So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish
Life here has been busy, hectic, fun, tiring....all of those good things that a new mom/working mom can expect from having a baby. But alas, I'm still trying to figure out how to balance doing a good job at work, spend the most possible time with my son, spend time with my beloved, cook (thank heavens for the "5 in 10" cookbook), work out (I'll just lay my head on the table and laugh here), and still squeeze in some quiet time to get my head back together. I knew that last one was failing miserably when I realized that the last time I spent with my husband was an hour we spent driving around Bowling Green, and before that the last time I walked out of the house without my son or a briefcase was when I got my hair done at the beginning of March. Sigh.
So basically, something's got to give. And it can't come as a surprise to anyone after weeks of not posting, that the something that's giving is the blog. Which is a bummer, I like blogging. But for now, life is pulling me away from my computer, and I just try to get on long enough to check email and skim through the RSS feeder.
So dear friends, I may one day return (hopefully. Fingers crossed) to bore everyone with my rants. But for now I'm pulling the shutter on this blog, and telling you "Move along. Nothing to see here."
Did you know?
- The sound of milk hitting cereal makes babies scream!
- When soy milk is mixed with granola (yes, I'm a hippy) and allowed to sit for 15-20 minutes, it turns into building materials.
Sprint Made Good
Since I've complained about our
Sprint experience, I need to note that Sprint made good. Free unlimited text messaging for Chris, 100 extra any time minutes for me, and money towards our next bill. And an apology. That's fair, and I'm considering the chapter closed.
WOOO HOO!
One of my favorite blogresses (is that even a word?) is back. Hooray for
La Vida Vica!
Labels: Other Blogs
Things shouldn't be this hard
SprintPCS has not been kind to us. Our first email to Sprint:
I wanted to write to address a very bad customer service experience that my husband and I had with Sprint. Which is a shame, we normally go to the Sprint store in blahblah PA, and have had excellent customer service.
We wanted to combine our two phones onto one account. We were moving my husband's phone onto my account. First I called customer service, on April 1, 2008, and they told me that we hadto go into a Sprint store. So on the same date, we went to a different store than our usual , because I was on my lunch break at work. We went to Store 461 on Summit dr, filled out the transfer of liability form, and gave him a photocopy of the driver's licenses. Then the rep at the store said there was a problem, that we needed to call customer service. We went out to the parking lot and called customer service, who told us that we had to go into the store, but that there
was a balance on my husband's account. We went into the store,and the rep told us that wasn't the problem, we had to call customer service. My husband called customer service while the rep moved on to work with other customers. I asked another rep why we had to play go between for the Sprint store and Sprint customer service. She said, "I know what you mean" and walked away from us. The store rep that had been working with us, called us over and told us that he thought theproblem was my husband was on the Fair and Flexible plan, which is no longer available.
In the meantime, my husband was on the phone with Sprint customer service. When the store rep said he got another error after transferring my husband's plan to something more current, I handed him my husband's cell phone so that the Sprint store and Sprint customer service would talk to each other. We arrived at the store
at the start of this saga at noon. I had to leave slightly after 1:00 PM to attend a meeting. The store rep was still on my husband's cell phone, and the issue had not been resolved.
There are a few reasons why I'm writing. The first reason is obviouslythat we're very angry about the service we endured. The most helpful person was the last Sprint customer service call center person. But by the time we worked with him, my husband and I were so angry that we debated cancelling our phones all together. That would be after we each individually were customers of Sprint for 5-10 years. The second reason is that I'd like to have the number of minutes on my husband's phone that were used to resolve this issue either restored or extendedfor the current calling period. I would hate for us to exceed our calling minutes because the Sprint store wouldn't call Sprint customer service. And the third reason is to point
out the process issues thatwe encountered. There should be a way to fax in
the transfer of liability form and our drivers licenses rather than going to a store.And I would contend that the customer store should never send a customer off to resolve systems problems or figure out why errors occurred when they attempt to make changes to accounts. The store should contact customer service and they should work out any issues.
Your customer website says "Sprint wants you to enjoy the best customerexperience." This was not it.
Thank you for your time
Anyway, apparently I was too subtle in my grousing because the response we got was:
Thank you for contacting Sprint. I understand you wish to combine your two phones onto one account.
To protect your account from unauthorized access and changes, it is important that we confirm the following information:
a. Your PCS Phone Number
b. Your email address on the account
c. Your Mailing Address
Please reply to this email with the requested information, and we will be happy to assist you.Thank you again for contacting Sprint. We appreciate your business.
Sincerely,
Matt K.
Sprint
Sigh. They read....The first sentence? Maybe? Or was that such normal behavior that the rest didn't sink in? Anyway, my reply with a CC to Chris was:
Actually, no, we got the accounts straightened out. I'm contacting Sprint to express my disappointment over the pathetically bad service we received.
and Chris added:
To be perfectly clear I spent a total of two hours in the store trying to resolve the matter. My personal phone was used for 70 minutes by the Sprint Store sales person. He only talked to Sprint Customer service (again, on *my* phone) after I forced him to because my wife and I had been thru *three* versions of "you need to talk to the
Sprint store" "You need to call Sprint customer service."
