The Road to Good Customer Service is Not Well Traveled

In the past week, I have experienced both good and not so good customer service. I'll start with the good experience. For my birthday, a friend gifted me with a Kindle. Now, I always considered myself "old school" when it came to books, and I may never have purchased an eReader on my own. But, having received one as a gift, I was not one to look a gift Kindle in the mouth. I have to say, I grew to love the Kindle. They are great for reading on the treadmill or stationary bike at the gym, slip easily into your purse or laptop bag during travel, and are "open" 24 hours a day for new purchases.

While on business travel last week, I was flummoxed when I could not get the damn thing to turn on while waiting for my flight at Reagan National Airport. Upon my return, I did a quick Google search and found a recommendation to do a "reset" to fix my frozen Kindle problem. Well, that didn't resolve the issue. I opted for an online chat with an Amazon customer service representative.

I gave a very short description:

My Kindle is frozen/unresponsive and the screen is filled with lines. I have tried several times to reset it by holding down the power button for 20+ seconds. This has not resolved the issue. I don't know what to try next

After confirming that I was referring to "Carol's Kindle" on my online Amazon account, the representative replied:

If you prefer I'll able to provide a free replacement device for you.

Well, shoot. That was almost two easy. Here it is, two days later, I have my new Kindle, it's booted up, and my previously purchased books are restored. Now, I just have to put the busted Kindle in the box, attach the free pre-printed shipping label and that issue is resolved. Yay!

Now, the not so great experience. When I landed in Cedar Rapids last week, after leaving Reagan National with my busted Kindle, I met the breakfast crew at Eggy's for a late dinner and a beer. Much to my chagrin, my debit card was denied! I was perplexed. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am still one of those dorks who balance my checkbook to the penny each month. I knew I had money in my account and chalked the denial up to a faulty magnetic strip. Ha! Fat chance.

When I got home, I promptly accessed online banking at Dupaco. Imagine my surprise to find that a $172.27 debit purchase made the previous Saturday had cleared my account for $1,722.27. The next day, I called both the credit union and the merchant to correct the error. When I explained the situation to the merchant, the initial response was to laugh. It's not so funny when it's your money, and you have payments that are bouncing all over the place because you have $1,550 less money in your account than you thought. They submitted a refund, but it took from Friday until Tuesday before the credit showed up in my account. Kudos to Dupaco for waiving all the overdraft fees and for continuing to pay the automatic payments that were set up to come out on those days. When I was called back (by the receptionist - not the owner I initially talked to) and told the credit was processed, instead of getting an "Oh my God, we are so sorry." I got a "we don't know how that happened." Really? I've worked in retail enough years to know how it happened...someone miskeyed the credit card payment amount and evidently they do not balance their receipts at the end of each business day. Any retail establishment I worked at required you to totally balance out the cash drawer at the end of your shift and identify any errors. In addition, this merchant is literally across the street from my credit union. Here's an idea -- how about expediting the return of the funds by taking a check across the street instead of processing a refund that takes five days.

My friends took pity on me for my frozen fund state. They are the best! I got my new Kindle and my missing $1,550 on the same day. Oh, and Rick Santorum is going away. All is almost right with the world.

.

Mental Health Days and Retail Therapy

Don't get me wrong, I am blessed to have a stable job that provides a comfortable salary, benefits, challenges to keep me on my toes, and a somewhat flexible work schedule. Additionally, knock on wood, I am blessed with a pretty good immune system so I rarely suffer from colds, the flu, or other ailments that keep me away from the office. While I do find it very easy to use up all my vacation days, I am always left with more sick days at the end of the year than I am allowed to carryover.

When I woke up at 5:15 this morning and was hoofing it around the block with Bailey, I seemed even more tired than normal. Now, this was sort of odd because I had actually gone to bed at 9 p.m. last night. Who knows, maybe I've got some freakish system where I function best with only between 5-6 hours of sleep (my usual). I vaguely remembered that I had NO meetings scheduled for today. Therefore, with a huge project looming that will keep me up nights and weekends, I zipped off an e-mail to my boss and advised I wasn't going to be in today and that I was taking a mental health day. In a word, it was divine.

