My headphones fat shamed me. I recently bought some earbuds for working out that have a heart rate monitor. I finished up a fairly intense workout and it was reading out all of the various statistics when that smug English bitch said “Your fitness level is poor”. Hey, I’m working on it, cut me a little slack!
You display a web page with one, single, solitary prompt into which I’m supposed to enter the verification code you just texted me. Would it absolutely kill you to automatically make the prompt active, so I don’t have to search for the cursor and move it?
In a similar vein: Stop prompting for long numbers, like credit/debit card numbers and hiding the characters when I type them.
Boy, that was awkward.
A woman I’ve been friends with for a long time has “made it big”. Thanks to her excellent timing, she now owns/operates a business that has locations throughout Pennsylvania and Maryland.
Because I helped her out before her new success, as a thank you she sent me a gift certificate to use at any of her locations. Coincidentally, I currently need to use the service they provide. Excellent!!
So I filled out an online form to make use of this service. I got a call and spoke with a customer service person to arrange my appointment. She was giving me prices, and pointed out that I could save $125 by having records forwarded. Feeling lazy, I said I would pay the extra fee.
So, she next asked how I’d be paying, and I said I had a gift certificate. She asked the amount and I told her there was no upper limit. She got sarcastic with me; told me I apparently didn’t know how gift certificates work. I told her I again that I had a gift certificate in my hand and there was no upper limit and I’d be using it to pay.
I suggested I text her a pic of the certificate, she agreed. I sent it. It was signed by the owner of her company and she realized she’d been a smart ass to me.
Awkward.
In her defense, I’ve never seen or heard of a “blank check” gift certificate, and I’ve worked more than my fair share of retail.
I agree. In retrospect I don’t know how I could have handled things differently.
I may have ranted about this before. There’s a new development-
I bought a small grey coral statue at Goodwill for about $2.99. I wanted to display outside my apartment but feared it would be stolen. I decided that was a stupid fear and displayed it outside my apartment. Then, it disappeared. As I had it propped up between two large stones, it had to have been deliberately taken. That was a month or two ago.
Today, I saw it. It was sitting outside another apartment atop a kid’s play piano. I don’t want to just let the thief have it. Even if I wasn’t in the mood to be petty, letting a child keep what they have stolen seems a terrible lesson. I cannot just take it back. The kid who has it now may not be the same kid who stole it AND I don’t want the neighborhood to think I steal from children.
I don’t see a way to win. The whole thing vexes me like one of those little hairs that gets down the back of your shirt after a haircut.
Knock on their door, tell them you like the sculpture, and ask them where they got it and how much it cost. Then tell them you had one just like it outside your apartment, but now it’s gone, and you need to replace it. (If you have a picture of it outside your apartment, even better!)
You might not get it back but at least they will know that you know they are lying thieves.
^ This. Because as it stands right now, not only did they steal it, but they seem to be ‘in your face’ trying to taunt you with it. Spoil their fun.
Same, I was in retail for years (as a low level person, as a salesman, and as a manager) and I’ve never heard of it either.
I’d have led with mentioning where the gift card came from. It’s a pretty unique situation and deserves an up front explanation. Saying “I have a gift card” is burying the lead.
Yeah, I didn’t want to come off as wanting special attention. If I called and said I have a gift certificate from the owner of your company and I want to schedule an appointment I probably would have been told I could choose my day/time. I didn’t want to do that.
It was actually difficult to get a day/time that worked for me. Then it was a little complicated getting the type of appointment. By the time I mentioned I’d be paying with a gift certificate if I’d been on the phone longer than I thought it would take.
You know, another reason this was weird. I filled out a form on line giving all the information (other than how I’d pay, which wasn’t asked). I was asked how I wanted contacted; phone, text, or email. I chose text.
The phone call was a surprise. I don’t like talking on the phone due in part to my hearing loss. I also was surprised on the phone to be asked how I’d be paying.
If this were not a freebie, the fact that I requested text contact and got a phone call would have killed the deal. I wouldn’t have answered and would have looked elsewhere for a business that offered text/email communication and kept true to that.
I get that. You’re in an uncomfortable position and you’re just reacting, it wasn’t something you’d planned out ahead of time.
I agree there. I subscribe to the “beggars can’t be choosers” school of thought, and put up with a lot if it’s free. 
