Customer Service Award-and the Award Goes To...

There is one thing that perturbs me, drives me bonkers in fact and that is poor customer service. I've always been in service related jobs and providing quality customer service has always been my goal. It is not always the goal of others in service related industries, mostly when I am the customer.
This story is one of good ones.

Awhile ago I bugged my loved ones to purchase a gift for me that would satisfy one of my dreams. That of owning an above average digital camera, so that I could preserve the family memories that mean so much to me. They generously bought me my beloved Nikon D40 SLR camera. I snap more photos than normal, so much to the annoyance of that family. (a collective sigh, as you may KNOW what I mean)

I started uploading the photos on to my hard drive, shocked at the amount of space it consumes. So I made another purchase, an external hard drive to store the photos on. I carefully moved archived photos onto the drive, every smile, every fond family gathering, vacation, wedding and newborn to toddler stage has been carefully cataloged and stored there.
Last week I uploaded some recent photos for work to my drive, and noticed that the drive was no longer recognized by my computer. I fiddled with everything I could fiddle with. I unhooked the drive and rebooted. I opened the tower of my computer and disconnected thing-a-ma-bobs and thing-a-ma-jigs and memory cards and you name it. Using my powerful can of air I blew out every conceivable opening of dust and suspected trouble makers. Still no connection. I connected the drive into another unrelated power outlet, noticing then that the light did not come on the power adapter. "Simple fix", I thought.
I returned to the site of the original purchase. Target. They told me that they no longer sold the hard drives, and that they didn't carry such power adapters either. ( funny, I only had bought this about 8 months ago) I was to call the manufacturer, Western Digital. I searched the net, found Western Digital's web site also noticing that they no longer carried my make and model, the power adapters didn't make the shopping list either. I phoned WD, and after a long while on hold spoke with a customer service rep who in a monotone flat voice told me that the adapter was out of stock, I should check back in a few weeks to see if they carried it then. Maybe yes, maybe no. She really couldn't direct me either way.
Panicked slightly, I thought maybe the Geek Squad at Best Buy could help me. Off to Best Buy, where a slightly geeky guy shook his head and said, sorry you are out of luck. I asked if there was a way to retrieve my picture files off the drive, and without even looking at me he said, No, sorry you're out of luck.
Dead end.
Sunday, while I was off to meet my daughter at the local cinema, I arrived early so I thought I'd go into the nearby strip mall and ask around at Radio Shack. The guy at Radio Shack listened to my story intently, and when I drew in my last breath, said, No problem, just buy this hard drive casing, pop your old drive out of the casing and snap it into the new one and you should be good to go.
$39.95
I excitedly brought in my broken hard drive the next day and they opened up the casing, snapped the new one into place in no time flat.
I re-hooked the drive and still couldn't find it on my directory. I returned to the Radio Shack guy, thinking I was a sucker, but no, he just had to tighten up the screws inside as the drive had some extra space and had become loose with the movements it took for me to wedge it in between my printer and the walls of my computer case.
Sure enough, this time it works! There are all my precious files and folders carefully named. The guys were awesome! Polite and wonderful...they didn't even blink an eye!

Here's a shout out to Radio Shack. I couldn't believe the great customer service they provided, not only by making the right move...but by not just looking over my head and telling me that I was screwed. Thanks Target, thanks Western Digital, thanks Best Buy with your fancy Geek Squad, all who really didn't care if retrieved my photos or not. They didn't offer options, they said, sorry you are screwed. But Radio Shack cared enough to offer a solution, an affordable solution, and they did all the work. They didn't just sell me the equipment and send me off to install it on my own. They popped open the box and installed it all for no extra cost.

Just thought I'd take a minute to congratulate them, to let others know. Hey go take a look at your local Radio Shack, they have all sorts of gadgets and the customer service was right on!

I'm OFF work, of COURSE it's Raining!

For those of you who read my blog regularly, you know the angst that I have over taking a day off of work, only to have whatever my plans are-dashed to the low, because of rain. It's been like that for over a year, and frankly I don't know what I did to piss of Mother Nature but she's one angry woman!

I took off yesterday to take my mom to the neurologist. Rain. Overcast cloudy skies. Humid.

Today, I awoke to find that same scenario, how lovely.

I think you still can sunbathe in the overcast clouds. I'll let you know later.

