Dear Jessica...

Dear Jessica in South Carolina,
Please, please, please learn your e-mail address. It turns out that your e-mail address is not the same as mine. Yet, you seem to insist on continuing to give out my e-mail address as your address at every turn. Over the last 6+ months, I have consistently turned down birthday parties for your son's friends, declined to participate in your neighborhood's yard sale, and I really, really don't want to work as a classroom volunteer. In fact, I would like to say thank you for having my e-mail address published in your school's phone book as yours. It was delightful deleting 45 e-mails (do people really need to reply all?!) the other day.

Jessica, if you should choose to not learn your e-mail address, I will be forced to continue to reply to these e-mails stating that you did not receive the message, I will continue declining party invitations, and I will also continue deleting any accounts that you create (you didn't actually want to get a job from that job site, did you?). How you succeed at continually opening accounts with the wrong address (where you have to double enter your e-mail address) is beyond me....

Please Jessica, learn your e-mail address and stop giving mine out.

Sincerely,

Kermit Fan

It's Time For Good News!

This week, I've really been struggling with the news. It's been bright and sunny outside, so the Seattle area has generally had a sunny disposition, but you wouldn't know it by looking at the local news outlets.

Generally, I watch King 5's news broadcast during the last 15 minutes or so before I leave for work in the morning so that I can be up-to-date on current events and also am aware of the current traffic situation. Then, at lunch, I will peruse our local newspaper's Web site, www.seattletimes.com.

But this week, it's been really bleak on the news front. I opened up the newspaper the other day and tried to find a positive headline to read. Instead, I was greeted by headlines about multiple dead bodies, starving children, financial issues, and all things depressing. I decided to dial down my news habits, but still seem to be presented with bad news as I'm going through my day. When I watched the morning news, I was hoping for some softer stories about school children doing good or maybe even a "Gardening with Ciscoe" segment next to the weather and traffic. Instead I was greeted with stories on suicides and roadside bombings. Ugh!

So, I'm starting to seek out the good news. There's got to be good things happening in the world, and I'm ready to hear about them. Let's put the smiles on our faces and start to look for the good side of life... consider it a challenge from me. What's your good news? Share it here, I'm ready to smile and cheer for everyone! :-)

Banking & Customer Service

On Friday, I decided to stop at Starbucks for a morning mocha before work. As I sat at the drive through, I handed my debit card to the barista (as I have done many times before), and awaited my coffee and my receipt. Instead, I was embarassingly informed that my card was declined four times. Yep, declined. I was incedulous, to say the least, because I had just been paid, and there was well more than the $5 required in my account. After paying for my purchase with a different card, I hurried to the office and called the bank.

Once I finally got through to Bank of America's customer service line, I was informed that my card was turned off because I was part of a "mass compromise," and a letter would be mailed to me; my new card, it seems, was mailed to my original bank branch without my knowledge, and had been sitting there for the better part of two weeks. Nice. The nice customer service lady informed me that the police had simply called and provided the bank with accounts that may have been stolen and needed to be turned off. This would have been all fine and dandy if they had informed me that they were turning my card off. Instead, the letter telling me that the card was beind deactivated was attached to the new cards; the same cards that were mailed without my knowledge to the bank branch. UGH.

To make matters worse, they cut off my hubby's card too -- his new cards should be at our house sometime soon, we think, but the customer service people don't seem to know, nor are they willing to give us more information. Nice...

Lesson learned: the key to good customer service is to communicate with the customer. Let them know what is going on with their account before it is rudely cut off... or before it sends your customers in a panic thinking that their accounts have been drained. Yep, simple communication would have made me a much happier customer!

Save the Drama for your Mama

This week, I've found myself saying "save the drama for your mama" more than I would like. It's not that I'm having a dramatic week (far from it), it's just that it seems that there are a few parts of my life that seem to be overly dramatic, and I'm kind of tired of the drama and energy that goes into it. So, I say: save the drama for your mama.

In other news, our association has decided that grills with "open flames" are too dangerous and must be removed from all of our units "or else." Thus, we have to get rid of our propane BBQ grill. It kind of makes me angry that I'm being denied the right to go out onto my porch to grill up some salmon and or make a great burger. I guess that's the price that you pay for living in a condo complex...

I'm ready, though, to think about moving to a place where we don't share walls with our neighbors, and where I'm allowed to have a simple barbeque grill. Needless to say: anyone need a BBQ?

Funky Pet Peeves

Over the past few months, I have become keenly aware of some of my quirky pet peeves. (Are all pet peeves somewhat quirky?!) It's made me think, sometimes it's made me angry, sometimes it's really made me step back and try to adjust my frame of mind. I sometimes wonder if all of my pet peeves are "normal," or if some could be classified as kind of weird. Here, help me classify them, won't you?

