Tag Service

At Your Service

Michael 5 Comments

I’m not completely certain about this but I think we have given up on the idea of service. Ads still use the word. Businesses have the word in it. Some entire fields of business are known by it.  But just having the word around is no guarantee of service.

Lately much of my personal world has had questionable service where service should have been expected if not outright assured. My friend ordered a washer/dryer set with the “deluxe installation service” which was then delayed for over a week because a required piece of hardware was not delivered with the appliance. The installation team didn’t have access to the needed pieces because they were the installation “service,” not the delivery “service.” I recently had a delivery go awry when a package entrusted to a delivery service (which coincidentally includes the word “service” as part of its name) to go from Point A to Point B was never seen at Point B. The cost of the contents was reimbursed as per their agreement but when questioned about a possible refund on the cost of the “service” I was told that was not part of the warranty. My daughter had her roof re-shingled last month, and the service included clean-up facilitated by a dumpster placed in her driveway (her one-car width driveway) blocking the garage for a full week after the one-day installation was complete. When she called and asked when, or if, it was going to be removed, she was told that would be determined by the trash removal people and they schedule their own “service” dates.

Service with a“Service” is defined as the action of helping or doing work for someone. Merriam Webster goes a step further and adds “a helpful act.” We would argue that in none of the above examples was help or work done. Others may say work was done. It just wasn’t especially helpful, and the definition does not specify the act of helping and doing, merely helping or doing. If I was running a motivational speaking service and presenting this as an argument for how to tell the truth and nothing but the truth yet far from the whole truth, I would cleverly label that as qualified honesty.

There once was a time when our entire way of life was exemplified by service. Neighbors would unthinkingly do for other neighbors. My mother never baked a dozen cookies or a single pan of lasagna. She would, together with a few neighbors baked a dozen dozen cookies and a half dozen trays of lasagna. Half would go to the church for some fundraiser and the other half split among the women who made them. Young people still enlisted for military service or committed to reserve officer training in school even during peacetime literally to serve the country. Social clubs, professional organizations, parent groups relied on volunteers to serve as officers, and committee members and chairs. And there was always plenty of help.

Now service is a bad word. Contracts specify what isn’t included in the service. Service crews stipulate the limits of their responsibilities before anybody even asks. One of the biggest service scams of the entire galaxy, the United States Congress, doesn’t even recognize the people they theoretically are elected to “serve.” If so, why then are their assigned seats grouped in their chambers according to party rather than by the states they represent. And don’t even get me started on every company’s and website’s terms of service.

So the next time somebody offers you counter service, curb-side service, free delivery service, claims they are service experts, serve with care, or are known for their service with a smile, ask to read the fine print on their service limits. Bonus points if they actually do and help.

And . . .

Michael 3 Comments

There’s a new darling of the entertainment world out there.  +  That’s it, just   +  .

+  can mean different things to different people. To a chemist it means that’s a cation, the positively charged ion, the opposite of an anion, that one that travels to the cathode, which an electrician will recognize as the opposite of the anode, the anode being the positively charged electrode possibly symbolized on a schematic as  +  .  A mathematician, not to be confused with an arithmetist, recognizes  +  as an means of identifying any real number greater than zero. An accountant hopes not to find  +  preceding the number on the bottom line of IRS Form 1040 which would indicate outstanding tax due. A doctor ordering blood knows it is important to include  +  after a patient’s blood type if the patient’s blood has the Rh Factor antigen present. A musician sees  +  and knows to raise the fifth note of a major chord by a half tone. (It sounds weird on paper but not so bad in the ear.) Back when you were an itty bitty youngster, even in the age of “new math,” you learned that  +  symbolizes addition, the one of the four basic food groups of math. Just kidding. I wanted to see if you were paying attention. Addition is one of the four basic arithmetical operations of mathematics, the combination of multiple numbers to determine a total or sum value. You know, 2 + 2 = 4.

