THAT NEW BOOK SMELL

Today I was reminded about my love for books - the physical entity of books.  I enjoy my Nook.  It allows my tired old eyes to be able to read longer and in low light, but today we received a book in the office and I just can't stop hefting it, running my fingers across the cover, inhaling the ink and flipping the pages.

I'd almost forgotten those pleasures.

STOCKING UP ON AMMO

I am happy that this time around a mass shooting has gotten some people in this country up and in protesting mode.  The VP gets to try again to get some sane gun control legislation going and maybe we can make it a little harder for people to get guns.

Of course, the other part of our society is running around like chickens getting gun permits and stocking up on ammo at gun shows and generally saying and doing all the stuff they have been forever.  "It's not the gun...Only criminals will have them...Out of my cold, dead hands..."

In San Francisco there was a record turn out at the gun show last week.  No one could walk away with a new gun because we have a 10 day waiting period here in CA. That is one of the proposals being taken to Congress.  Ten days - to check the records (hopefully they will get better at the record keeping) and to cool down from any incident which has sparked the desire for a gun.

NRA President David Keene said:  "The two people who are selling so-called assault rifles are Sen. Feinstein and President Obama - not us.  They're the ones that are scaring American gun owners. It isn't the NRA."


Harry Reid might find himself in the NRA cross hairs - he seems to be changing his stance on guns following Newtown:   "We need to accept the reality that we are not doing enough to protect our citizens,” Reid said on the Senate floor.

I commented on a few blogs after the last school shooting that it is too late to do anything about guns in this country.  There are too many of them, too much money behind them and too many ways to skirt the existing laws. But maybe things will change bit by bit,  child by child gunned down.

FRIDAY FAST ONES

1.)  Went to see Les Mis with Ally.  I openly wept during Anne Hathaway's performance of I Had a Dream. I have never seen a performance so moving and Oscar worthy in my life.

2.)  I joined a gym on Saturday, worked out that day and the next.  I am soooo sore and sooo happy that I am back to working out.

Working on getting up super early to stop at the gym on the way to work at least a couple of mornings. Excited to try the Barre class this Saturday and see what else is sore next week!

3.)  From Slate:

This month a team of Yale psychologists released a study indicating that male jurors—but not female jurors—were more likely to hand a guilty verdict to obese women than to slender women. The researchers corralled a group of 471 pretend peers of varying body sizes and described to them a case of check fraud. They also presented them with one of four images—either a large guy, a lean guy, a large woman, or a lean woman—and identified the person in the photograph as the defendant. Participants rated the pretend-defendant’s guilt on a five-point scale. No fat bias emerged when the female pretend peers evaluated the female pretend defendants or when either men or women assessed the guilt of the men. But when the male pretend peers pronounced judgment on the female pretend defendants, BMI prejudice reared up. Jesus wept. The justice system and our basic faith in male decency took another hit.

The article goes on with more depressing "observations" from the skinny guys about the fat women...sigh. And the comments - deep, deep sigh.

4.)  About a year ago I tried to take some clothes to a local consignment shop and got shot down rather rudely.  Now that I have lost about 70 pounds - I have piles and piles of clothing I need to pass on.  I started to bag it all up to donate - but man do I need clothes that fit.  So I pulled out the best I had and am taking another shot at consignment.  Maybe this time the person reviewing them won't be so designer label conscious. 

THE CRANKY OLD BAG BLOG

I think I need to change the name of my blog to "CRANKY OLD BAG."  I need to dig deeper and deeper for the bright side these days.

I have been thinking about all the failures in customer service I have been confronted with just in the past months; both at work and at home.  I wonder what it is all about.

Customer service just gets worse and worse - how is it companies stay in business?  Have we become so accepting of bad service that they know they don't really have to make an effort?  After all, the erosion of service has escalated over time but do we ever write a letter, change companies or otherwise make our displeasure known to the decision makers?

Personally, I have. I also found that one cable company is as bad as the other.  Banks equally deceitful and manipulative with their fees and policies.  Most business decisions for retailers and services are made so high up that it's impossible to get a message through to the decision makers about problems.  The people you are face to face with may acknowledge the issue but are powerless.