So, I went to pick Mom up, as always quite a few hours early, in case she needs assistance. Found in her robe, she was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper and lamenting over an obituary that she was reading. Yet another peer, her cousin had died. My mother years ago gave into a self imposed exile away from most of her friends and relatives. She was then very mobile, and still set in her ways. She found company in her sister, eleven years her senior who lived a few blocks away from her. They shopped together and crabbed at each other and as they grew older still, they watched t.v., each in their perspective living rooms, as they talked on the telephone, each television tuned into exactly the same program. My aunt was really my mom's only peer. She had us, her children and grandchildren, but no one else her own age group to socialize with. My aunt died several years ago, my mother misses her every day, and often speaks of her as though she has not passed. "I wonder what Mary Ellen would think of this, or that".

I don't remember ever meeting this cousin of hers that passed away. She went on and on about this cousin's family, her mother and father, sisters and brothers, she proclaimed I looked most like her. (???? don't know where that is coming from - I'm really a clone of my mom, with a tidge of my father in the mix) Anyway, they were never really close, in fact I think the last time my mom saw this woman was at least 34 years ago. Still, my mom recanted days gone by when her father was alive and all the relatives would get together on a Sunday afternoon to visit his mother, her grandmother who was ill. The grand kids would sit on the stoop outside of the home, and the adults went in to visit. This is the most she could conjure up about her relationship with this cousin. (My mother's father died in a car accident when Mom was 10 - she's 79 now)

My mother about 7 or 8 years old.

Seems her memory is fine. She talked alot yesterday about all the women in her family. How they really weren't nice women. (No? Really? These were her words, I swear!) They were unforgiving and mean to each other. Not my direct grandmother mind you, but ALL of her other sisters, my mother's aunts. Some had such tattered relationships with their daughters, that the pairs didn't speak even up til the mother died. My mom claims that there were alot of "secrets", such as the alcoholism of a husband, whom one aunt kicked out of the house and she went on to raise 5 kids on her own. Tsk, Tsk. But the rest of the family excluded her, because you just didn't "do that" in those days. That same woman walked 4 or 5 blocks every week to the cemetary to visit his grave after he died. Of course, all this was from my mother's perspective, and her perspective was that of a child or young teenager - judging from the way my mother behaves now, and come to think of it, pretty much all her life - is a much self centered existance. She hardly really knows the REAL story because she isn't paying that much attention to detail, so busy she is thinking about her own self. (this too straight from my mother's mouth). Seems that all my female relatives had issues with thier relationships. My mother came from a long line of them.

All in all, it was a good visit. All I did was listen. Listen and think that these are the last years of my mother's life. Lonely and self absorbed, her world is very small. Too small if you ask me, but I think that is pretty much all she can handle now.

We went to the neuro visit, and the doc examined her, asked her many questions. She gave my mother what is known as a Mini Mental Status Exam (MMSE) which is a variety of questions about the here and now (date, day of the week, year, etc.) and then some simple subtraction problems, (take 7 from 100, then 7 from 93 and so on) and my mom did remarkably ok! She paused a little on the math. She asked my mother to repeat three simple words...apple, table, chair and then later to use them in a sentence. Mom stumbled a little on those, she tried to use them in a sentence-before the doctor asked for them to be used in a sentence. I knew she was up to something, because she remembered this test from last year's exam and had some anxiety about it. Well, the doctor was very pleased, told us that mom is doing so well, she is right back where she was before she had her stroke four years ago! There was minimal rejoicing. She reduced my mother's medication, a medication that prevented seizures because she felt it could be causing some of the dizziness that my mother claims to have.

I took her home, making sure that she remembered to reduce her meds and sat a while longer with mom. That's when she showed me a little notebook she'd been studying. She'd written the answers to the math questions on it. 93, 86, 79,72,65. She had a written sentence using apple, table and chair in it. My mom was CHEATING on her mini mental status exam!

My mother - Teen Idol

I think she's a pretty coniving cookie! Jeeze!
All in all it certainly floated her boat getting all the answers right and showing off that she's in control. Good for her I guess. Still when I left her, she was all absorbed in what she was going to fix for dinner, and wondering if Antique Roadshow as going to be a re-run tonight, she seemed sad and lonely to me. Maybe it's just me.

I Know it’s Friday – But Can’t We Just Get on with It and Start the Weekend? Edition #1

Sorry for the long title. It’s almost noon on Friday and like so many others, I just want to go home and start my weekend. (and get paid for it, I suppose, come on, YOU do too!)

So, here I sit instead, glued to my desk. I’ve typed minutes to department meetings held a week ago. {yawn}
I’ve done a small chart review on medical charts our new doctor (yeah! We replaced that crazy Grampa Doctor from a few posts back-FINALLY) {double yawn}
I’m not really looking forward to my "6 point lunch". No real pizzazz or flavor, it will just keep me from gnawing a limb off until dinner. (oh, yes, for you crazy WW cult members, I’ve lost 15.4 lbs. Hoo HA, without exercise I might add, because I screwed up my fragile little spine – but well I promise to start an exercise program as soon as fall hits) Still lunch will be a bore.

