Rants Giving (November mini-rants)

The BBQ Pit
221

I don’t slam my computer shut; I just go to another website to buy it.
Then if I’m still irritated, I send the email complaining about their customer-unfriendly website that drove me elsewhere. (Attaching your purchase invoice from one of their competitors seems to get their attention.)

Also, consider NOT sending the email to their website/IT people. As you say, they often make sure management never sees such complaints. Find another email address, like for company executives. Often their website has an ‘Investor Relations’ section that has an email address.

222

Oh, I like that idea. Brilliant.

“Why Investor Relations? If I’d managed to find out the specs of your Mu Meson Voluptuizer without giving you my work and personal phone numbers, I’d have bought 200 shares and would now be an investor.”

223

The best answer is possibly partially. I dug thru my trash folder, opened the email again & clicked on the link again. There are enough utm tags that they could (if they’re doing reporting on it) tell how far I got (signon screen) before I abandoned; however, what they can’t tell is the reason I abandoned. My guess is that if they’re doing reporting on it, they’re inaccurately putting me into the “customer didn’t remember username/password” bucket rather than the “customer thought it was ridiculous to have to set up an account to leave feedback when customer doesn’t even need to do that to make a purchase” bucket. I was willing to invest a few minutes to help out another potential customer with an honest review; however, having to enter my demographic info is pointless (to me) & a waste of my time. It was one hoop too many for me to have to jump thru to do something that wouldn’t benefit me (other than the karmic experience of it).
Depending upon how their system is setup, I may or may not be saved as a one-time orderer but I will definitely be saved if I setup an account. This was truly a one-time order; a gag for someone’s big birthday.

Because if a company is big enough to be public, investor relations would be a separate dept from sales; they wouldn’t bury negative feedback because it doesn’t impact their dept negatively. Typically, IR is much closer to senior management in terms of reporting. I’m not sure that ‘appeases’ is the right word but negative feedback that affects customers/revenues/income would be something that that department would be interested in dealing with if anyone in the company would.

I did go back onto their website but it’s just that, a website; it’s not like Target or Macy’s where I know who the corporate parent is & could easily go to their corporate website & send feedback to investor relations. There are two options under contact us, call or email.

The email is what a lot of websites do &, again, it’s very consumer-unfriendly. It’s a form you fill out & press <enter> on. While said form populates their database neatly, the sumbitter doesn’t get a record of it. When I press <enter> does it go anywhere or just clear the screen? If it goes into a database, is anyone looking at that? At least if I send an email, I have a record of when & what I sent in my sent folder. Without that, after a couple of days of not hearing back did I send it? I know I thought about it & started it but I have no record of completing it. As an example of how to do it right, when you file a complaint/ask the seller a question on ebay, there’s a checkbox to “send yourself an email” so I do get a record of exactly what I sent & when.

224

Missy the cat and Wesley the dog are spatting. I don’t know why they are spatting and I don’t really care, all I want is for them to stop. Missy lurks behind doors or under furniture so she can leap out and bite or scratch poor Wesley, and Wesley is sneaking around trying to take a bite out of Missy when she isn’t looking. This is not play, this is serious stuff and needs to stop right now. My plan (which is happening now) is separation and reintegration in a month or so. Why did this shit start happening during the holiday/tons of visitors time? Good thing those fuzzy assholes are so cute, or I’d just pitch them into the same room and let them fight it out. (My money would be on Missy)

225

I am absolutely fuming right now. I can’t even type straight.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m supposedly on the committee of a student society. I say supposedly, because the ‘society’ is doing nothing, after spending weeks going on about how much they were planning on doing at the start of the year. I’d said when I signed up that I was happy to take the Health and Safety role (same as I’d done last year) as no-one else had volunteered and they needed one to make it official, but I wasn’t going to be able to dedicate much time this year. I’d do the risk assessments and boring paperwork, but I didn’t have time to organise events. There were 4 other committee members who all said that was fine; S, D, T and O who all were really keen to do things.

Three months in, no-one has done anything, and I mean anything aside from message each other. Committee meetings? All cancelled. The person who signed up as chair hasn’t even paid the subs. Even going to the pub just didn’t happen. Every weekend or evening, they’re all off to gigs or away, or have visitors and no free time 'Sorrryyyy :frowning: '.

After 2 months (with people who had paid up questioning me about what they were getting from this), I tried to get the ball rolling at least, and organised a free trip- not amazingly exciting, but potentially very useful.

I picked a day for the trip that all the committee said was good. It’s actually to my workplace, and organising that day meant changing my work day, so I could be on hand. I’ve asked 4 of my co-workers to show us round different bits of the site, so it meant a fair bit of trying to coordinate stuff, plus doing posters and suchlike. T did send out a few emails, but no-one else has been involved at all (my workplace, my trip, I guess).

Since finalising the day, T has quit the committee (fair enough; disappointing but honest), S asked me to add an extra bit to the trip because it sounded really interesting, and both D and O have vanished and not replied to anything in weeks.