The “experts” who upsell premium video content have latched on to an old hook that marketers have used for a while. Skip the words, symbols sell. If a picture is worth a thousand words then  +   is worth at least $4.99. That’s how much extra you’ll shell out for discovery+. That’s a bargain in the plus world now crowded with Apple TV+, BET+, Disney+, ESPN+, and Paramount+ .  It’s such a hot commodity even free channels are “adding” it to their names like Documentaries +, Halloween +, and the succinctly named Free TV+ and Free Movies+ channels.

I’m being a bit unfair calling  +  the “new” darling. The French pay TV service Canal+ began broadcasting in 1984. Not television but still screen based (although often much smaller), Google+ was available on line and on phones from 2011-2019. In the non electronic world  +  has occupied a spot in brand names for everything from clothes (Missen+Main) to soap (Etta + Billie) to window treatments (allen + roth). It wasn’t until FX+ was released in 2018 that  +  began a surge in the television industry. (FX+ was shut down when Disney purchased the network the following year.) Oh there were a handful of PLUS appendices but that little  +  kept itself tucked away. Until now. Expect to see more [Fillintheblank]+ not unlike how many cable/streaming services released [Pickyourfavoritechannel]Go in the 2010s. Expect to see  +  more frequently on the smaller screens again also. Apple News+ coming up on its two year launch anniversary. After a slow start subscriptions hit an all time high in the 2020 second quarter.

You might say  +  is multiplying. (A mathematician wouldn’t but there probably aren’t many of them reading this anyway so go ahead and say it!)

PLUS

Selfish Is and Selfish Does

Michael 4 Comments
I’ll start right up front apologizing to all my non-US readers. You’re too kind and don’t deserve to play the innocent bystander but you should know from the start that this is not going to be pretty. 
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Now for the rest of you, my fellow Americans, just how incredibly selfish is this country getting! Not the people in this country. The whole darn shooting match. It’s now a national pastime to do whatever you want regardless of consequences. Go to parties, get on planes, play football, go to happy hour. If you’re reading this you are more than likely among to ever shrinking quantity of intelligent, courteous individuals but you probably know more than a few handfuls of whiny, reckless, selfish bastar…er, jerks. I don’t know how it is where you are (which is the polite way of saying things are getting out of control everywhere) but around here, things are getting out of control. For example: 
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Every day for the past 8 days the morning paper headlines have been [State, County, City] Sets New Record for COVID [Infections, Hospitalizations, Deaths] (they rotate the where and the what so you don’t think they just re-ran the same story). Someone on that same front page is the other inevitable headline [Party, Candidate, Congressmen, Senator] [Claims New Voter Fraud, Decries Latest Fraud Claim], sometimes all the above! While the world is falling apart, these imbeciles are busy engaging in playground “did so, did not, did too, make me!” games. Children have more sense than these disgusting, miserable, adolescent excuses for human beings. (Too rough?) 
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It’s gotten to the point that now I personally know seven people who have been tested positive for CoViD-19 and one who died from the infection. Once removed (as in know someone who knows someone) the numbers are greater than 70 infections, over a dozen hospitalizations, and 2 deaths. There were all cautious, all held fast to safe prevention practices, only one was a nursing home resident (one of the deaths), 18 were health care workers or first responders (including the other death), and a handful of other essential workers. These aren’t great numbers when you consider my state is reporting over 424,000 cases and nearly 11,500 deaths but these “numbers” are people I know. They are people I have shared space and time with, who over the years have been to the same church or party or store or hospital as I have been. They are friends and neighbors. They are not Democrats or Republicans, they are not maskers or anti-maskers, they are not cowards or daredevils. They are people. People who relied on public servants to serve their public rather than serving their egos.
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KeepCalmSo, what can we do about this? I’m staying calm but taking names. Oh sure, today I’ll write a couple letters to my so-called representatives in between  checking in on friends and relatives to see how everyone is doing and that my “numbers” aren’t going up. But some day those so-called representatives who today are busy representative themselves will surely run for office again. That’s when the real letter writing campaign begins. That’s when I will start reminding everybody that when they should have been meeting in chambers, representing us working on health initiatives, equipment and vaccine allocations, or financial assistance packages, our so-called leaders were instead meeting in courtrooms and TV studios representing themselves and working on undermining the security and confidence of the country – all in the name of “did so, did not, did too, make me.” 
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I’m sorry, it wasn’t a very pleasant post today. They made me do it.
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A Special Easter Story. Corona-style

Michael 2 Comments
Spring time is synonymous with rebirth. Odd that the two big religious spring holidays, Easter and Passover, have so much death associated with them. As I’ve noted before, I mention these because these I know. I’m sure many of the other 4300 and some religions of the world may also ruminate on death during spring’s promise of new life.
 
