand new phone (it was under warranty), so that was good.
Dell can kiss my ass!
We have a $50 Dell Gift Card that came with a previous purchase. It doesn’t expire for another eight months and is branded by AmEx. I tried to use it online last week to purchase an APC surge protector, but there was no place to enter a gift card—only coupons. I tried entering it as a coupon, but it said it was invalid.
So I tried the website listed on the card and the site isn’t there.
So I call the 800 “call to order” number and… the rep can’t use the card, either (he only has a coupon entry spot and he also gets the invalid error). He has NO idea what to do and suggests I call the other 800 # on the card.
So I call the ‘other’ American Express 800 Customer service number, explain what happened, and the rep says something to the effect of “you need to talk to Dell regarding this card, here is the sales number.” She doesn’t care I was just talking to them and they sent me to her.
So I call the Dell 800 # she gave me and am routed to sales, where I get another Dell rep that has no clue. She suggests I call back again to hopefully get a rep who will know how to deal with it! Of course, each call requires me to go through the phone number/name/address confirmation.
So I call again and…you guessed it, another Dell rep that has no clue about the gift card (“Are you sure it’s not a coupon?”). This rep suggests I need to talk to Dell’s customer service and NOT sales. She forwards me.
So now I’m waiting to talk to customer service and I’m very irritated at this point. And guess what? The customer service person says I need to talk to Sales. NOOOOOO! I told her “I’ve been with sales (home and business) multiple times and they are clueless and gave me to you!” Okay, she says, let me put you on hold and I will get a new number for you to call. Fine, whatever. Minutes later, she calls and gives me the number… to the AmEx customer service line that I called in the beginning!
How can NO ONE at Dell or American Express have any idea how to redeem a gift card?
On Monday, I decided to try my luck ordering online again. Imagine my surprise when there was now a spot to enter a gift card! Interestingly, there was apparently $100 credit on my “$50” gift card (my purchase was approximately $90, giving me a $10 remaining balance). Because this paid for the entire order, I did not have to enter a credit card.
When my boss received the confirmation email, it showed we had ordered THREE Back-UPS units for a total of $290 (although the gift card was still listed as the only payment). Of course, this was one of the only times I hadn’t printed out the final order confirmation screen… so I had to call Dell and they say “Why yes you ordered three” and I say “I did not” and I was told that since they hadn’t been invoiced yet (or wherever we actually are in the ordering/billing/shipping process), it was possible to alter the order. By the end of the call, the rep said it was too late to alter the order so we would be receiving three items and we should send back two. She gave me a case number and said she would call to check up on the items’ arrival and return.
I then learned that someone from Dell called my boss last night to say the shipping address didn’t match the billing address… Interesting, since we didn’t technically have/use/need a billing address due to the gift card. But even so, we’ve ordered from Dell multiple times with the same shipping/billing information, so why the problem now? Anyway, the rep said something to the effect of “You have ordered three items for a total of $290” and my boss said “No, we didn’t, plus we used a gift card.” He said “Do you want to use your preferred account for this?” No, we wanted to use the gift card. So he was clueless and was supposed to call back, which he never did.
Then we get an email saying that “While processing your order, we were unable to obtain credit card authorization from your bank or credit card company for this purchase.” Well, it wasn’t a credit card transaction, but I called the CC processing center to try and fix it. Of course, since it wasn’t a CC transaction, she transfers me to the gift card section. Of course, the gift card rep can’t help me (since I apparently have to redo the order, only ordering ONE unit), so she transfers me to sales—except somehow I can’t get sales or get put on hold and I hear this (after 10 minutes):
We’re sorry, we cannot continue to process your call. Goodbye.
Of course, each transfer requires me to go through the name/address/billing information. And when I called the regular 800 number back to get sales, I had to go through everything again. I told the rep I wanted to change the order to one unit. Fine. I want to use the gift card. Fine. Except that—are you ready?—he can’t get the gift card to work. He tells me he can place the order, but I will have to call the gift card people to get it working/figured out, and then I will have to call him back. And he tried to give me a case number.
At that point, I lost it. I told him to cancel the entire order and I would not be ordering.
Is it too much to ask that Dell teach their customer service reps how to use gift cards? Or to ask that reps could handle all issues, instead of being transferred eight times—and still not getting a resolution? What is the point of handing out Dell Valued Customer gift cards if it’s impossible to use them online and no one knows how to use them?
My boss (whom I was trying to order from) loves Dell, but after this experience, we will no longer be ordering from Dell. We certainly don’t feel like a valued customer after this experience.
Evil Lemonade
Oh my god.
So we had some “diet” Tropicana lemonade in the work refrigerator. I was there when it was purchased, so I knew it was diet (i.e. low-carb) so I could drink it. We actually bought two kinds, including Minute Maid 2-liters, but the Tropicana is BY FAR the better of the two. So I’ve been drinking the Tropicana all along and today, just out of coincidence, I happened to set the bottle down with the nutritional information facing me and…27 carbs per serving. WTF??? WTF??? WTF???
Turns out another employee bought some more Tropicana that WASN’T diet—and didn’t mention it—so with one lemonade I’ve been drinking TWICE THE AMOUNT OF MY ENTIRE DAILY LIMIT of carbs!!! Yes, I should have paid more attention, but if that was all that was in there, why would I even think the bottles would suddenly be something else?
The girl who bought them said “I saw you drinking one the other day and I was going to ask you if you were still on the diet but didn’t want you to get mad.” I told her she definitely should have said something!!! So, it’s been one per day each day this week. That’s 54 carbs a day x 4 days… and my limit is 30/day.
This is soooooo disheartening…
YouTube uploading email addresses rant
Either I wasn’t paying close attention, or they were not upfront…. I just joined YouTube (because I wanted to be able to vote on videos) and I saw where you could upload emails from your address book and I thought “Hey, that’s cool” so I did it and lo and behold—they send a freakin’ invite to everyone! WTF? I definitely would not have authorized that!!!
GRRRRRRRRR
I hate that I had a momentary lapse of judgment. I hate that, for a brief moment, I thought it would be cool to be able to easily send links to videos right from the site.
I am usually much smarter than that.