I went back to bed after feeding Bailey and got another four blissful hours of sleep. Then, I rolled downstairs and lounged on the couch for another two hours catching up with Kelly and the women of The View, all while sipping my pot of coffee. (Yes, somehow in the last year or so, I've become addicted to my morning coffee.)

Next, I met one of my besties for lunch and a few laughs. Then, off to the mall for some retail therapy. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I really do not like to shop; however, I am really bored with my clothes for a couple of reasons.

1. About 80% of of my wardrobe is from Talbots. I've decided all their clothes kind of start to look alike.
2. About 70% of my wardrobe is more than eight years old. Stuff is starting to look a little bit dated and frumpy.
3. Lately, I feel fat...OK, make that fatter, since I've been practically off the BMI chart for years. Nothing fits quite right and pulls in all the wrong places.

The clothing gods were with me today, I actually found a few new things that I liked. Sadly, I am still fashion challenged when it comes to putting together a wardrobe. I should have added "80% of my wardrobe consists of solid colors." I'm trying to break out of my rut...I wish I was wealthy enough to hire a stylist who would shop for me and throw together perfectly coordinated and accessorized outfits. C'est la vie... I'm still happy with today's haul.

I read an article not too long ago in which designer Michael Kors related the top 10 things every woman should have in her wardrobe. Let's see how I stack up after today:

1. Black pants suit: Hmmm, I have a gray pants suit and a black suit with a skirt (of course that suit falls into the greater than 8 years old category...in fact, it is more like 14 years old. AND, both are from Talbots).
2. Crisp white blouse: Check...just bought a new one about a month ago (from Talbots!)
3. Black sheath dress: Check minus. Two contenders here, again no surprise, both from Talbots. I have a black sheath dress that is lacy (worn to my niece's wedding) and a black/gray herringbone sheath dress that is actually one of my favorites. I'll work on this one.
4. Black pencil skirt: Check. Although, at the moment it is a wee bit snug. (Check minus because it is also from Talbots.)
5. Neutral-colored cashmere sweater: Denied! I have only one cashmere sweater, which is a not exactly neutral moss green. It was a gift. I have a hard time shelling out the bucks for cashmere...plus, it makes me hot. And, with frequent hot flashes, who needs it!
6. Fur vest: Sorry, not my style.
7. Classic trench: I could use this! The all weather coat I have been wearing is 10+ years old but at least I can say it is NOT from Talbots.
8. Dark fitted jeans: Check plus. I bought a black pair (from Talbots) about a month ago and got a pair of dark navy today from Coldwater Creek.
9. Nude stilettos: I'm going to be frank...I have bad feet. No shoe in my closet will ever fall into the stiletto category. The majority of all my other shoes are black.
10. Cognac leather satchel: Like my shoes, all of my bags are black too.

I'm not sure when the shopping bug will hit again, but my quest for patterns will continue...as will my quest for a body like Stacy Kiebler...or at least one like a trimmed down Kirstie Alley.

Recent Annoyances

We are a full eight months to the presidential election, and I have already had it up to here with the negative campaigning, political posturing, and name calling. The latest items to irk me:

• Rick Santorum calls President Obama a "snob" for having the audacity to think that every American should be able to go to college.
• Rush Limbaugh calls a Georgetown college student a slut and suggests she posts her sexual encounters on the Internet for everyone to watch simply because she expects that her health insurance should cover contraception.
• Mitt Romney states he doesn't care about poor people.
• A Congressional hearing to discuss whether contraceptives should be included in health care coverage does not include any women.
• News reports circulate that Girl Scout cookie sales are funding abortions.
• The Susan Komen Foundation pulls funding to Planned Parenthood then restores it after a huge backlash.

I could go on and on. It's insane. I like to think that I am a pretty average American, but I don't see myself represented in any of the candidates. Despite being a die hard Democrat, even President Obama bugs me most days.

I want someone to explain to me why:

• They want to block insurance companies from covering contraceptives but no one has brought up that we should similarly block coverage for Viagra or Cialis.
• They want less government yet they want to pass constitutional amendments to oppose same sex marriage and go back in time 40 years to overturn Roe v. Wade.
• They don't want to consider any tax increases, yet want to offer additional tax credits for children. Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to children but that is a choice, too. I'm all for it if I can get a tax credit for my dog.
• People are up in arms about increasing gas prices but no one wants to talk about how we have been spoiled for years, paying significantly lower prices than they do in Europe or Australia. If you have visited there, you will note that people aren't driving big gas guzzling pickups and SUVs.