The day is moving like a turtle. (when a turtle does not equal a turd poking out one’s anus…sorry to gross you out, that just popped into my head, the fact that I’ve heard that expression of a turtle before…this turtle is just a plain slow moving creature)
Enough, I'm off point as usual.
Now I sit with a pile of papers and articles I’ve collected trying to create a Power Point presentation on a subject to use at an in-service I must give to the staff. A subject and in-service that most of the staff here have already been trained on time and time again and still don’t care enough to absorb. Lucky for you all it’s not CPR! Ha! That one they “get”…
This is a boring subject, full of acronyms, legislature, forms (yes, we all hate forms) and such.
Hipaa.
There, I’ve said the dreaded word. Can;t folks just pay attention?

I’ve not got a lot planned for the weekend, just swimming in 90 degree weather and catching some sun. I’m off on Monday (it’ll rain, it always does! See my previous posts to prove it!) but I have to take my mom to the doctor…that in and of itself is worth a blog post or two. I usually take something and lie down for awhile afterwards. But no, this time I’m going to take something before hand, then be prepared. So, with that in mind…can anyone post bail for me on Monday?
Hmmm?

I’d like to see the movie “Time Traveler’s Wife”, which comes out this weekend. I read the book and it’s MARvelous! Any takers?
See, I'm living large for the weekend, and it's not even started yet.

I'm BAAACK, hope you've missed me!

Seems I've been MIA from my blogging for so long. Sad to say, I took a week's vacation from work, only to have hurt my back. So, most of the vacation the week before last was spent in physical therapy and lying with ice on my sore spots. Then when I returned to work, I had therapy three nights that week along with trying to get some junk together so that my daughters and I could host a garage sale. (no blogging time available) Garage sale over, whew, when I returned to work on Monday, yesterday, I was only there a few hours and started feeling chilled to the bone. Complete with nausea and body aches, I started running a fever. I went home barely able to keep my eyes open. I crashed on the couch, hot/cold all afternoon, sleeping and tossing/turning to keep up with the body aches. The temp outside was a muggy 80 some degrees and sometime in the afternoon, the electricity went off. I kept hearing a beeping sound, from far off in the distance, when through the fog of my fever induced sleep, I realized it was the battery of our smoke detector shouting out to me that there was no power.

The afternoon turned into muggy hot evening, and the power didn't come back until about 9:30 at night. I wouldn't have known, so deeply I was sleeping, but my wonderful husband came to check on me, forcing me to take some acetaminophen for the fever and turn on the T.V.

I didn't go to work today, for fear that I wouldn't recover if I didn't truly get some rest.

Seems I'm always sick or broken some how. It gets pretty discouraging. Seems I spend more time recuperating than I do living life. No matter how hard I try, no matter how healthy I try to behave! I hate being off work!
There's always so much to catch up on when you return.
But, on the brighter side, I've been able to blog hop and read some of my favorite blogs! Susan had a heartwarming post about mother/daughter relationships. Seems that I'm not the only mom who has shed tears at the tough times parent/child relationships have. That makes me hopeful!
Also, the eye candy my daughter Sarah provided made me chuckle. As always, Susannah at Petunia Face cracked me up, although I was sad to see that I was left off her blog roll. (I bet that was an over sight, no scratch that I hope that was an over sight.)

Blogging is a fun past time, but sometimes it's hard to keep up the reading and posting and all. I truly enjoy the peek into everyone's life and love when they peek into mine!
Here's to everyone having a great Tuesday! Sick or well!

Memorabilia or junk?

When I was a little girl, I used to ask my mother what was I like when I was a baby? She sometimes told me a funny story or two, she sometimes said she couldn't remember.
It was the "couldn't remember" part that bugged me. That and the fact that I had only a handful of pictures of myself to chronicle the first 7 years or so of my life. No cute newborn pictures, in fact the first picture they took of me was when I was around 7 or 8 months old.
My older brother, well, that's a different story. They had pictures of their first born (natch). His baby book was filled out for a few years...mine had my basic first days of life information. Date of birth, weight, family tree...that's about it.

I have always been accused of being a "pack rat". I saved letters from my pen pal, kept flowers from an old boyfriend pressed in a book. I saved ticket stubs and match books and all sorts of memorabilia but I eventually let go of those memories and tossed all of that stuff.
To this day, I struggle with organized clutter. Oh, my home is neatly decorated, the clutter controlled into a artful montage. But still I have a hard time letting go of gifts, clothes and pretty things. So when my daughter suggested a garage sale and I told her I didn't have much to contribute she rolled her eyes. "I can go into your kitchen right now and fill a box with things you could sell or give away". I began to purge.