Gum. I have a total neuroses about gum. I hate it. Really, really, absoultely despise gum. I don't like hearing it being chewed (especially when someone is looking over my shoulder), I don't like hearing it being snapped, popped, or blown into bubbles. And I really hate seeing it outside of someone's mouth in a chewed fashion. In fact, when people pull out their gum at a dining table and stick it on the side of their plate or wrap it in their paper napkins, it's everything I can do to not throw up then and there. I'd classify this as a "weird" pet peeve. How about you?

Timeliness. I have a real thing about being on time, and it's a pet peeve of mine when I am late for an appointment or a meeting. I also feel really slighted when people are late for meetings that they have set with me. If someone says that they are going to be somewhere at a certain time, then I think that it's up to them to go above and beyond to meet that commitment. And if you're going to be more than 10 or 15 minutes late, then I think that it's common courtesy to call and let the person know. I feel like I'm being disrespected (and my time is being under valued) if you don't call to tell me that you're running late or not going to make it. On the flip side, I take it really personally that I'm running late, and work very hard to give people the simple courtesy of being on time or communicating with them. Normal pet peeve? Yes, that's how I would classify it. What do you think?

Toilet seats. I think that we need to all come to an agreement across the nation -- either we need to all put the toilet seats down, or all put 'em up. And we all need to agree on it. This should not be a "men vs. women" thing, rather, we should all be consistent on how we treat the seat in shared bathrooms. Classify this one as a "normal" pet peeve. I think it's an age-old argument, in fact.

Proper English. First and foremost, I'm not perfect on this topic. However, I feel like the advent of "spell check" has made our society lazier and perhaps a little less intelligent than earlier generations. The word "ain't" is never proper English, in my book at least. "Are system" is not down, "our system" is down. The bride did not walk down "the isle," the bride walked down "the aisle." Simple spelling mistakes that I've seen in the past that wouldn't be picked up by a spell check application. I guess that I wish that people would take a moment to step back and read their work -- your words, and what you type, are how people see you in this virtual world. I'm not even sure where to classify this pet peeve...

I think that the reason that these pet peeves have made me step back and examine myself is that I find that I am projecting my pet peeves on others -- and on how I see the world. Perhaps I need to reframe my impressions of others and cut people a little more slack. Who knows?

What do you think? Do you have little pet peeves that get the hairs standing up on the back of your neck? I would love to hear about them!

Weekend Wanderings, Customer Service, and More

We enjoyed a blissfully relaxing weekend, lounging around the house, doing laundry, napping, and generally being mellow. On Saturday night, we trekked up to Everett and Mill Creek for Mindy's birthday bash. It was fun to reconnect with old friends, while meeting new people too. Our annual trip to McCabe's dance club was nice, although the upstairs DJ definitely missed the mark. Oh well, it was still fun.

This weekend brought a mysterious mishap with our laundry, which led to us replacing clothing that was less than a week old. UGH. Needless to say, we had to do some additional shopping this afternoon. I have never seen such crazy customer service in one day in my life. We experienced salespeople who didn't seem to care that we wanted to check-out, let alone had entered the store. When we did finally get someone to check our items out at one women's clothing store, we couldn't get the woman to honor our discount -- despite the fact that we met the terms and conditions on the 25% off coupon. I wasn't in the mood to argue or push the issue too far, but if she had simply said "Gosh, I wish that I could help you with this coupon." instead of "Huh, it won't take it, too bad!" it would have been a different situation.

While out shopping, we decided to stop at a reputable restaurant chain and eat a nice but quick dinner. The waitress was nice enough, but didn't seem to fully understand why I was completely repulsed when we discovered a short hair on Lennie's dinner plate towards the end of the meal... and the hair was not the color of anything that would have come from us. Yuck-o. She was nice enough, but I don't think that we'll be going back any time soon... or ever for that matter.

At the end of our shopping trek, we stopped at Target to pick up a small album and a few other personal hygiene items. Just a quick trip to my favorite store. When we went to check-out, I was horrified as the clerk began commenting on the personal items that we had purchased, including very personal details about his life and our choices from the store. It's a good thing that I can be generally happy-go-lucky, but I can't imagine a worse check-out experience, especially if I embarassed easily. Yikes. Lennie had to return to Target this evening to pick up another album, and he did have a short conversation with the manager about the situation. Hopefully some additional sensitivity training will occur, so that others don't have to experience what we did.

So, my question of the weekend is this: is customer service dead? When did it become acceptable to act like it's an inconvenience to service your customers? Is it ever okay to comment on the personal items that people are purchasing? (Hint: the answer to this one is no in my book). Why do we allow people to give us shoddy service? And what can we do to find the happy medium between "royal" treatment where people are bending over backwards for our service, and the space where you feel like you have to beg to do simple tasks like check out at a store or not have people invade your personal life with inappropriate chitchat at the cash register?

In other (happier) news, we finally finished populating our wedding albums, and the professional photo album is being delivered this week. With over 450 photos, we definitely have the day covered. However, if you're out there in Internet-land reading this, and you have photos of our wedding, please send them. We can't wait to see the photos that you took too.

New Rule!