OK, I'm done with my rant for now. I'm convinced being President is just an ego thing. All the candidates are full of hooey. They aren't perfect, they can't solve all the problems. I want them all to just go away.

Heaven is for Real

I finished reading the book "Heaven is for Real" yesterday. If you haven't heard of the book, here's a brief description:

Heaven Is for Real is the true story of the four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn't know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear.

Of course, my Catholic upbringing taught me about heaven and purgatory and limbo and hell. I don't know...I'm not sure I ever was that convinced about it. But, the story of Colton will make you question your beliefs, while giving you hope of one day seeing your loved ones again. Personally,  I cannot wait to see Grandma Scherrman again, not to mention to finally meet my Grandpa Scherrman.

Today, I also learned that someone I was once very close to died. He was only 55. The obituary said simply that he died at home. I hate that. I understand that it is a private matter for the family. To anyone who knows the person who passed away, you are just left wondering what happened. A whole host of scenarios played out in my mind. Mostly I was wondering why I let 10 years pass without making an effort to reconnect with him. We parted ways for reasons that seem awfully insignificant now. I suppose the mundane dealings of ordinary life and our own self-righteousness got in our way.

Even though we had drifted apart, I'm saddened to hear of his passing. He was a unique spirit, full of life, and ready to share a laugh. We became friends after I moved back to Dubuque as an adult. He was a colorful soul in homogeneous Dubuque. As I reflect on our friendship, though, I sense there was a quiet sadness to him also. It makes me think of the Clown's Prayer, which I recall was read at Chris Farley's funeral (useless trivia, my mind is full of it):

As I stumble through this life,
help me to create more laughter than tears,
dispense more cheer than gloom,
spread more cheer than despair.

Never let me become so indifferent,
that I will fail to see the wonders in the eyes of a child,
or the twinkle in the eyes of the aged.

Never let me forget that my total effort is to cheer people,
make them happy, and forget momentarily,
all the unpleasantness in their lives.

And in my final moment,
may I hear You whisper:
"When you made My people smile,
you made Me smile."

Rest in Peace, Michael

A Geek at 50?

I have to take a minute to brag about myself, even at the risk of jinxing myself in my future PC troubleshooting endeavors. Over the course of the last four weeks, I have had to perform a series of tune-ups on my laptop for a variety of reasons. I am pretty darn proud to report that I managed to handle these on my own and (knock on wood) everything still seems to be working fine.

First issue was that I was lounging on the couch one night in my typical TV watching fashion with my laptop on my lap (duh). My Internet connection blanked out. This has periodically occurred before. My usual fix, go unplug the modem and wireless router and let it reset. I did that numerous times to no avail. Then I booted up my work laptop just to see if it was something specific to my laptop. Nope, it didn't connect either. My first troubleshooting effort was to unplug the wireless router and plug the modem directly into the laptop. Yes...that works, so obviously my router has crapped out. (Wow, so spoiled now. It really sucks having to be confined to one room with an Ethernet cable connecting you to your modem.) Off to Best Buy I go, where some helpful child (OK, young man -- but seriously he looked to be about 12) asked me a couple of questions and sold me a new router that I successfully installed and secured with only one slight glitch (that was really a result of some bad technical writing in the instructions and no issues on my part or the part of the hardware).

The next problem that cropped up was when I was trying to prepare my 50th birthday party playlist and wanted to get some new music from iTunes. I hadn't logged in to iTunes for months, so of course the first thing it told me was there was a new version of iTunes available to download. Did that, but then I couldn't actually get into the iTunes store. Grrrrr...totally annoying. After about an hour of googling this issue, I came across a YouTube video (again from someone who looked like a child) that explained how to downgrade to a prior version of iTunes. I successfully restored my previous version of iTunes thinking that would solve the problem. No! Dammit. I then determined it was my virus software preventing me from getting to iTunes. I was using the free software provided by the cable company. I guess you get what you pay for. I could see that it was blocking my outbound attempt but could not figure out how to override that. I bit the bullet and purchased some new virus software. When I first downloaded and installed it, however, for a brief moment of panic I thought I really effed things up because EVERYTHING disappeared from my desktop and I couldn't even get to the start button to reboot. Whew, after doing a hard shut-down, everything was restored.