My oldest daughter and my youngest daughter (my son is the middle child) came over on Monday night with the attempt to tackle the trunk where all the memento's of their childhood (and mine) has been carefully tucked away. I saved my diaries from 5th, 6th and 7th grade. They conjured up many laughs from them, and quickly they tossed it into the garbage. They tossed all the Front Page newspapers that I kept for them, telling of the new Princess across the ocean and then years later of her death. They laughed until they had tears in their eyes over the stories that they wrote in first and second grade, of the lists that they mailed off to Santa and of the funny pictures that their brother drew, complete with date and age marked in the corner by me, the thoughtful watchmom of their youth. I saved everything, but apparently I wasn't alone, as there was also some momentos that their grandmother (on their father's side) had saved of his youth and babyhood, stuff he forgot to take when our marriage split up. Probably stuff he forgot about, stuff that didn't matter anymore. Never fear, I'll save it here! and then I did. All to preserve their memories. I thought that they would thank me someday. I thought that they would relish this junk and be thankful for the reminders. So that one day, when I forgot, the junk could tell the stories that I could not.
They tossed it all away. The locks of hair, the misspelled stories and poems, the home made Mother's Day cards and the Front Page news of John Lennon's death.
I was beside myself. I fought back silly tears. I felt as though I had been working on a very large gift that took me twenty years to complete only to find out that the recipient thought it ugly junk. I choke up just typing about it.
I let the trunk and it's content go out to the garbage pick-up.
Assuaging my hurt feelings, my husband reminded me gently, "who did you save those memories for my dear? You or the kids?" I thought about it. I think it was a little of both. I think I wanted a reminder in case I forgot. In case I forgot their sweet words, in case I forgot that twenty plus years goes by so fast. But you don't forget. I still see their Kool-Aid smile faces and their sticky hands when I look at their 30 plus faces. I still hear their sweet little voices inside their 29 year old deep ones. The memories have not been hidden away. I can conjure them up if I try. My husband tells me to let that junk "go". Let it go and live in the now.

How many of you hold on to those kinds of things? How many of you keep junk around as keepsakes? How many of you think I should have scooped up stuff and held onto it awhile longer? Maybe when they are older still they might wish they would have it back?

Scary Places to Visit on a Friday Night

Did you ever think how normal places you may visit can be considered the scariest depending on your frame of mind?
Take last night. Friday night, ending a miserable work week, the prelude to my week of vacation. A vacation just from work, where people were bugging me. (seriously buggin me)

I had an order for Physical Therapy clutched in my hot little numb hand. Left work and the whiny incompetents behind anticipating relief from the back pain and the start of my vacation.

Let's just say that the demeanor of the tiny little soft spoken physical therapist was a sham. She led me through a chamber of horrors on her narrow little exam table. Pushing soft tissue in an ever so slow pressure that resulted in little spasms that made my shoulder jump every six seconds ALL ON IT'S OWN! Cool, way cool, but then it felt as though she were ripping my spine from inside it's muscular hideaway. Push, twist, prod and release. Until the knots that were once my twisted ligaments and muscle were now fighting back with the twitches and jumps. The numbness went away temporarily. She performed deep heat ultrasound and some more advanced pressure in key locations on my neck, trapezoidal area and lower spine.
Hey! Does this spell R.E.L.I.E.F???
Well, it did. For awhile. Then she taped my spine. Yeah, TAPED it. From my neck to midback, two strips running either side of my spine. This is to remind my posture to stay straight, to remind me to sit up and toss my shoulders back to relieve that pull from the adhesive. Weird feeling. I felt as if I were a young Joan Kusak in 15 Candles (remember her character - the girl at the dance/drinking fountain, the one with the scoliosis brace??? Loved that movie - saw it 400 times in the 80's and 90's)
So, with my nerdy posture, I scheduled 100 or so more appointments (yes, even on my vacation) because my back is truly a knotted mess and has been for a few years. Years I put off dealing with it, because of the more pressing pain the TN gave to me. (Are you getting the fact that I'm wearing a trans dermal pain patch - um, I should be feeling NO pain, and yet that back pain has broke through....must be kinda bad pain, I guess)