Christian’s know before we can rejoice in Easter’s glory of Jesus Christ’s resurrection He must die. Today, Holy Thursday, would be the last day He sits, eats, and enjoys the company of friends. Depending on the gospel, the meal Jesus would eat would be the first day of or the day before Passover in that year, which commemorates God passing over over those who marked their lintels with the blood of the sacrificed lamb so they would be spared the killing of the first borns of Egypt.
 
So much death going on while trees are blooming and flowers are starting to open to the increasingly warming sun. But if not for the despair how would we make joy?
 
We are going through our own versions of events that made Easter and Passover the redemptive celebrations they are. And we may be doing a fairly poor job of it. Not even considering the (hopefully) extreme approaches of those who routinely add comments to the end of online news articles placing blame on anybody they dislike or disagree with, the (hopefully) typical approach of self-isolation is with, at best, reluctance. We all look for a reason to go out, a new definition of essential, or any opportunity to “exercise.”
 
The Christian belief of the events of today include Jesus washing of the feet of the disciples. Often lost in the other preparations for Easter, secular and religious, the story of the washing of the feet is one of the  most important lessons of the Bible. It is not only a symbol of humility and service but of love, the unconditional love that is expected of us. “Love one another as I have loved you.” Certainly without a thought of reward but also without complaining or devolving into a litany of “why me’s.
 
Never in our lifetimes has society as a whole been as preoccupied with the day it will be all over so we can truly celebrate. Would we not appreciate the celebration even more by truly denying ourselves of worldly pleasures now? We could not find better examples than those in our faiths, whatever you call yourself or whomever you follow, and deny yourself so you can love each other now and trust that there will be a later when when you celebrate with affirmation that as you have loved, you are loved.
 
Before we can celebrate the joy we must recognize the death. Before we can celebrate freedom we must experience denial. Before we can think about what it will be like when this is all over we must accept that it isn’t just yet. But it will be. This is our great sacrifice that will lead to our great relief. And it is a great opportunity to love your neighbor. No exceptions. 
 
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The “Not Togethers”

Michael 5 Comments

I like yogurt. I like chocolate. I recently found out I don’t like chocolate flavored yogurt. Some things aren’t meant to go together. Even when not obvious, it soon becomes apparent that you are facing a combination that never should have been. Eventually the natural order of things will correct the imbalance and life goes on.

Every now and then, however, an aberrant pairing sneaks through and escapes corrective action. Sometimes they work. For consideration I give you oil and vinegar. Sometimes they don’t. Think pineapple and pizza. (Do not try to argue that point. If you disagree you’re wrong.) (Period.) Sometimes they should never have been put together in the first place, like good food with bad service in a restaurant.

Tuesday a friend of mine mentioned that she and her husband were going out for dinner. Since this was in celebration of their anniversary they had picked a new to them restaurant. I hadn’t heard much about it and since it was a dialysis day, I had 4 hours in front of me with not much to do. So I pulled out my trusty tablet, connected to the free guest WiFi, and did some research. Regardless of the source, I found consistency in the reviews. The food is very good. The service is below average.

What do you do with that kind of information? Going out to dinner is more than just eating. At a fine dining restaurant that goes without saying but what about at a local, family owned eatery. Good food coupled with a good wait staff gets added to the permanent dining rotation. Bad food brought by disinterested servers is equally a no-brainer; there is no reason to ever go back. Pleasant efficient wait people serving bad food is a little challenging. You don’t ever go back and spend money on disappointing food but you should slip the name of a good restaurant to the waitress in hope of a career upgrade.

But the good food/bad service establishment can be problematic. It’s hard to argue with good food. On the other hand, with a little planning and some care and attention, you can make your own good food in your own good kitchen. And as I already noted, going out to dinner is more than just going for the food. Service is called service because you expect to be served. And you want to be served well. You can’t separate the food and the delivery.