The telephone/Internet service we use at work is very difficult to get through to customer service - very long waits on hold (no exaggeration, I have listened to their music for 5-15 minutes before a person came on the line) or waited 2-3 days for a response to e-mails. On the phone, the employees are very helpful, very thoughtful.  They really work hard to resolve the issue.  Then I am inundated for days with e-mails asking me to rate the experience, rate the person who helped me, rate the company, etc. Yet even though I have repeatedly expressed what I said here with regard to the waits, etc. - nothing has been improved.  So what is the point of the surveys? To make me think they actually care? Is that their customer service model?

On the other hand, 2 days and over 4 phone hours into trying to resolve the USBank/Quicken problem (I got up at 5:30am to try this morning); no one has taken responsibility for it, figured out how to resolve it, or offered any inkling that they care what I think of their service.  USBank made it worse because the "banker" would not listen to me and ended up reconfiguring everything in my system for USBank bill pay when I use Quicken bill pay when I asked to talk to someone else,  I was "disconnected."

Is that better?  Incompetent service and we don't care to know what you think. We are not going to ask and there is no contact information for you to tell!

 Neither approach seems to care about the satisfaction of the customer and I am scared to think how much worse it is going to get. When a few corporations own everything and there is no alternative, the whole concept of customer service will become obsolete.  It will be take it or leave it. Feels like we are almost there.

RESOLUTION FAIL

Well, it is January 3rd and  I have already failed to keep my New Year's Resolution to be a "Love Ninja".

I thought it would be difficult to maintain my love while driving to and from work.  I had a comment from Smalltown Me that she has the same issue with tourists driving in her area.  I was thinking that I need to come up with a mantra to chant while driving to keep my mind otherwise engaged while navigating in and around the other human beings on the road (see?  I wanted to call them idiots but I didn't...)

But driving has been ok.  I tapped my horn at someone who didn't notice the light had changed and they actually waved a thanks.  I gave him a thumbs up.  Very loving.

USBank, on the other hand is neither giving or getting my love and while I was not bitchy to the person who (after going through 5 menus and then being transferred twice and being on hold then having to repeat strings of numbers and personal identification) told me the error message I received when I could not upload my bills from Quicken to the bank was not their issue.  Even though the error message was quite specific about the source of the problem.

When I informed him I was at work and not on the computer with Quicken he was quite snippy. He said I need to call again when I am home in order to fix it.  I wanted to tell him how unhappy I am with my banking experience this morning and in the past few months (I won't even go into the problems they created when they changed the Health Savings Accounts.)  I wanted to tell him that I spent 15 minutes at home trying to make the bills upload and then 12 minutes at work just waiting to talk to a human.  But I didn't.  I hung up on him.

I immediately felt shame for my behavior.  So while I have broken my resolution already, I know I can do better.  Love, forgiveness and kindness in the face of unhelpful, alleged customer service - om.

THE RESOLUTION

I wish I was one of those wonderful, insightful people who could look back over the year coming to an end and call up the meaningful and important things to discuss in a post. 

I tend to be more of the moment - which is sometimes a good thing, but often I feel that my reactions and actions are too short sighted and often self-centered.  I have 59 years of experience behind me and a fairly good outlook to guide me - yet I often react with poor judgement and negativity.

In the year ahead I plan to change that.  To let the moment be, but to take a breath and call on my better self before reacting and acting.

I am inspired by Barb and her post about becoming a "Love Ninja".  It is a great post and worth taking time to click over to read. She calls on herself and others to join in. To act in love and kindness - and I have pledged to do that in the new year.

That and get back to the gym...

HOLIDAY HOME TOUR 2012

I am joining in on Jen on the Edge's annual Holiday Home Tour 2012.  Returning visitors wiil note I have not made major changes this year.  I am still recovering from surgery and the energy is low.  I have, however, punched things up with some lime green accents this year - and lot's of sparkle. 

Enjoy our holiday dressed home!