Over the past few weeks of freakishly cold spring weather, I have been observing people's reactions to the temperature. I have also come to the conclusion that we need to make a new rule about thermostats and personal responsibility for temperature control. Here it is: if you're cold, put some socks on. If you're still cold, put a sweatshirt or a sweater on. Still cold? Okay, check with the people around you, and then turn the heat up. On the flip side, if you're too warm, take off the sweatshirt or sweater that you have on! Still too warm? Check with the people around you on their temperature, and then open the window or turn the heat down. But only open the window if everyone else is warm -- if they're wearing their jackets indoors, or their teeth are chattering as they utter "I'm f-f-f-ine," don't open the window or change the thermostat!

Note that every time I mentioned changing the temperature of the room around you, I mentioned that you should check with the people around you first. The world does not revolve around one single person, so the temperature shouldn't either! Shall we try to meet in the middle? I think so...

I predict that warmer weather is coming soon -- and that we can put away all of the thick sweaters (again) and enjoy some fun sandal weather. Sunshine's coming, I just know it! (Yeah, yeah, snow flurries are in the forecast for this weekend, I know, I'm just looking on the long-term bright side.)

Argh!

So, I've been trying to take better care of myself lately. As such, there have been more trips to the gym, and I was just starting to get into the groove of things. In fact, I took today off so that I could go to the doctor, workout, and generally get in a better state of mind. This morning, I tromped off to the doctor's office in my workout clothes, ready to take on the world. After a longer than expected (but good) visit with my physician, I headed over to the gym. Low and behold, all of the gym's delightful electronic equipment was being wheeled out, and a very nice man told me that the gym closed as of last night. ARGH! And just when I was getting into the habit of going to the gym (and liking it), I'm thrown off track. I'm told that LA Fitness purchased all fo our memberships (did you know that you could be bought and sold like that?!), so I guess Lennie and I will be off to check out LA Fitness tomorrow... stay tuned!

Silly Huskies!

I'm becoming a disillusioned Husky fan. I've gone from calling it a rebuilding year (for the past four years) to a rebuilding era. After the Arizona game, though, I have to say that I'm starting to question my loyalty to this year's team. I'm a tried-and-true fan, sure, but I'm also feeling pretty fair weather right now too. However, I think that Steve Kelley of the Seattle Times expressed it best in his article "Changes are Needed:"

The age of forgiveness is over. It ended late Saturday afternoon. Ended after Washington blew a 15-point fourth-quarter lead — to Arizona.

It ended when the defense allowed 535 yards and the offense committed five turnovers. Ended with a 48-41 loss.

Last week, Washington coach Tyrone Willingham speculated that none of his players could start for USC. And then those players went out and proved him right.

Turns out the Huskies don't even have the talent to beat Arizona.

"Obviously there are a lot of people who don't feel very good about who we are right now," Willingham said after the game.

This was a 24-karat embarrassment. Washington was outscored 22-6 in the fourth quarter. Last week, Oregon outscored the Huskies 24-3 in the fourth. Read more of the article here.

My Big Pet Peeve: Follow-up

So, I broke down and bought a mocha on my way to work this morning. Lent is over, but I had not stepped back into my coffee habit until today. I was tired, and I needed it. (And it was good, but not as good as I remembered it, frankly.)

However, I will say that the Seattle's Best Coffee clerk that took my order is lucky that I was tired, because I really wanted to give her a piece of my mind. You may remember my post a few weeks back titled "My Big Pet Peeve." Well, seems that this clerk, who is at least 6 years younger than me, decided to call me every pet name under the sun including "honey," "sweetie," and "darlin'" in the span of three minutes. OH, and all of these names came AFTER she had gotten my name with my order. Seems that all of her colleagues could call me by name ("Here's your drink, KermitFan, have a great day!"), but a mere 15 seconds after she had gotten my name, I was still "sweetie," "darlin'," and "sugar."

Dargh! I'm fighting back against pet names next time! :-)

My Big Pet Peeve

[Begin rant] Okay, so I've got to say it: if you don't know me, please don't ever call me by a pet name. You know what I mean, "Honey," "Sugar," "Sweetie," "Dear," "Darlin'," etc. I'm sorry: you don't know me. I'm not your "Sugar!" And even if you do know me, you obviously don't know me well enough to know that I hate being called by pet names. Yep, I detest it.

Case in point: I went to a well-known bookseller on Wednesday to pick up a book. As my sale was being processed by a clerk who was at least five years younger than me, I was called "Sugar pie," "Sweetie," and "Dear" in the matter of two minutes. Hello.... did I miss when we became best of friends over the purchase of my awesome new book? Hmmm... Oh, and this is not one of your better customer service moves either -- it's okay to be friendly with me, but not that friendly!

So here's the deal friends, readers, family, and others: if you are not an older person, a Southern person (after all, it's a culture thing), a very dear friend or super-close family member, or a waitress at a greasy spoon in the heartland, please, please, please don't use a pet name with me. You haven't earned that right, and I'm not giving it away. Either call me by my given name, or don't call me at all. [End rant]

Thanks for reading. :-)