There has not been once single apology from any one or any attempt to make up for the two hours lost in the process of TRYING TO GIVE SPRINT MONEY.
Seriously, what is it that says customer service CAN'T APOLOGIZE when they give bad service? They didn't even address 90% of my email. My normal modus operandi is that I don't expect to have my ass kissed as a customer, just normal courtesy. But considering what a fiasco this has been, there better be some ass kissing soon. We're still not ruling out ditching Sprint.
Anyway, so when I go out to the Consumerist,
I found this, which rings true in light of our experiences. Oh and
this article may be very interesting if we still don't get an apology, and don't think I'm not asking for
this too.
Me? Fired up? You're kidding, right?
Insomnia Tour '08
My son has decided that sleep is really unnecessary.
Alas, he cannot just lie in his crib and ponder the mysteries of life ("Why do I have hands?" "Why does Ginger smell like sewer water?" "What makes that rattling sound in my rattle? I can't see anything on the outside...").
No, the insomnia experience is to be
shared. And as he gets more and more tired, and less and less able to self soothe, his middle of the night wake ups have gone from gentle "wah, wah, wah" to screams that make my ear drums vibrate. I've stood outside the hangar at what was then McDonnell Douglas as the Blue Angels approached, and it doesn't come near the effect of my baby screaming in my ear.
Now I understand why my great aunt used to give shots of whiskey to her teething babies. All is made clear.
Canadian Warmup Music
This morning on the way in to work I heard first Queen's "Another one bites the dust" followed by Anything But the Girl's "Miss You". And it reminded me of a story....
So back when I was the Yoko Ono of Chris's cycling team, we headed off to St Catherine's Ontario for a race. The best part with the guys we went with was just getting there. The one guy was....directionally challenged. It added a certain amount of spice to our trips. Anyway, after crossing the border we went the wrong way on the QEW. After a few miles, it became pretty evident. "Should we pull over for directions?" I suggested, hopefully. "No, drive faster!" was the response from the navigator in the front seat. At that point, I abdicated any further input. I wasn't racing after all, and this promised to be good. Somehow Magellan got us there, whirling along at 150 mph (or 300 kmh in Canadian Dollars at the time) down back roads I'm pretty sure weren't on his map. Hats off to him, I never thought he could do it.
When we pulled into the parking lot at the race, you could hear the beats going from all the cars. A little "Rage against the Machine" from the angry looking dude over there. A little techno from the car with about 47 riders crammed into it. Quiet Riot blasting on the old dude's stereo. Beastie Boys from the Hip-Hop wanna-be guys. And then there was the guy who pulled in next to us with the Ontario license plates. He turned on the tunes, and immediately I was lulled into a state of calmness as Styx came on. As "Babe" rolled out of his stereo and he warmed up on his trainer, Magellan turned to Chris with an incredulous look on his face. "Suddenly I want to just call my ex-girlfriend and tell her everything is going to be ok."
And thus came the expression that lives on in our lexicon: Canadian Warm Up music - any soothing mellow song, especially if it's from the 80s.
W!K!U!
Good for WKU! Yes, they lost and they're out of the tournament, but they made the sweet 16, and they pushed those city slicker UCLA players to the wall. So good for them - and next year we'll see you in the elite eight!
Fredly Update
Under the heading...mixed feelings....
The surgeon says there's nothing that they can do for him (or maybe it's just too hard on him, that's a little unclear), so it's looking like long term pain management will be the key. I really, really wish it were something that we could just fix, but on the flip side, the rimadyl has been awesome for him. Keep your fingers crossed for no side effects.
As a co-worker and I discussed, financially the good news is we're not coughing up $1500-$2000 for surgery for him. Financially the bad news is we'll pay way more than that over the years. But at least we can budget for that.
Labels: Dogs
I've got a friend named Walter
Whatever you think of
this church (and "Whatever", shrug, pretty much sums it up for me), You have to love
Ace's Top Ten Mandated Changes to Make Christianity more Politically Correct and Inclusive. 7, 8, and 9 make me spit Coke (not the drug, the drink) on my computer screen:
9. Key lyric of Martin Greenbaum's hippie-Christian anthem, Spirit in the Sky, changed from "I've got a friend named Jesus" to less-divisive "I've got a friend named Walter"
8. Good Friday officially renamed "Passable Friday;" Ash Wednesday officially renamed "the Day Before Thursday"
7. Placards displaying "John 3:16" outlawed at sporting events; spectators wishing to display their spiritual beliefs may substitute oversized foam-finger bearing the corporate slogan "Dude, You're Getting a Dell!"
Labels: Other Blogs
Uncool
Ya know, I'm not precisely what you would call a Hillary supporter. I don't hate her with the rabid passion that seems to obsess a lot of people. But I'm also not going to vote for her in November.
I'm just throwing that out there, because I have to say,
asking Chelsea about Monica Lewinsky in order to prove how strong Hillary is, is uncool. That the questioner was surprised that it upset her shows that he's a socially inadequate nimrod. It is not the daughter's responsibility to defend her father's indescretions while campaigning for her mother's presidential campaign. If he really wanted an answer, it needs to come from Hillary, or better yet, Bill. I understand Chelsea's in the public eye, but....c'mon. That's seriously wrong.