Just curious, was it a truly “blank check” gift certificate or was it a certificate for a particular set of products or services?
Because at first I thought a gift certificate without a dollar amount was bizarre, then I remembered buying gift certificates at a day spa. The certificates weren’t for a dollar amount, but for a particular set of services, such as “60 minute massage and manicure”. It occurs to me that gift certificates for other service companies -such as house cleaning and lawn service, might work this way.
Now I purchased those day spa gift certificates for a fixed amount, and somewhere, in the business records of that day spa, there will be an entry that shows the purchase of $100 gift certificates.
But that’s not what it says on the actual certificate, because it’s a gift and the giver might not want the recipient to know how much it costs. If that’s how the company fills out its gift certificates, or if it’s an option, the person at the front desk should know this, and they shouldn’t be caught off guard if the person doesn’t know the amount. Their records should have the actual value of the certificate, even if the piece of paper you were given doesn’t.
You shouldn’t have to mention that you’re a friend of owner, and you certainly shouldn’t have been expected to lead with it, because starting the transaction by mentioning that you are the owners special friend can sound obnoxious. It’s not like she gave you a letter that said “call anytime and we’ll give you anything you want, you don’t have to pay, right? The whole idea of the gift certificate is that anyone can use it for payment in your establishment. I think the desk worker was just poorly trained.
It was a gift certificate, signed, with na written on the expiration line. Dollar amounts left blank. The business provides several specific services as well as some products in “the medical field”. The services in general run in the $200-400 range (I think).
There was also a handwritten note thanking me for everything I’ve done for her, which was very nice.
Fuck Waze. I try to help out my fellow drivers when I can. I input driving hazards when it’s safe to do so. One of the most important things you could warn someone about is if a road is closed. The mechanism for reporting a closed road is hopelessly broken. If you try to do it when you are even slightly away from the intersection it won’t let you. I understand they have to try to prevent trolls from reporting random intersections as being closed but they also have to take into account that it’s impossible to report when you’re trying to figure out where to go because the road is closed.
But that’s not the most frustrating thing. I work a lot of road construction jobs. I’m stuck at the intersection with the closed road. But no matter how many times I try I can’t report the proper closure because it won’t let me. The road south is closed. Gives me the option to say any other direction is closed except south. I walk from one end of the intersection to the other I go to different positions and it doesn’t matter. Never lets me report the correct road as being closed. I’ve been at this intersection for five hours with the road closed and I still can’t tell Waze that it’s closed.
I like generally like Waze and am fairly active in giving reports but reading your post highlights, and I guess explains my chief and only complaint about Waze: Not enough advance warning of traffic jams. By the time I’m warned of a traffic jam/stoppage, I’m already in it and stuck there.
Just a week ago, Waze warned me of a complete stoppage on I-94…
…twenty feet after I’d passed the previous exit. And I know three different routes I could have taken if I’d made that exit.
Instead, I sat. And sat. Got a lot of texts and emails written, because I had the parking brake on. Yep, ZERO mph for twenty minutes, none of that creeping along at 2 mph stuff…
Thanks a lot, Wazed and Confused.
And the beat goes on. My virtual appointment is for later today. I’ll be happy once this is behind me because there was more drama last night.
My phone lit up (I have the ringer shut off) and I just happened to notice the number. I normally never answer, but did last night. It was the woman I’d spoken with the other day, calling to apologize.
I was confused. I’d never complained and the appointment was made. WTF? From what she said, she assumed I’d complain to her boss/my friend, so she went to her and told her what had happened. I guess her boss was angry.
So, even though I never complained, I had to deal with this person apologizing, sounding like she was going to cry. Man, I hate drama and I swear I’ll never answer my fucking phone again.
I’ve linked this in several other phone related threads out there as a former T-Mobile employee, but figured this would help your situation @Mama_Zappa
Most basic plan at $10 (plus taxes and fees though) per month has 1000 minutes of domestic minutes, 1000 texts and 1g of domestic Data (for texts with pics and the like I presume). $15 gets you unlimited talk, text and 3g of data, but from everything you say, shouldn’t be needed.
The biggest problem these days is finding decent dumbphones, with them starting around $40 and quickly going up, but that’s a bit beyond my control.
Obviously she read this thread.