YogurtIf the server and the cooker are related you absolutely take the establishment off your future consideration list. Otherwise the decision is difficult. As much as you want the tasty morsels you can’t subject yourself to bad behavior to get them. Maybe you give them one more chance and see if the owner saw the errors in his or her earlier hiring practices and has upgraded the front of the house staff. On the other hand, if a subsequent visit reveals the same poor presentation, well that’s a combination that just has to go.

Just like chocolate yogurt.

 

Man At Work

Michael Leave a comment

Happy Labor Day America. That wonderful holiday when we celebrate the people who work by making people work so others who aren’t working can take advantage of another day, weekend, or month of sales. A day when the people who aren’t working complain that they might as well be at work because it will be twice as busy on Tuesday when they get back and a day when the people who are working complain that they are working while collecting twice their normal pay. You gotta love those holidays.

There are a handful of people who are working today who aren’t complaining about it. They will get tomorrow off. Actually they’ll get every tomorrow off from their current position. Those are the people at the Bangor, Maine Howard Johnson Restaurant. So why are they special? When they close there will be only one Howard Johnson Restaurant left in the country where once it was the largest hospitality chain with over 1,000 restaurants and 500 motor lodges.

I remember eating in several Howard Johnson’s but one in particular still pops into my head now and then. In 1925, Howard Johnson (yes, there really was a Howard Johnson) borrowed $2,000 and bought a pharmacy in Quincy, Mass. There he installed a soda fountain and brought enough business in to open a sit down restaurant by 1929. In 1940 the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened using the abandoned South Pennsylvania Railway tunnels and rights of way connecting Irwin in the west with Carlisle in central Pennsylvania. Eventually the turnpike mainline was completed from the Ohio to the New Jersey borders through the southern part of the state. Why are these two things related?

Although only 360 miles from east to west (or west to east, even), a distance that can be travelled comfortably in a less than a single workday today (if you felt like working on Labor Day), in the 1960s the trip just halfway across the state was far from a comfortable day’s drive. In the western part of the state the mountains made for slow climbs, challenging twisty downhill runs, and constant stoppages while new tunnels were being blasted through the Allegheny Mountains. I know because I was then a back seat passenger with two sisters while the parents rode up front each summer on our trek from Western PA to Eastern MD. A high point of the turnpike portion of the journey was the Howard Johnson Restaurants at the turnpike service plazas.  After lunch we would be allowed to splurge on dessert and have one of the famous 28 flavors of ice cream. For some reason I always picked chocolate.

Howard Johnson’s were fixtures on the Pennsylvania Turnpike from its opening in 1940 until the 1980s when the full service restaurants began to be replaced by fast food chains and their familiar counter service. The PA turnpike restaurant was the first restaurant the Howard Johnson Company would open on its way to becoming the largest restaurant chain along American toll roads.  In 1979 the Howard Johnson Company was sold and eventually many of the familiar orange roofed restaurants on and off the turnpikes were converted into other brands. By 1986 all of the former company owned Howard Johnson Restaurants were closed or rebranded and only the franchised restaurants remained open. The motor lodge business was divested entirely in 1990.

Today, where I once was served my hamburger on a plate at a Howard Johnson Restaurant along the Pennsylvania Turnpike I have a choice of picking up a pizza or a Whopper and carrying it back to a plastic table in a reconstructed service plaza holding two fast-food restaurants, an ice cream stand, a coffee counter, a gift shop, and a dirty bathroom. Elsewhere there are only two Howard Johnson Restaurants serving comfort food and comfortable memories. Tomorrow there will be only one.

Labor Day had already been celebrated for 3 years before Howard Deering Johnson was born in 1897. When Howard opened that first store in 1925 the Mount Rushmore site was dedicated before construction began on the mountain which would be completed in 1941. That was just in time for Howard Johnson to start opening restaurants along highways that would be packed with hungry families on holiday weekends.