Next issue occurred when I plugged my new Kindle into the laptop using a USB cable to charge it. The very next time I tried to go online, my laptop would lose Internet connectivity every five minutes. I couldn't even see the list of available networks. Again, I booted up my work laptop and that worked just fine. The laptop would "troubleshoot" and each time it would give the same message:

Specifically, it kept telling me that the Microsoft Virtual WiFi Mini Network Adapter was having driver problems. So annoying...having to reboot every five minutes. I kept going back to the fact that this happened after I had plugged the Kindle in. I spent the next week searching the web every night to figure out how to resolve the problem. Last night, I finally happened on a forum where someone described the same issue I was having. The person who posted the comment said that the Microsoft WiFi Network Adapter was designed to create a virtual network off your own laptop if you wanted to allow others to access the Internet through your device. Hmmmm, OK, the wifi feature was turned on when I plugged the Kindle in. The blogger noted that there was no way to remove the Microsoft WiFi Network, but he gave two commands to turn the thing off using Command Prompt. I followed those two lines of instructions to the letter and "voila" problem solved.

While doing all the research to resolve that annoying problem, I saw a fix for a long-standing problem I had with my Dell printer being incompatible with my HP laptop. Now that problem is also fixed!

Who needs Geek squad? The key to success is A LOT of patience and persistence. The answers are usually all out there. Of course, I'd much rather that everything just work perfectly without any human intervention on my part.

The Road to 50 is Well Traveled

I had a great birthday. I didn't think I could top my 40th birthday celebration in Jamaica. I mean, who wouldn't love 85 degrees, white sand beaches, clear blue sky, warm azure waters, fantastic sunsets, and all the Red Stripe you could want delivered right to your lounge chair on the beach in the first week of January. It was all for the pleasure of my mind.

As I approached my 50th birthday, I toyed with the idea of again jetting off to a Caribbean island and basking in the warm sunshine (with my SPF 30 of course) for a few days. It is clearly a sign of aging when what you really want to do on your birthday is be around family and friends.  

Turks & Caicos will have to wait for another day. I spent my actual birthday in Indiana, where we did a little gambling, had some cocktails, and enjoyed some wonderful meals. Note to all the smokers out there, you can still smoke in a bar or restaurant in Indiana.

My official birthday soiree was at the Black Horse Inn at the Sherrill Mount House. It is a gorgeous old inn from 1856 that has been painstakingly renovated into a lovely bed and breakfast with five guest rooms. The night started out pretty well. We were all proper having wine and appetizers.

We had a lovely dinner.

I got presents.

We played Catch Phrase.

My Carter was there. (Yes, he *is* wearing a Burberry sweater. He's stylish that way at age 4.)

We stayed respectable until the parents left.

Then...things might have started to go downhill; or, maybe uphill depending on your perspective. We made a trip to the local night club, "The Barn." Lots of cocktails, a few shots, and much dancing. There might even have been tears of joy! Suffice it to say, we were the life of the party in Sherrill that night.

Safely back at the Black Horse Inn, the die hard partiers kept it going a while longer.

Ummmm, yeah....I think that picture pretty much says it all. Time check....

Yep, that's 4:10 a.m. That was way, way, way past my normal bed time. There you have it, the perfect 50th birthday celebration. It would have been made only more perfect if all my family members could have been there. Of course, I cannot say that the day after the blowout was perfect. I was tres fatigue (two of the few French words I remember from Madame Hornsby's class my freshman year of college).  

40  -- 50 --  I'm already thinking of how I can top them at 60.

Shout out to my family and friends who made the night a great one. Love you all!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Go shawty, it's your birthday
We gonna party like it's your birthday
(Fifty cent)

And I'm sure you will agree
It couldn't fit more perfectly
Than to have a world party on the day you came to be

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday
(Stevie Wonder)

Yes, people, I am now officially 50 years old. Technically it happened at 7:46 this morning, even though I started celebrating at 12:07 a.m.

I don't feel any different. Of course, it's 9:35 a.m., and I am still in bed. So, that seems to be helping A LOT! Maybe I should start every day like this....oh, plus the three pudding shots I just did by myself. Why not pudding shots for breakfast on your birthday.