The trip is tomorrow. I just got a message from S saying ‘Hey, looks like there’s only a few people want to come, should we just cancel? I’m too busy to go.’

The hell?!

  1. we opened it up to all students, not just those on our mailing list; there’s no way of knowing who’s planning on coming, as it wasn’t RSVP, so no way of contacting them. There’s at least 4 people had told me they were coming, but didn’t reply to her. She’d be cancelling it without letting people invited know.

  2. she doesn’t even know who I’d arranged it with- she either seriously thinks it’s OK to just cancel by not showing up, or expects me to just sort it and cancel everything on the morning of the trip (which, incidentally, would involve me driving there, as I know some staff don’t check emails first thing, not that she’d know that).

  3. 3 bloody days ago she asked me to arrange a tour of an extra bit of the site, because she, specifically, really wanted to see it.

4)The ‘too busy’ is due to an assignment deadline. This is also why not many of her year want to come (this is a tiny place, over half the year is in that class). She’s known about this deadline since the second week of the semester. I’m not in that year, so I didn’t. There’s only 3 assignments due for them in the whole first semester; woulda been nice to tell me there was a clash.

  1. If I’m doing all the organising and she’s not lifted a damn finger to help, who the hell makes her cancelling is her call?!

I think I’m going to do this trip, then quit. Student societies are often pretty badly organised, but this is a fucking joke.

Ps. Since starting writing this, after a clearly pissed off reply from me, I have had an apology and a claim that ‘I wasn’t trying to cancel your event’ which clearly contradicts the ‘should we just cancel?’ message right above it, but I’m still pretty annoyed.

226

I have to go to frigging dialysis today because the facility is closed on Thursday (U. S. Thanksgiving) and they shifted everybody’s schedule around to accommodate the holiday. As if going to dialysis on a Sunday isn’t bad enough, the transit company that provides a van to take me can’t take me home until at least 8:45, which means I won’t get home until at least 9:00 tonight, 7 hours after I leave home. I’ll be sitting in the lobby for at least an hour after I’m finished.

227

I’m sorry to hear this. It brings to mind Dave Barry’s comment about any medical procedure as being something that’s “inflicted” on us. You needed this as a critical therapautic treatment and had no option of refusing, but sometimes refusing a diagnostic treatment (obviously not your case) is the right thing to do.

My circumstances are quite different as there was a voluntary aspect to them, but my cardiologist set me up for a so-called “nuclear stress test” later this month. It turned out to involve showing up at hospital at 6:45 AM, being injected with radioactive dye, and running on a treadmill off and on in a series of tests that would last until about noon. Half the freaking day, while I glowed like a piece of hot uranium ore. Meanwhile I feel fine, and had a whole series of tests done recently as well as percutaneous coronary intervention a few years prior with lots of X-ray and ultrasound imaging in the meantime. Sometimes the best answer to the best-intentioned proposal for a medical diagnostic procedure is “no”, keeping in mind what use the results would be anyway. Frankly the only reason I agreed to it in the first place was feeling a bit pressured.

228

Holy shit, cochrane, is taking Uber or Lyft home an option, just this once?

229

No, because I’m in a wheelchair and have a prosthetic leg. Traveling in a car is really a pain in the ass. I prefer a van with a wheelchair list. Also, there’s the cost. $1.60 for the van vs. $6.50 for an Uber. On a Sunday, I’m willing to put up with a wait. Anyway, I’m bitching about a first world problem.

230

You’re absolutely right, but that’s because a third-world country probably doesn’t have dialysis machines. Bitch all you want; no apologies necessary.

231

Yeah, I’m happy I live where I can get dialysis. And have transportation to get there. The van did come at 8:45 as scheduled and I got home by 9:00. Really, a minor annoyance, and I had my phone to keep me entertained while I waited.

232

My wife has a tooth problem. The dentist thought it would have to come out and referred her to an oral surgeon, who agreed. The surgeon did take note that my wife’s health is very shaky, though. In particular, he was (legitimately) concerned about the possibility of infection. “I’ll need you to get a platelet count as close as possible to the procedure–the morning of would be ideal,” he told her. “See what you can set up and get back to us.”

My wife called the lab where they do the platelets (it’s affiliated with one of her doctors). She was invited to leave a message with a callback number. She did both. And waited.

Two days later she called again. Got the same message. Left a message. Left a number. No response. Did it again the next day. Same result. This brings us to last Thursday.

She called the oral surgeon’s office to report on her progress or lack thereof. Okay, said the person on the phone. We have some flexibility on Friday afternoon, and some on Monday. We can try from our end. You try again too. Let’s see what happens.

She finally heard from the lab late Friday afternoon. “We’ll give you an appointment Monday morning first thing,” they said. “Five minute procedure, no problem.” (No apology for not getting back to her sooner.) “You’ll fax the results right over?” my wife asked, having made it clear what she needed the results for and that time was of the essence. “Absolutely,” the person on the phone promised. My wife called the oral surgeon’s office to report the good news. “As soon as we have the results and see that the platelets are okay, we’ll call and tell you when to come in,” they said.