That must be why I always manage to have a quart of chocolate ice cream in the freezer on Labor Day.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

(If you want to see the last remaining Howard Johnson Restaurant you have to get to Lake George, New York. You should hurry. It already closed once in 2012 and reopened just last year. Rumor has it that Rachel Ray worked there as a teenager. No word on if she still stops in.)

 

You have the right. . .

Michael Leave a comment

I don’t listen to satellite radio often, but when I do I prefer the commercial free channels. The funny thing about satellite radio is that on the channels that are not commercial free, a great many of the ads are for credit repair, an unusual sponsor for a service that charges hundreds of dollars a year in subscription fees. Or maybe not. One in particular caught my ear lately.

It began, “You have the right to reduce your debt.” My first thought was, no you have an obligation to reduce your debt and it’s called bill paying. Actually, my first thought was to switch channels but I fought that off, not because I need to reduce my debt but that once upon a time I was so heavily in debt that your average homeless person had a higher credit score than I. I reduced my debt by stopping indiscriminate buying, selling off assets, paying off creditors, and closing credit cards. I was pretty sure the fellow espousing my rights to un-indebtedness didn’t have those notions in mind.

I’m sure there are many reasonable ways to reduce debt. Just because most governments haven’t figured out a way to do it doesn’t mean that we have lower ourselves to their levels. Especially on this weekend – Labor Day weekend. Huh? The thing is, you don’t want to reduce debt that’s going to cost people their jobs. Huh?

It doesn’t matter if a business is a 12 seat diner owned by the guy down the street or a multi-national banking business run by a bazillionaire. If you take money away from them they will work out a way of making it up. Either that means raising prices or lowering expenses – and the biggest expense of any business is its human resource.

Yes, you have a right to reduce your debt. It’s not right up there with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But then again, maybe it is. If it makes you happy, you should reduce. You also have a responsibility to reduce honorably. When you sign an agreement to accept the terms of credit it includes the expectation of repayment. It’s what the people who lend you money deserve.  And it’s what the people who are paid their salary based on the money you pay them deserve.

Back to that ad – while most of it was playing I was mentally drifting thinking about most of what you just read. But I came back to earth in time to hear the tag line – “Don’t let the credit card companies trick you into thinking that you have to pay them what you owe.” Huh?

Happy Labor Day.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

I’ll Drink to That

Michael Leave a comment

Remember the McDonald hot coffee lawsuit from back in the 90’s? Some batty old lady spilled coffee in her lap, got burned, went to the hospital, went to a lawyer, went to trial, went to jury, and won! The verdict was something like $160,000 for medical expenses and $2.7 million (!) in punitive damages. Punitive means punishment; McDonald’s was punished for serving hot coffee.

Yesterday, a California judge dismissed a case against Starbuck’s for misrepresenting the size of their iced drinks because they contain, in addition to the drink, ice. Apparently the legal system runs hot and cold when it comes to frivolous lawsuits.

But wait! Lawyers have long argued that the McDonald Coffee Case was far from frivolous. It was a wake up cup err, call to the damaging practice of big business putting profits over safety. And the public has the efforts of the tireless lawyer people to thank for seeing that those danger-mongers pay for their negligence. Yeah, right.

I’m sure lawyers serve some purpose. Unfortunately the very visible fruits of their labors have been left out to rot. Over the last several months I, and some hundreds of thousands others, have gotten e-mails about settlements reached that protected my rights and punished companies that have taken advantage of me. I got about $12 from Barnes and Noble because somebody claimed they overcharged for e-books or some such thing. I can get $5 from Angie’s List because they might have taken money for ads from service providers, and I got two free tickets for one or several concerts that have no available seats from Ticketmaster for them being Ticketmaster. My “damages” come to a whopping not quite twenty bucks.

I would thank the lawyers who worked so diligently to get me my double sawbuck. I worked hard for my money and I didn’t appreciate those big, bad companies taking advantage of me. Of course it’s only right that they get some of the windfall. As near as I’ve been able to figure, those lawyers who worked on just these three cases made about $281 million.