One trip to Home Goods and the lime sparkle was on!

My mosaic tree collection.

Ally's alligator ornament fits the theme.

Not many cards yet this year...

My favorite thing about the holidays - the kids are home!



Happy Holidays to everyone - and a wonderful 2013 for us all.

TIME WARP TUESDAY

Today I am posting our only family photo with Santa for Time Warp Tuesday.  Check in with Jenn to see who else posted this busy week!

For about 4 years we lived in Bellevue, Washington.  My husband worked for a company in Seattle and one of the benefits was that they gave us a membership to The Ranier Club which was housed in a beautiful old building downtown.  They had hotel accommodations, a nice restaurant and many social activities.  We loved getting dressed up and going with the kids to the family events because they were always so spectacular. 

This photo is from the first Christmas Party we went to.  I wish I had more photos of that day - they had elves and jugglers and all kinds of entertainment.  Tom and I didn't intend to be in the Santa photo but Ally was afraid of him and thus my "death grip" on her during the photo!  Of course, now it is one of my favorite family pictures!

MONDAY FAST ONES

I was so busy on Friday that I forgot to post this!

1.)  The area where my office is located is close to the foothills to the West; so it starts getting dark really early - like shortly after 3pm.  By 5 when I get to leave it is really dark. On the other hand, if I sneak out a bit early, I get to see some beautiful sunsets...

2.)  Tom turned 60 on 12/12/12.  To celebrate on Friday night, he wanted to see the movie Hitchcock at his favorite theater which serves food and beer.  He didn't know it, but all the kids arranged to be there, too!

3.)  Circumstances were such that Tom couldn't put off getting new phones for various family members (mine got wet in our big storm due to sideways rain... I am not kidding.  It was in the pocket of my raincoat and got wet enough to kill it.)  We are very behind the rest of the population and don't have smart phones and the kids have been clamoring for them but he was resistant.  He couldn't see what the big deal is and didn't want to pay for 5 phones and especially a data plan.

Well, he negotiated 5 free phones and a very affordable data plan and the phones arrived last week. Guess who is addicted to his smart phone?  The man never puts it down.  He plays with the "personal assistant" - Sam is her name and he gave her a British accent.  He has a dozen apps, plays music, started reading a book and even watched a movie on it all in the first 3 days!

On his birthday he asked Sam to sing Happy Birthday to him.  She declined.  He called her a bitch and then she refused to open his emails. 

4.)  Am I the only one who has a problem with ads showing items I have previously searched or ordered online popping up all over the place when I am online?  This makes it very difficult to keep my "Santa shopping" private since my computer is sometimes shared and is in the kitchen out where everyone can see. 

Every time I close the ads down in one place they open up in another.  This is an invasive marketing technique and this time of year it is especially irritating.

5.)  House is decorated, almost all the gifts are wrapped, most of the cookies are baked and some are in the mail, the holiday letter is written and the photo of the kids ready to print.  I seem to be in good shape considering I got a late start to things this year. 

How are your holiday preparations going?

SEXISM STILL AND ALWAYS?

Today is my husband's birthday.  In my e-mail was an e-greeting to him wishing him a Happy birthday from our insurance agent.  This was my response:

Dear Victor,

I am Susan Walker, my husband is Tom. My birthday was on December 1st and I didn't receive a birthday greeting, even though you clearly have my e-mail address.

 The reason I mention this is that I have been insured by Liberty Mutual since I was 16 years old - continuously insured by the same company. When I got married, my husband joined me on MY policies. Yet your company - the one I have been paying premiums to for over 40 years, keeps sending greetings and thank yous to my husband. I wrote a similar response to something we received over 10 years ago - and yet you are still following this protocol.

Wake up!! Women are not just along for the ride. I am pretty tired of this attitude from businesses. It is time to update your software or data so that you are acknowledging the party who actually chose to make you their insurance company, or at the very least, communicate with husband and wife in equal ways! In the 21st century is it right to default to the man?  I don't think so.

Sincerely,

Have you experienced this sort of institutional sexism, too?