I decided after I left to go to the grocery store on my way home. That way I wouldn't have to disturb any pool time or day trip I would make on my vacation with annoying trips to the store.
ha!
I don't know why my car turned into Super Walmart, but it did. Convenience I suppose.
Let me just say that Super Walmart on a Friday night after 6 o'clock is truly a mecca for the unknown.
I saw a young mother with a too tight tank top showing her rubber tire of belly fat over the top of her too tight Daisy Dukes who had blue hair. Well, it was died blue over the already black hair that her gene pool gave to her (I assume). I saw a midget. I saw a Marine. I saw a Hindu Princess, complete with scarves and veils and little dangled coins lining the edges of her floor legnth wrap. I saw a few Farmer In The Dell type men, with their overalls and t-shirts. I spied a few over 55 yrs. old men with gray streaked, long, long pony tails, waiting in line reading US Weekly. While I pondered over the grapes (green or red? you choose..) my cart was pushed aside by a young Asian family who at my count had seven children (Jon & Kate wanna-be's) all of whom wanted to jump into my cart. With my strange posture, I fit right in. Ahhh, Super Walmart, the only store where I can dress like Halloween 24-7 and not feel out of place.
Truly scary.
The rest of my evening I spent fighting the urge to slump. This in going to be really interesting!

Scootch Over You Inconsiderate Boob! I need to rest.

I hurt my lower back. Probably staining the deck in anticipation for the 4th of July party that we were having.
It rained. We used the garage instead.

Don’t you hate it when you hurt your back (lower back) and EVERYTHING you do hurts?
Hurts to sit, to stand, to lay down and when you reach for something, OH, OUCH!
When I have a hurt, then I get cranky.
I’m moaning today because of inconsiderate people. Mostly work people. My tolerance (related to my achey back) is low for inconsiderate people today.
1. Install a roll of towel paper YOURSELF people! Instead they come to find me, their germy, wet hands dripping on my desk. “Jackee, there is no paper towel in the staff lounge”.

2. Whoever used the last of the copy paper – fill the darn machine will you chumps?
Why fry the coffee pot when there is a minuscule amount of old coffee in it? Either turn off the pot or make a new pot!

3. Where are all the forks? We are fortunate enough to have a well stocked kitchen for our staff lounge. I used petty cash to buy a place setting for 8 and some odd extra stainless steel forks for the kitchen. THEY ARE ALL GONE! Not in the dishwasher, not in the cabinet drawer. Just gone. Please don’t eat the forks folks.

4. Last summer I loaned a co-worker (one that is now my boss) a few odd books in the Janet Evanovich series of books about Stephanie Plumb…I loaned her # 6 and #7 out of FIFTEEN. She told me today that she threw them away. Is there a lesson here or what?

I could go on being cranky and listing all the other things (injustices really!) that have been on my last nerve today, but I’ll reserve my thoughts for better, more positive ones.
Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve blogged. I miss you guys and hope you’ve missed me! I’d lie and say that I’m really too busy anymore to blog, but that’s not the case, I’m just lazy these days of summer. Seriously, if I do sit down, I conk out! Wake me from the dead type conked out. I hope your 4th was eventful and safe. I hope that everyone is watching their diets (I’m down 8.4 lbs. !!!! Watch out Valerie Bertonelli!!)
Hope you all aren’t near as cranky as I am today.

Finger Lickin Fun

My daughter, Sarah and I recently experienced our first book signing at Border's on Michigan Avenue in the heart of Chicago. We raced through gnarled rush hour traffice to purchase the new book (fifteen in the series) written by Janet Evanovich. We raced...only to reach a line that, about 500 fans deep, wrapped around several floors of Borders. (Borders is my "happy place"..all the books, packaged so brightly, the titles jumping out at me - all the trinkets, the displays the signs marked 30% off!!!, I love it!)


We waited in that line, some 3 and 1/2 hours.
Where We saw some interesting sites...

We made lots of new friends...all of us bonding with our first book signing experience

"Hi, guys!!! Rememer to write us an email or check out our URL's!" {we exchanged urls} They were lots of laughs.

This lady kept herself busy. She balanced the book on her head. Perhaps she's one of those paranormal types, able to absorb the text through the bookbinding and her cranium straight into her memory banks. Nah, she was just bored.

This is Sarah, happily waiting in line. Doesn't she look happy? This is a good thing. Sarah's been going through some tough times. I was glad to partipate in some fun with Sarah that kept her occupied.
Love you baby!

Sarah and the prized book.

Finally I spied a clue.

Janet's can of Diet Coke.....we must be getting near!!!!

TA! DA!!

Waiting in line didn't compare obviously to the fatigue that Ms. Evanovich felt after signing 600+ books. The gracious lady had a new foot fracture, from a signing the night before and was obviously tired beyond words by the time it became our turn for the shot. She turned and smiled for the camera, and we were thrilled.

Thanks Sarah, for including me on your adventure!