So we went over to the lab this morning. Well, the five-minute procedure was indeed a five-minute procedure, but we waited for at least 45 minutes before they called her in. (I was late for work–not the worst thing in the world, but still…)

When the oral surgeon hadn’t called by 10:30, she called them. “We haven’t received the results,” they said. “Sit tight; they should be along soon.”

She called back at 1. “No results,” they said. “Let me call them. I’ll call you back.”

An hour went by. An hour and a half. Wife calls again. “We still don’t have it. I couldn’t get through. How about you try again?”

Wife calls the lab. Answering machine. Another message. Another hour passes. It’s now too late to get the tooth pulled today, even if everything lined up perfectly, which of course it doesn’t.

One final conversation with the oral surgeon’s office. “Can you come in tomorrow?” they ask. “No,” my wife responds, “I have my weekly intravenous treatment, which lasts most of the day and knocks me out, and I won’t be going anywhere. How about Wednesday?” ''They’d need to have another report on the platelets," she’s told; “it has to be the day of.”

Oh.

You know, being chronically ill is bad enough. This just makes it a dozen times worse.

233

That’s terrible, Ulf!

What does the oral surgeon say about it? Is there another lab where she can get it done? Platelets shouldn’t be that hard.

234

Holy crap, I’d be tempted to write off the day and stick around to hand-carry the results to the surgeon.

235

Winter is coming and my tires just barely passed the last time my jeep was inspected. I noticed my one front tire was a bit low, so I checked and topped off all five, but the low one was very low. Twenty four hours later it was very low again.

I’d considered getting tires at Sam’s Club, so I drove out there after filling the low tire. I planned to get four tires put on while doing other shopping. Nope, the tire guy offered me a fucking appointment a week before xmas.

Pissed off, I stopped at the bar and had a cold one. Janelle, the tender, overheard me bitching about tires. She suggested the tire place right next door. I looked them up online, but when I saw they closed at 5 (it was 4:15) I assumed I was out of luck. Nope, Janelle called and they said they’d help me out!!!

I “drove” over and Annie showed me tires that would do well on my Wrangler, and the price was just a shade higher than Sam’s, plus they balanced for free. She took my cell number and sent me back to the bar for another beer. I tipped Janelle very well and sincerely thanked her for saving the day.

236

Speaking of stupid labs… I’m (thankfully) down to bi-weekly labs for the transplant. When you have a transplant, timing of your meds is extremely important. Ideally, exactly 12 hours apart. I do 7am/7pm, as it coincides with when I feed my feline overlord. For simplicity, I schedule my labs at 7am, so then I’m usually no more than 15-20 minutes late taking my morning dose, and I can get into office by 8am.

Received my usual reminder text yesterday morning, with the scheduled time of 8am. Uh, no? So I called and got a super runaround, including “What’s the big deal?” After I explained what the big deal was, including going into rejection, she said “Oh, maybe it IS important!” She then suggested I drive 30 minutes the complete opposite direction of my office on the possibility they might be able to squeeze me in. I don’t work on “possibilities”.

Couldn’t change today or 12/10/19. So I adjusted my meds and should be okay IF I’m called back at 8am precisely.

And Cochrane - I feel for you. Many a time there would be a patient waiting at dialysis when I would get there at 515am, but their start time wasn’t until later morning - all due to medibus timing.

237

ENugent, kaylasdad, thanks for your concern. There is good news: the lab did finally fax over the results, the platelets are high enough that the oral surgeon feels comfortable doing the procedure tomorrow even without another test, and there’s now an appointment scheduled. Yes!

This lab has tracked her platelets for a couple of years now, so it made sense to go there. Other labs could do it but might have required a new order. I did suggest looking into an alternative, but I recognize that it would’ve been complicated. I did offer to go over to the lab yesterday and camp out till they actually faxed the damned thing…but by the time I got the idea it was already getting late. I would absolutely have done it today, though!

Medical stuff sucks. Good luck, **MissTake **and cochrane, in dealing with yours.

238

What a relief! I agree, medical stuff sucks rocks. Reminds me that I need to call the billing coordinator, again, for my kid’s old psychiatrist who can’t seem to bill the correct insurance. (And sends the most opaque, unreadable bills I have ever seen from a medical office - that’s saying something!)

239

Perhaps the mini-est of mini-rants, but it happened again today and I’m fed up.

Why is it that every self-serve gas pump that I use seems to have the ‘auto’ function broken so you have to pump it by hand? I mean, the grooves are there to hold the pump handle in place, but when I try to squeeze the arm to reach them, the pump shuts off, so I am reduced to holding the handle and applying pressure for the whole tank, instead of doing more mundane stuff (washing my windows, browsing the snacks)?

Like I said, mini-rant but it irks me…

240

How freaking selfish do people have to be to refuse to yield for an ambulance with lights and sirens running?