I don’t know about you but if I ever figure out how to use that Ticketmaster free ticket voucher and can actually score two free tickets to something, I’m bringing a lawyer!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Bombs Bursting ‘n’at

Michael Leave a comment

I couldn’t wait for the Fourth of July this year. It is a Monday and that coincides with RRSB day and I knew exactly what to say. I was going to let all those people who think they know they’re way around the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and elections and the “noboby’s taking my rights away from me” crowd a thing or two. And then this 0730102118 (2)weekend I read a letter to the editor and darned if it didn’t make all that seem as trivial as it really is.

Many Americans will be out tonight enjoying a fireworks display. Some of us will be in boats on rivers or lakes looking up at them, some will be on mountains and overlooks looking down at them, some will be in recliners watching them in living color on big screen TVs, and some in bleachers or on park lawns watching them across the way. And we’ll truly enjoy them.

At some point, we’ll make our ways home and many of the many will want to continue the celebration and will pull out our home stashes of fireworks, the kind made by the company the letter writer works for. And that’s where his letter comes in. If I may quote from it:

As the Independence Day holiday approaches, Phantom Fireworks would like to remind its customers, friends and all those who use consumer fireworks to be mindful of the fact that some veterans can be startled and upset by the noise of fireworks.

Chelsey Zoldan, a licensed clinical mental health counselor and special consultant to Phantom Fireworks, advises that there is the potential for some veterans to be reminded of combat situations when they hear the loud sounds of gunfire and fireworks. Combat veteran Henry Jiminez, on a broadcast news piece aired on KABB-TV in San Antonio, Texas, indicated he found the unexpected blasts to be the worst. … Zoldan indicated that unexpected fireworks booms can cause some veterans increased anxiety that could be difficult and challenging for them. …

The bottom line is that giving veterans a heads up that you will be lighting fireworks seems to be the most helpful. Vets aren’t necessarily scared of or by the noises but the unexpected can trigger unwanted symptoms and distress. Please show courtesy to those military veterans who served so your freedoms could be protected.

William Weimer Youngstown, Ohio
The writer is vice president of Phantom Fireworks.

From: The Tribune Review, Pittsburgh Edition, Trib Total Media, Inc., July 1, 2016 (A7).

(Read the whole letter here.)

So let the air be filled with the colors and sounds of these rockets of joy as reminders of the rights that we have to celebrate as we wish. But remember also how we got and keep those rights.

Happy Independence Day!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Fasting than a speeding bullet…

Michael Leave a comment

I got no mail yesterday. Real mail. In the mailbox mail. Brought by the guy driving the funny looking jeep. Honestly, I don’t remember when I last got no mail. There’s always some mail from some body every day. So what if most of it is from people wanting me to compare auto insurance, get a hearing aid, or use their coupon for 20% off my entire purchase. It’s still mail.

It’s still mail and it’s still a bargain. And it’s a bigger bargain than it was the last time I wrote about the US Postal Service. (See Second Class, All The Way (Nov. 10, 2014) and Neither Snow, nor rain, nor Congress, nor a Polar Vortex, etc., etc. (Jan. 9, 2014).) Since then it’s actually gone down 2 cents for first class postage. I know. I’ve actually used it quite a bit lately. On outgoing mail even. I’ve sent 10 or 12 pieces of real mail to real people so far this month. At $0.47 per, I spend a bit less than $5.00 a month on postage.

Now you’re going to say, “But e-mail is free.” Well… really? Unless you’re sponging off your parents’, children’s, or neighbor’s Wi-Fi, that e-mail is costing you something. Admittedly I’m not a big e-mailer. Over the last couple of weeks I sent about 2 dozen e-mails, let’s say 40 pieces a month. My Internet service costs me about $59/month. Or about $2 a day. A bargain in its own right but if you look at the tangible evidence of that service, my outgoing e-mails, that service costs me about $1.50 per day or $45 a month.

“But what about that service? “You ask. “Snail mail is a slow as … oh, you know while e-mail is instantaneous” So real mail it isn’t a fast as the proverbial projectile fired from a deadly weapon. Most of my correspondence gets to its recipient the next day, and almost always in 2 days. Is there anything I have to say that can’t wait a day or two?

I don’t know. I’m thinking that’s sort of a pretty cool superpower. Cheap, efficient, warm-fuzzy inducing. I think I should send more letters.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?